Lush  By: Natasha Friend

Samantha has a secret...

It's hard enough being a thirteen year-old girl, but when your dad can't stop drinking and you're not allowed to tell, life gets even harder. Add to the mix a yoga-obsessed mother, a gym teacher who hates you, and boobs that won't stop growing, and you really need someone to talk to. When Sam picks a random high-school girl in the library and starts sending her notes asking for advice, a mysterious friendship develops. But who is A.J.K., really? And will she be able to help Sam help her father, before it's too late?

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Speak by: Laurie Halse Anderson

In her debut novel, Anderson's main character, fourteen-year-old Melinda Sordino, has essentially stopped speaking. One of the reasons is because the world has stopped listening to her. After calling the police on an end-of-the-summer party, Melinda enters ninth grade as a pariah, ostracized by everyone in the school, including her best friends.

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Cures for Heartbreak  by:Margo Rabb

Mia Pearlman faces the death of her mom with a mixture of wry humor, teenage sarcasm, and an overwhelming sense of disbelief. She and her sister, Alex, must make the funeral arrangements and deal with the many well-meaning family members and friends. Even though her world is collapsing around her, Mia is still expected to pay attention in class as her teacher covers the horrors of the Holocaust. I laughed aloud and cried at her pain as she experiences love and death. You will not soon forget Mia Pearlman.

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Razzle By: Ellen Wittlinger

Meet Razzle Penney. I'm not sure it gets more unique than this girl, with her love of all things, mysterious roots, most unusual family, and blunt personality. She sure turned Kenyon Baker's life right around. More so than being uprooted to Truro Cape Cod did.

This book had a little of everything. Coming of age, mystery, suspense, teen angst, creativity, depth, new looks on life, family relationships, retirement....but no, I would not consider it a "kitchen sink" book. Sometimes I wanted to toss it at a wall, which would have been more useful than yelling at the characters, but to me that's just a sign that it was well written.

Though the book is cyclic, it sort of leaves you hanging at the end. On the one hand you're heading for closure, on the other, it seems possible that Kenyon and Razzle could show up again someday. I'm sure it would be more story worth telling.At any rate, if you're up for something unusual, this is the story for you.                                Read More Here

Sandpiper By: Ellen Wittlinger 

Sandpiper, 16, is known as the slut who does blow jobs, so none of her former friends cares when a classmate starts harassing her. Her behavior isn't her whole story anymore, but who can help her leave the history behind? At home everything is focused on her divorced, ex-hippy mom's joyful new marriage and the elaborate wedding rituals. Then Sandy meets and makes friends with a young man, "the Walker," who seems to go everywhere on foot. Why isn't he in school? Where is his family? Heading each chapter is a poem, often a take on a well-known writer that focuses Sandy's conflict, and her edgy, angry first-person narrative sets her anguish against the wedding fun. Tension builds as Sandy and the Walker form a tentative friendship, reveal their secrets, and then save each other. The Walker is a bit too wise at times, but, Wittlinger takes on tough teen issues with candor, humanity, humor, and grace.  

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Heart On My Sleeve By: Ellen Wittlinger

The cast of characters are Chloe, looking ahead to college in the fall; Julian, a singer she thinks is coming to the same college; Ely, Chloe's friend and boyfriend; Genevieve, Chloe's older sister who reveals she is gay; Hate, Chloe's best friend; Julian's older sister who has just gotten married, and Chloe and Genevieve's parents. The reader has to patiently go through endless e-mails, including instant messages, and some handwritten cards and letters to follow the events of the summer as the high school students make the transition necessary to leave home and go off to college. This includes dreams of new loves (Chloe and Julian imagine a future together), breakups of old loves, new understanding of parents' lives, and so forth. Everyone is well meaning, stumbling along, making mistakes and having some successes as well. The final summer before college is a milestone in teenagers' lives, and Wittlinger uses the e-mail format to tell the story of one group of teens during this crucial time.

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ZigZag By: Ellen Wittlinger

Robin can't believe it when her boyfriend, Chris, tells her that his parents have enrolled him in a summer program in Rome. It's their last summer together before he goes away to college, and now they won't even have that time together. It feels like the worst thing that's ever happened to her.

Since Chris is leaving, Robin agrees to join her aunt and cousins on a cross-country road trip, in spite of her reservations — she and her younger cousins have never really gotten along, and since their father's death they've become even more problematic than before.

Soon the four of them are zigzagging through the West on an eye-opening journey. They explore parts of the country Robin never dreamed existed — and she discovers inner resources she never imagined she had.

