The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Image credit: LibraryThing.com

Brashares, Ann. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. New York: Delacorte Press, 2001.

Annotation: A pair of pants magically fits four best friends well, so they decide to send the pants around to each other while they spend the summer apart for the first time.

Book talk:

It’s our first summer apart. Bridget the athlete is headed for a soccer camp in Mexico. Lena the beauty is visiting her grandparents in Greece. Tibby the rebel is working at a job here. And I, the one with the bad temper, is visiting my dad in South Carolina. Will we have fun and forget each other? It’s not possible because we formed a pact. We each are going to take turns wearing this pair of jeans that miraculously fits all of us and then send it on to the next Sister. This summer is going to be full of adventure, love, friendship and good times, though there might be some lessons learned and some disappointments, too. But the pants are going to witness it all and keep us connected. We made a pact and formed a sisterhood. It’s going to be an incredible summer for The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

Awards:

• ALA Best Books for Young Adults
• Indiana Young Hoosier Award
• Iowa Teen Book Award
• Maryland Black-Eyed Susan Award
• New Jersey Garden State Teen Book Award
• Rhode Island Children's Book Award
• Tennessee Volunteer State Book Award
• Texas TAYSHAS High School Reading List
• Washington Evergreen Young Adult Book Award
• Pacific Northwest Young Readers Choice Award
• Missouri Gateway Readers Award
• Book Sense Book of the Year
• Texas TAYSHAS High School Reading List

Awards source: http://www.randomhouse.com/teachers/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780385729338

Upstate

Image credit: LibraryThing.com

Buckhanon, Kalisha. Upstate. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005.

Annotation: A boyfriend and girlfriend from Harlem correspond about their life challenges through letters after the guy is sent to jail for killing his father. 

Book talk:

Antonio writes, “Baby, the first thing I need to know from you is do you believe I killed my father? I need to know if you believe what everybody saying about me because I need to know if you go my back.” Natasha responds, “I got your back baby, cause I know you would do the same for me.” [Pass books around to show the format.] And so starts the letters of 17-year-old Antonio and 16-year-old Natasha when Antonio is sent to prison for killing his father. They exchange letters, vowing to stay together. But each have their own problems and start leading separate lives – Antonia with jail and Natasha with facing tough decisions on the outside. Will their relationship stay strong? Will the letters be enough to keep them together? Follow the course of their lives while Antonio is Upstate.

Awards:

• ALA Alex Awards Winner (Adult for Young Adults)
• Audie Award Winner, Literary Fiction

Award source: http://us.macmillan.com/upstate/KalishaBuckhanon

The Silver Kiss

Image credit: LibraryThing.com

Klause, Annette Curtis. The Silver Kiss. New York: Delacorte Press, 1990.

Annotation: A mysterious young man with a dark secret shows up and helps a teenage girl dealing with a dying mother and an emotionally absent father in a town that recently had a string of strange murders.

Book talk:

Should I let him in? He had blood on his face the other day. He was eating something. A bird? But he seems lonely and full of despair. Like me and how my father is always with my mother at the hospital. It’s just me at this house alone all the time because they won’t let me see her. And now my best friend is moving away. Maybe he’ll understand about loneliness and the pain of death. But what about the blood? And the murders here recently? What if he is the killer? I believe he’s been watching me. But again his voice sounds like he’ll understand. Should I let him in?

Awards: 

• 1991 Locus Award for first novel
• Oklahoma Sequoyah Young Adult Book Award
• Maryland Black-Eyed Susan Award
• South Carolina Children's Book Award
• California Young Reader Medal
  

Awards source: http://www.locusmag.com/SFAwards/Db/NomLit71.html#2881-1990 and http://www.randomhouse.com/kids/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780440213468

The Giver

Image credit: LibraryThing.com

Lowry, Lois. The Giver. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1993.

Annotation: Sometime in the future, a 12-year-old boy is assigned the profession of receiving all of humanity’s memories. As he receives more memories, he realizes his world isn’t as perfect as it is intended to be.

Book talk:

What do you want to do when you are older? Well, Jonas has no choice. The elders of his community pick out everyone’s professions and assign them to the children at a Ceremony of Twelve. In fact, his community doesn’t have much choice at all or knowledge of anywhere else. It is a perfect world. There is no fear or pain. Children do not grow up with their birth mothers, but with assigned families. People who break rules and older adults are “released.” But Jonas is given a special profession – the receiver of memory. Now he is assigned to remember all the memories the Giver will pass on – all the memories for the entire community. He alone will now bear the burden of all the people’s memories so that the others won’t have to, including war and disease, but also freedom and love. What does Jonas do with his new knowledge? What should he do?

