2006 Best Books for Teens
The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) has prepared the 2006 Best Books for Young Adults list. Teens, as well as publishers, authors, and librarians selected this list of recommended books. It is a diverse list that features science fiction and fantasy, nonfiction, novels in verse, cutting-edge contemporary fiction, and graphic novels. The "best books" listed below can be found in the Teen Area.
You'll find a complete list of the Best Books for Young Adults on the YALSA website.
| Nonfiction | ||
| Bartoletti, Susan Campbell | ||
| Hitler Youth: Growing up in Hilter's Shadow 2005 | ||
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The story of a generation of German young people who devoted all their energy to the Hitler Youth and the propaganda that brought gave Hitler his power, and the youths that resisted the Nazi movement. | |
| Farrell, Jeanette | ||
| Invisible Allies: Microbes and Shape Our Lives 2005 | ||
| Usually, microbes are equated with disease, but in fact most microbes are actually our allies. Learn how the microbes that are everywhere around us help us to survive every day. | ||
| Fleming, Candace | ||
| Our Eleanor: A Scrapbook Look at Eleanor Roosevelt's Remarkable Life 2005 | ||
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Told in a unique "scrapbook" style, this biography presents Eleanor Roosevelt in her many roles: wife and mother, United Nations delegate, Junior Literary Guild board member, children's author, and civil rights crusader. | |
| Giblin, James Cross | ||
| Good Brother, Bad Brother: The Story of Edwin Booth and John Wilkes Booth 2005 | ||
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Most people know the name John Wilkes Booth, but few likely have heard of his brother Edwin. Find out about the brothers through first-hand accounts. Learn how alike and how different they were, and how each made a lasting impression on American history. | |
| Jurmain, Suzanne | ||
| The Forbidden Schoolhouse: The True and Dramatic Story of Prudence Crandall and Her Students 2005 | ||
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Describes the circumstances surrounding the 1833 opening of a school for African-American girls in Canterbury, Connecticut, and discusses the attitudes of the townspeople who persecuted the teacher and burned down the school. | |
| Nelson, Marilyn | ||
| Fortune's Bones: The Manumission Requiem 2004 | ||
| A poem commemorating the life of an 18th century Connecticut man who was a husband, a father, a baptized Christian, and a slave. | ||
| Partridge, Elizabeth | ||
| John Lennon: All I Want is the Truth 2005 | ||
| The story of one of rock's biggest legends, from his birth during a 1940 World War II air raid on Liverpool, through his turbulent childhood and teen years, to his celebrated life writing, recording, and performing with the Beatles and beyond. | ||
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| Fiction | ||
| Bray, Libba | ||
| Rebel Angels 2005 | ||
| Gemma and her friends from the Spence Academy return to the realms to defeat her foe, Circe, and to bind the magic that has been released. | ||
| Bruchac, Joseph | ||
| Code Talker: A Novel About the Navajo Marines of World War Two 2005 | ||
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After being taught in a boarding school run by whites that Navajo is a useless language, Ned Begay and other Navajo men are recruited by the Marines to become Code Talkers, sending messages during World War II in their native tongue. |
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| Delaney, Joseph | ||
| Revenge of the Witch 2005 | ||
| Young Tom, the seventh son of a seventh son, starts work as an apprentice for the village spook, whose job is to protect ordinary folk from "ghouls, boggarts, and all manner of wicked beasties." | ||
| Frank, E.R. | ||
| Wrecked 2005 | ||
| After a car accident seriously injures her best friend and kills her brother's girlfriend, sixteen-year-old Anna tries to cope with her guilt and grief, while learning some truths about her family and herself. | ||
| Gaiman, Neil | ||
| Anansi Boys 2005 | ||
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Charlie's dad wasn't just any dad. He was Anansi, a trickster god, the spirit of rebellion able to orderturn the social order, create wealth out of thin air, and baffle the devil. When he dies on a karaoke stage, things get very interesting for Charlie. | |
| Green, John | ||
| Looking for Alaska 2005 | ||
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Sixteen-year-old Miles' first year at Culver Creek Preparatory School in Alabama includes good friends and great pranks, but is defined by the search for answers about life and death after a fatal car crash. | |
| Griffin, Adele | ||
| Where I Want To Be 2005 | ||