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Story of a Girl  by: Sara Zarr

When she is caught in the backseat of a car with her older brother’s best friend, Deanna Lambert’s teenage life is changed forever. Struggling to overcome the lasting repercussions and the stifling role of “school slut,” she longs to escape a life defined by her past.

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  Here, There Be Dragons  by: James A. Owen

An unusual murder brings together three strangers, John, Jack, and Charles, on a rainy night in London during the first World War. An eccentric little man called Bert tells them that they are now the caretakers of the Imaginarium Geographica -- an atlas of all the lands that have ever existed in myth and legend, fable and fairy tale. These lands, Bert claims, can be traveled to in his ship the Indigo Dragon, one of only seven vessels that is able to cross the Frontier between worlds into the Archipelago of Dreams.

Pursued by strange and terrifying creatures, the companions flee London aboard the Dragonship. Traveling to the very realm of the imagination itself, they must learn to overcome their fears and trust in one another if they are to defeat the dark forces that threaten the destiny of two worlds. And in the process, they will share a great adventure filled with clues that lead readers to the surprise revelation of the legendary storytellers these men will one day become.

An extraordinary journey of myth, magic, and mystery, Here, There Be Dragons introduces James A. Owen as a formidable new talent.

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 Been There Done that  by: Carol Snow

You’re only young once. Or are you? Most thirtysomething women would be thrilled to look like a teenager. But journalist Kathy Hopkins wishes she could be taken a little more seriously--or, at the very least, that she could order a glass of wine without showing ID. Now Kathy’s young looks are forcing her into an undercover assignment she could do without: posing as a freshman at a small liberal arts college where, rumor has it, a secret call girl operation is flourishing. It could mean a career-making exposé. But right now, pretending to be eighteen means dealing with a Clay Aiken-obsessed roommate, late-night parties that test her aging body. --and most embarrassing of all, a massive crush on a guy who's barely legal. Suddenly, Kathy's got the chance to do it all over again, hopefully better this time. Trade paper, 336 pages

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Drums Girls and Dangerous Pie   by: Jordan SonnenblickDRUMS, GIRLS & DANGEROUS PIE starts out breezily enough. Told in the sarcasm-laced voice of 13-year-old Steven, the novel describes his various adolescent trials and tribulations, all of which are familiar yet still cringe-worthy --- he has a crush on the hottest girl in school, has an angelic-looking yet demonic little brother named Jeffrey, and his parents irk and annoy him constantly. With a droll and ironic tone, teacher and first-time novelist Jordan Sonnenblick paints Steven both convincingly and with enough color to make him an amusing and compelling narrator. Readers will be ready and willing to let Steven narrate the woes of adolescence for 273 pages, without expecting anything more or less from the novel.

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All American Girl  by: Meg Cabot

 Middle child Samantha, a high school sophomore stuck between her popular older sister and genius younger sister, finds her life changing dramatically after she foils an assassination attempt on the president. Named teen ambassador to the UN, surrounded by a media frenzy, and suddenly popular with the in-crowd at school, she finds herself reluctantly drawn to the president's son, David, whom she meets in an afterschool art class.

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Green Rider by: Kristen Britian

Within a quick couple moment, Karigan G'ladheon goes from worrying about her father’s reaction of her being kicked out of school because of getting into a fight to worrying about staying alive long enough to get a “life or death” message to King Zachary.  With only a dead man’s horse, golden winged-horse brooch, the letter, and the dying warning, “Beware of the shadow man…”.  Be prepared for a story so incredibly writing you just can’t put it down. 

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First Rider's Call by: Kristen Britian

When Karigan returned to Sacor City, she discovered the passage of time had not improved life for the Green Riders. She found them weakened and diminshed. Veteran Riders had been killed yet few new Riders had heard the call. Rider magic was becoming unreliable, and strangest of all, Karigan was having ghostly visions - visions of a strong woman with wild flowing hair and a blue and green plaid draped across her shoulder, pinned with a golden brooch. This woman was no stranger to Karigan nor would she have been to any Green Rider, for she was Lil Ambriodhe, First Rider, and founder of the Green Rider messenger service. But why was she appearing to Karigan? And how could Karigan seek the help of a woman who had been dead for a millennium?

