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Pat Lowery Collins’ The Fattening Hut is a lyrical novel, told in vivid and eloquent free verse, that hauntingly explores the ramifications of a ceremonial rite of passage in a tropical island culture. Our narrator, a smart, imaginative and free-spirited girl named Helen, is in her father’s fattening hut.  The fattening hut is where all early-teen girls of the tribe go to put on a lot of weight in preparation for their arranged marriages.  Helen prefers her own way to live – exploring the island with her childhood friend, being free to run and play and explore – and she doesn’t believe she’s ready to be marriedRead More →

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Matt de la Pena’s third book, We Were Here, will be released from Random House in October 2009, and with it, his writing skill and storytelling art has reached a higher level of excellence.  Rich, exquisitely detailed, thoughtful and thought-provoking, this powerful book will reach readers in their heart of hearts and grab ahold. Miguel’s the smartest kid in Juvi.  His cellmate, Rondell, can’t even read.  When he gets to the group home where he’s been sentenced for a year, Miguel decides all the guys there are posers and weaklings, and he certainly isn’t going to rap with the goofy, surfer-dude in charge of theRead More →

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In Skunk Girl, 11th grader Nina Khan feels trapped between 2 cultures: middle America and her Pakistani-Muslim heritage. She’s got all the usual high school troubles: cliques, friends starting to drift apart because of interests in boys, academic pressures, body/self esteem issues, and a crush on a really hot guy; and if that weren’t hard enough, she’s got the expectations left at school from her “supernerd” older sister, restrictions on who she can hang out with, traditional/conservative parents, andof course being the only Asian student in the school.  Nina feels bound and constrained by her parents’ traditional values, unsure about her own feelings, and reluctantRead More →

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Woodson’s story is set in 1994, when the anonymous narrator is 11, and Tupac has been shot. Everyone in her Queens neighborhood is listening to his music and talking about him. Meanwhile D, a foster child, meets the narrator and her best friend, Neeka, while roaming around the city by herself. They become close and Tupac’s music becomes a soundtrack for the their friendship as they search together for their “Big Purpose.”  The story ends in 1996 with Tupac’s untimely death and the reappearance of D’s mother, who takes D with her, and out of the narrator’s and Neeka’s lives forever. After Tupac & D Foster delicately unfolds issues about race and socialRead More →

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Dark Dude, the first YA novel by the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, Oscar Hijuelos. He comments this is the book he wished he’d have read as a teen, and the care and depth of his storytelling fills the novel with truths that we, as adults, can look back on adolescence and wish we’d realized. The “dark dude” is Rico, a light-skinned Cuban American kid living in New York City in the late ’60’s/early ’70’s.  His skin color effectively isolates him from the various ethnic groups in his Harlem neighborhood. The city is closing in on him, school’s a drag, his best friend, Jimmy, is becoming a junkie,Read More →

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Sarah Mussi’s first novel, The Door of No Return, is a suspense-filled thriller.  It is a robust and vivid adventure rooted in the terrible history and legacy of the African slave trade. Zac Baxter’s grandfather has always told him they are the last descendants of an African King, but Zac always thought it was just a crazy pipe dream his grandfather clung to.  When his grandfather, Pops, is killed by muggers, Zac is devastated. Dumped with foster parents, then forced into an orphanage, Zac stumbles from trouble to trouble, but over time incidents and clues arise to lead him to believe that maybe Pops’ obsession wasn’t a fantasy after all. Read More →

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Opening and closing with the funerals of 2 teens killed by drug violence, Walter Dean Myer’s Autobiography of My Dead Brother, is a stark portrayal of youth for urban teens.  I am always impressed by Walter Dean Myer’s ability to tell honest, and sometimes gritty, stories about the difficulties faced by young men, often African American, whose lives are surrounded by violence. His characters are multi-dimensional and he deftly illustrates how much everyone has in common with everyone else, and how fine the line between good and bad choices really is. Fifteen-year-old Jessie has always seen his slightly older friend Rise as a hero, and the boys made a blood-brother bond as children.Read More →

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In Dyan Sheldon’s Planet Janet, we meet 16 year-old Janet, a melodramatic, misunderstood, and self-absorbed teen. Attempting to transcend life’s “mundane crap” Janet, accompanied by best friend, enters her “Dark Phase,” which is marked by dark clothing, thinking about “DEEP AND MEANINGFUL THINGS”, and calculated pursuit of Elvin, an aspiring filmmaker. Meanwhile, life at home in London grows increasingly rocky. At first we only get glimpses of Janet’s family, all seen through her sarcastic teen eyes, so we don’t really know what’s going on in the house.  But when her parents’ normal fights erupt into full crisis and her brother’s volitle personal life gets out ofRead More →

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Matt de la Pena’s second novel for young adults, Mexican WhiteBoy, tells the engrossing story of Danny, a 17 year-old young man who doesn’t feel that he fits in anywhere. Certainly not in his primarily white private school north of San Diego, and even less, he feels, in National City, San Diego, with his Mexican father’s extended family.  Danny struggles with feelings of being an outsider since at school he’s seen as a Mexican kid, and in his family he’s not Mexican enough. Danny comes to National City to spend the summer at his uncle’s place.  His white mother and sister are in San FranciscoRead More →