| Two teenaged sisters, separated by death but still connected, work through their feelings of loss over the closeness they shared as children that was later destroyed by one's mental illness, and finally make peace with each other. | ||
| Gruber, Michael | ||
| The Witch's Boy 2005 | ||
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A grotesque foundling turns against the witch who sacrificed almost everything to raise him when he becomes consumed by the desire for money and revenge against those who have hurt him, but he eventually finds his true heart's desire. | |
| Hautman, Pete | ||
| Invisible 2005 | ||
| Doug and Andy are unlikely best friends--one a loner obsessed by his model trains, the other a popular student involved in football and theater--who grew up together and share a bond that nothing can sever. | ||
| Hearn, Julie | ||
| The Minister's Daughter 2005 | ||
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| Johnson, Maureen | ||
| 13 Little Blue Envelopes 2005 | ||
| When seventeen-year-old Ginny receives a packet of mysterious envelopes from her favorite aunt, she leaves New Jersey to criss-cross Europe on a sort of scavenger hunt that transforms her life. | ||
| Krovatin, Christopher | ||
| Heavy Metal and You 2005 | ||
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High schooler Sam begins losing himself when he falls for a preppy girl who wants him to give up getting wasted with his best friends and even his passion for heavy metal music in order to become a better person. | |
| Lester, Julius | ||
| Emma has taken care of the Butler children since Sarah and Frances's mother, Fanny, left. Emma wants to raise the girls to have good hearts, as a rift over slavery has ripped the Butler household apart. Now, to pay off debts, Pierce Butler wants to cash in his slave "assets", possibly including Emma. | ||
| Levithan, David | ||
| Are We There Yet? 2005 | ||
| Tricked by their parents into taking a trip to Italy together, two brothers--one in high school and the other recently graduated from college--reflect on the directions of their own lives and on the distance that has grown between them. | ||
| Lubar, David | ||
| Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie: A Novel 2005 | ||
| While navigating his first year of high school and awaiting the birth of his new baby brother, Scott loses old friends and gains some unlikely new ones as he hones his skills as a writer. | ||
| Lynch, Chris | ||
Inexcusable 2005 |
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| High school senior and football player Keir sets out to enjoy himself on graduation night, but when he attempts to comfort a friend whose date has left her stranded, things go terribly wrong. | ||
| Meyer, Stephanie | ||
Twilight: A Novel 2005 |
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| When seventeen-year-old Bella leaves Phoenix to live with her father in Forks, Washington, she meets an exquisitely handsome boy at school for whom she feels an overwhelming attraction and who she comes to realize is not wholly human. | ||
| Myers, Walter Dean | ||
| Jesse pours his heart and soul into his sketchbook to make sense of life in his troubled Harlem neighborhood and the loss of a close friend. | ||
| Oppel, Kenneth | ||
| Skybreaker 2005 | ||
| Matt Cruse, a student at the Airship Academy, and Kate de Vries, a young heiress, team up with a gypsy and a daring captain, to find a long-lost airship, rumored to carry a treasure beyond imagination. | ||
| Perkins, Lynne Rae | ||
| Criss Cross 2005 | ||
| Teenagers in a small town in the 1960s experience new thoughts and feelings, question their identities, connect, and disconnect as they search for the meaning of life and love. | ||
| Riordan, Rick | ||
| The Lightning Thief 2005 | ||
| Twelve-year-old Percy Jackson learns he is a demigod, the son of a mortal woman and Poseidon, god of the sea. His mother sends him to a summer camp for demigods where he and his new friends set out on a quest to prevent a war between the gods. | ||
| Westerfeld, Scott | ||
| Uglies 2005 | ||
| In Tally's world, a 16th birthday brings and operation, transforming one from a repellent Ugly to an attractive Pretty. Turning Pretty is all Tally has ever wanted. Her friend Shay would rather risk life on the outside. When Shay runs away, Tally must make a terrible choice. | ||
| Wooding, Chris | ||
| Poison 2005 | ||
| When Poison leave her home in the marshes of Gull to retrieve the infant sister who was snatched by the fairies, she and a group of unusual friends survive encounters with the inhabitants of various realms, and Poison herself confronts a surprising destiny. | ||
| Wynne-Jones, Tim | ||
| A Thief in the House of Memory 2005 | ||
| The death of an apparent stranger in the Steeple family's old home triggers troubling questions for sixteen-year-old Declan as he tries to make sense of his fragmented dreams, random memories, and unexplained coincidences, hoping to learn the truth about the mother who suddenly left when he was ten. | ||