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A Great and Terrible Beauty by: Libba Bray

Gemma, a sixteen-year-old girl, lived with her mother and father in India. After her mother is murdered by some mysterious evil being, Gemma is sent to a finishing school in London. While there, she meets several other girls, all of whom have problems of their own. Most of the girls deal with their own internal pain by not showing it to anyone, and by emotionally tormenting those girls who are weaker than themselves. In spite of this charged atmosphere, a diary that Gemma finds forges bonds between her and some of the other girls. The diary tells of two girls who used to go to that same finishing school. Both girls practiced magic, a fact which interests Gemma because she experiences visions that she's unable to control, even though a mysterious boy named Kartik tells her that her visions are dangerous. Soon, Gemma and the other girls learn magic.

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Rebel Angels by: Libba Bray

It's Christmastime in Victorian England, where Gemma attends an exclusive boarding school. But Gemma isn't your typical Victorian teen. Part of her being different is she was born and raised in India; part is because of her mother's tragic death the prior year. But she also possesses magic; she can go from our world into a realm of magic full of myth and beauty. And something dark and dangerous has gotten loose, and it's up to Gemma to try to save and protect both the magic realms and our world.

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Hope Was Here by: Joan Bauer

A 16 year old teenager trying to figure out her life. Hope blows into Wisconsin to the small town of Mulhoney, population 5,942. Her life revolves around her Aunt Addie and food. Addie, although her aunt, is also her legal guardian, and closest thing she knows to a parent. Hope's mom left her with Addie a long time ago, when she decided she was not responsible enough to be a mother, and couldn't take care of Hope. Hope doesn't know who her father is, her mother has never told her. The other main thing in Hopes life, food. Addie is a cook, and a fabulous one at that. Her and hope travel from diner to diner searching for a place to call home. Hope has been a waitress since she was 12, and knows all the ropes. That is the one good thing she inherited from her mother, who is also a waitress and has been for to long. This book cleverly put together soul searching and food antics, making you crave for a small town diner meal and the soul food you've heard talked so fondly of. They go to work for a man named G.T. Stoop at his restaurant, Welcome Stairways . They arrived not knowing that G.T. had cancer, or that he was running for town mayor, or what type of amazing people lived in this little town. Hope is in store for life lessons she'll never forget, ones that you learn along with her. Hope was here keeps you wondering until the end, will Hope find a true home in this small town?

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 Two Princesses of Bamarre by: Gail Carson Levin

Shy and gentle Princess Addie is the complete opposite of her older sister Meryl who is both bold and courageous. But when Meryl becomes ill, only Addie can save her. Unfortunately, she must battle gryphons, dragon, ogres and other creatures on her quest to find the cure and bring it back to their kingdom. Will she be brave enough?

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Can't Get There from Here By: Todd Strasser

When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum's classic tale, we heard only her side of the story. But what about her arch-nemesis, the mysterious Witch? Where did she come from? How did she become so wicked? And what is the true nature of evil?

Gregory Maguire creates a fantasy world so rich and vivid that we will never look at Oz the same way again. Wicked is about a land where animals talk and strive to be treated like first-class citizens, Munchkinlanders seek the comfort of middle-class stability, and the Tin Man becomes a victim of domestic violence. And then there is the little green-skinned girl named Elphaba, who will grow up to become the infamous Wicked Witch of the West, a smart, prickly, and misunderstood creature who challenges all our preconceived notions about the nature of good and evil.

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Son of a Witch by: Gregory Maguire

A decade after the Witch has melted away, the young man Liir is discovered bruised, comatose, and left for dead in a gully. Shattered in spirit as well as in form, he is tended by the mysterious Candle, a foundling in her own right, until failed campaigns of his childhood bear late, unexpected fruit.

Liir is only one part of the world that Elphaba left behind. As a boy hardly in his teens, he is asked to help the needy in ways in which he may be unskilled. Is he Elphaba's son? Has he power of his own? Can he liberate Princess Nastoya into a dignified death? Can he locate his supposed half-sister, Nor, last seen in shackles in the Wizard's protection? Can he survive in an Oz little improved since the death of the Wicked Witch of the West? Can he learn to fly?

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My Sister's Keeper by: Jodi Picoult

Anna was genetically engineered to be a perfect match for her cancer-ridden older sister Kate. Since birth, the 13-year-old has been in and out of the hospital even though she isn't sick, so that she can donate platelets, blood, bone marrow etc to lengthen Kate's life. Now Anna's parents have decided that she will donate a kidney to Kate in a desperate last attempt to save her life. But Anna has had enough, deciding to hire a lawyer to sue her parents for the right to make her own medical decisions. The narration of the story alternates between Anna, her lawyer, her parents, her troubled older brother, and her court appointed guardian. Fascinating and thought-provoking.