Awards:

• Newbery Medal Book
• ALA Notable Children’s Book
• ALA Best Book for Young Adults

Awards source: http://www.randomhouse.com/teachers/guides/give.html

The First Part Last

Image credit: LibraryThing.com

Johnson, Angela. The First Part Last. New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2003.

Annotation: Sixteen-year-old Bobby finds outs his girlfriend is pregnant and learns to balance being a teenager and a new parent.

Book talk:

What’s the right thing?

This is what 16-year-old Bobby asks himself in The First Part Last after he finds out his girlfriend is pregnant. Told in Bobby’s voice using poetic language, the chapters alternate between him asking this question in the past and him living with his decisions in the present.  But don’t get the idea that the author glosses over the subject. Instead, Angela Johnson faces the topic head on, capturing Bobby’s emotional ups and downs as he balances his love for his daughter with his own insecurities with his situation. “This little thing with the perfect face and hands doing nothing but counting on me. And me wanting nothing else but to run crying into my own mom’s room and have her do the whole thing.” So what does Bobby do?

What’s the right thing?

Awards:

• ALA Michael L. Printz Award,
• Abraham Lincoln Book Award Master List (IL),
• ALA Best Books For Young Adults
• ALA Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers
• Alabama Author's Award
• Booklist Editors' Choice
• CBC/NCSS Notable Social Studies Trade Book
• Charlotte Award Suggested Reading List (NY)
• Coretta Scott King Award (ALA)
• Florida Teens Read Master List
• Garden State Teen Book Award Nominee (NJ)
• Gateway Readers Award Nominee (MO)
• Georgia Peach Book Award Master List
• Green Mountain Book Award Master List (VT)
• Gryphon Award for Children's Literature
• Iowa Teen Award Master List
• IRA Young Adults' Choices
• Rosie Award Nominee (IN)
• Sequoyah Young Adult Master List (OK)
• South Carolina Book Award Nominee
• Volunteer State Book Award Master List (TN)
• YARP Award Master List (SD)

Awards source: http://books.simonandschuster.com/First-Part-Last/Angela-Johnson/9780689849237

Am I Blue?

Image credit: LibraryThing.com

Bauer, Marion Dane, ed. Am I Blue? Coming Out from the Silence. New York: Harper Trophy, 1994.

Annotation: A collection of short stories ranging in different genres and from different young adult authors give a voice to young adults who are gay or a lesbian or who have a homosexual parent.

Book talk:

“A myth is yours only if you choose to own it.”

Although we live in a country that claims it is a melting pot, not all of its residents have had a voice in literature. Two boys – one Puerto Rican, Polish and Irish and one half-black half-Chinese – attempt to take one of the oldest stories in the world and give a voice to everyone – including all sexual preferences. Told in a film treatment style, the story shares the journey of their love and how they share it with the rest of the world. But “The Honorary Shepherds” isn’t the only tale. Am I Blue? has something for everyone – fantasy and realism, sad stories and funny stories, and stories about first love and death. What holds this collection of short stories together is a thread of giving the voiceless a voice. Of owning myths or changing the myth that homosexual people aren’t among us. Because they are, and each story gives an honest account of how it feels to grow up being gay or a lesbian or with a homosexual parent. 

Awards:

• ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers
• Horn Book Fanfare
• ALA Best of the Best Books for Young Adults
• New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age
• ALA Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Book Award
• Minnesota Book Award
• ALA Best Book for Young Adults

Awards source: www.harpercollins.com/books/Am-Blue-/?isbn=9780064405874

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl

Image credit: LibraryThing.com

Frank, Anne. Anne Frank: The diary of a young girl. (B.M. Mooyaart-Doubleday, Trans.). New York: Doubleday & Company Inc., 1967.

Annotation: A Jewish teen details her life in a diary while in hiding from Nazi Germany during World War II.

Review: 
Anne Frank is the story that has captured the world’s heart since its publication in 1947. It is the true account of a Jewish teen girl living in Amsterdam during World War II. For her thirteenth birthday in 1942, Anne is given a diary, which she treasures and confides her most personal thoughts. Shortly after that, her family – mother, father and older sister – goes into hiding with another family and an older gentleman. Anne’s family and the others hide in the “secret annex” for a little more than two years, with Anne sharing her thoughts and observations in the diary all the while. 

She documents the fears and the claustrophobic conditions of her life in hiding along with the things many teenagers experience when growing up – defining oneself, laughter, quarrels, jealousy and even first love. Because the diary shares Anne’s raw feeling, it gives readers a rare glimpse into what it was like to be a Jewish teen during World War II and to live with a fear of being discovered yet still hoping for deliverance. The book also provides the tragic ending to Anne after her diary expectantly ends Aug. 1, 1944, and how her diary is published.

Award: YALSA Best Books for Young Adults

Award source: http://www.randomhouse.com/highschool/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780553296983