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The Spirit Window by: Joyce Sweeney

Traveling to Florida to visit the grandmother who has not spoken to her family in ten years, Miranda is shocked by her energetic grandmother and seeks to capture the marsh wildlife on film as she draws closer to mysterious, part-Cherokee Adam.

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Zorro: Isabel Allende

A dashing hero, great escapes and romance, dark villains and valiant heroes -- Isabel Allende, bestselling author of "The House of Spirits," packs it all into her new novel on swashbuckling icon Zorro.

In Allende's new novel, Diego de la Vega transforms from a young prankster to the masked Zorro, who fearlessly -- and sometimes a little recklessly -- rushes to help the persecuted in old California and beyond.

Hear a conversation with author Isabel Allende about her new novel, "Zorro."

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The Sight: David Clement-Davies

A legend clings to the wolfs' frozen home - a story of man and wolf, of power and death. In this tale of wild wolves and supernatural powers, both Morga, the lone wolf cast out of her pack, and Larka, the young white wolf, possess The Sight, the ability to see into the minds of other living things.

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Numbering the Stars: Lois Lowry

Set during the German occupation of Denmark in 1943, Annamarie Johansen's world is turned upside down when the Germans begin to "relocate" the Jews. Through the eyes of this ten year old, the reader is taken into a frightening world where ordinary citizens become heroes. Annamarie's family assumes responsibility for Ellen Rosen, Annamarie's best friend, when Ellen's family flees for their safety. Later Annamarie becomes a participant in the daring scheme to smuggle the Rosens and other Jews to Sweden - and safety.

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Forever Odd By: Dean Koontz

We're all a little odd beneath the surface. He's the most unlikely hero you'll ever meet — an ordinary guy with a modest job you might never look at twice. But there's so much more to any of us than meets the eye — and that goes triple for Odd Thomas. For Odd lives always between two worlds in the small desert town of Pico Mundo, where the heroic and the harrowing are everyday events. Odd never asked to communicate with the dead — it's something that just happened. But as the unofficial ambassador between our world and theirs, he's got a duty to do the right thing. That's the way Odd sees it and that's why he's won hearts on both sides of the divide between life and death.

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Running with Scissors by: Augusten Burroughs

Running with Scissors is the true story of a boy whose mother (a poet with delusions of Anne Sexton) gave him away to be raised by her unorthodox psychiatrist who bore a striking resemblance to Santa Claus. So at the age of twelve, Burroughs found himself amidst Victorian squalor living with the doctor’s bizarre family, and befriending a pedophile who resided in the backyard shed. The story of an outlaw childhood where rules were unheard of, and the Christmas tree stayed up all year round, where Valium was consumed like candy, and if things got dull an electroshock- therapy machine could provide entertainment. The funny, harrowing and bestselling account of an ordinary boy’s survival under the most extraordinary circumstances.

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Becoming Chloe by: Catherine Ryan Hyde

Catherine Ryan Hyde has the wholly enviable talent of slipping beneath the skin of her characters and making them come alive in a way no other author can. She does not pull punches when it comes to putting a character's harsh reality onto the page. That "Becoming Chloe" begins with a brutal gang-rape is testament to that. But don't flinch, because in true Hyde style, that very event is what gets us to the heart of Jordy's character. We find that he is not courageous -- perhaps due to the abuse he suffered at the hands of his father -- and we also find that Chloe appears disconnected from reality.

Jordy rescues Chloe from her attackers, and thus begins a journey of wonderment and beauty reminiscent of "Benny and Joon." While both Jordy and Chloe are damaged in their own ways, their lives together are like a two-part harmony. They learn from each other, and experience the world with each other like only true friends can.

"Becoming Chloe" is written like a modern-day fable, with its message perhaps being: Beauty is everywhere if you just know how to look for it.

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Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait. Not for her license -- for turning pretty. In Tally's world, your sixteenth birthday brings an operation that turns you from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time. In just a few weeks Tally will be there.

But Tally's new friend Shay isn't sure she wants to be pretty. She'd rather risk life on the outside. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world -- and it isn't very pretty. The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. The choice Tally makes changes her world forever.

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Heartbeat by: Sharon Creech

Twelve year-old Annie loves running and drawing. Her best friend Max thinks she's spoilt because she has two parents and a grandfather. He's in a bad mood. Annie's mother is having another baby and her grandfather is getting old and forgetting things. There is a lot going on in Annie's life.

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