2009 Best Books for Teens
The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) has prepared the 2009 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.
**This is a list of current nominees for the 2009 List. Voting will occur after the New Year.
You'll find a complete list of the Best Books for Young Adults on the YALSA website.
| Fiction | |
| Adlington, L.J. | |
| Cherry Heaven 2008 | |
|
Kat and Tanka J leave the war-torn city, move with their adoptive parents to the New Frontier, and are soon settled into a home called Cherry Heaven, but Luka, an escaped factory worker, confirms their suspicion that New Frontier is not the utopia it seems to be. |
| Anderson, Laurie Halse | |
| Chains. 2008 | |
| After being sold to a cruel couple in New York City, a slave named Isabel spies for the rebels during the Revolutionary War. | |
| Anderson, M. T. | |
| The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation: Vol. 2: The Kingdom on the Waves. 2008 | |
| Having escaped from his captors, Octavian joins the Royal Ethiopian Regiment of the British Army in 1775 Boston when they promise freedom to any slave who fights the rebel forces. | |
| Baldini, Michelle and Biederman, Lynn | |
| Unraveling 2008 | |
| When fifteen-year-old Amanda faces major life changes, her controlling mother is the last person she turns to, but she gains some sympathy as she begins to understand her mother's relationship with her best friend. | |
| Barkley, Brad and Helpler, Heather | |
| Jars of Glass. 2008 | |
| Two sisters, aged fourteen and fifteen, offer their views of events that occur during the year after their mother is diagnosed with schizophrenia and their family, including a recently adopted Russian orphan, begins to disintegrate. | |
| Bartoletti, Susan Campbell | |
| The Boy Who Dared 2008 | |
|
In October, 1942, seventeen-year-old Helmuth Hübener, imprisoned for distributing anti-Nazi leaflets, recalls his past life and how he came to dedicate himself to bring the truth about Hitler and the war to the German people. |
| Baskin, Nora Raleigh | |
| All We Know of Love 2008 | |
|
Natalie, almost sixteen, sneaks away from her Connecticut home and takes the bus to Florida, looking for the mother who abandoned her father and her when she was ten years old. |
| Beafrand, Mary Jane | |
| Primavera 2008 | |
| Growing up in Renaissance Italy, Flora sees her family's fortunes ebb, but encounters with the artist Botticelli and the guidance of her nurse teach her to look past the material world to the beauty already in her life. | |
| Bell, Hilari | |
| The Last Knight 2007 | |
|
In alternate chapters, eighteen-year-old Sir Michael Sevenson, an anachronistic knight errant, and seventeen-year-old Fisk, his street-wise squire, tell of their noble quest to bring Lady Ceciel to justice while trying to solve her husband's murder. |
| Bell, Julia | |
| Dirty Work 2007 | |
| Two teenaged girls with little in common must find a way to work together if they are ever to escape their captors after being abducted into an international prostitution ring. | |
| Benway, Robin | |
| Audrey, Wait! 2008 | |
| While trying to score a date with her cute co-worker at the Scooper Dooper, sixteen-year-old Audrey gains unwanted fame and celebrity status when her ex-boyfriend, a rock musician, records a breakup song about her that soars to the top of the Billboard charts. | |
| Bertagna, Julie | |
| Exodus 2008 | |
| In the year 2100, as the island of Wing is about to be covered by water, fifteen-year-old Mara discovers the existence of New World sky cities that are safe from the storms and rising waters, and convinces her people to travel to one of these cities in order to save themselves. | |
| Bodeen, S.A. | |
| Compound 2008 | |
|
After his parents, two sisters, and he have spent six years in a vast underground compound built by his wealthy father to protect them from a nuclear holocaust, fifteen-year-old Eli, whose twin brother and grandmother were left behind, discovers that his father has perpetrated a monstrous hoax on them all. |
| Bradbury, Jennifer | |
| Shift 2008 | |
|
When best friends Chris and Win go on a cross country bicycle trek the summer after graduating and only one returns, the FBI wants to know what happened. |
| Bray, Libba | |
| The Sweet Far Thing 2007 | |
| At Spence Academy, sixteen-year-old Gemma Doyle continues preparing for her London debut while struggling to determine how best to use magic to resolve a power struggle in the enchanted world of the realms, and to protect her own world and loved ones. | |
| Brooks, Kevin | |
| Black Rabbit Summer 2008 | |
|
When two of sixteen-year-old Pete's childhood classmates disappear from a carnival the same night, he is a suspect, but his own investigation implicates other old friends he was with that evening--and a tough, knife-wielding enemy determined to keep him quiet. |
| Bruchac, Joseph | |
| March Toward the Thunder 2008 | |
| Louis Nollette, a fifteen-year-old Abenaki Indian, joins the Irish Brigade in 1864 to fight for the Union in the Civil War. | |
| Bryant, Jen | |
| Ringside, 1925. 2008 | |
| Visitors, spectators, and residents of Dayton, Tennessee, in 1925 describe, in a series of free-verse poems, the Scopes "monkey trial" and its effects on that small town and its citizens. | |
| Buckhanon, Kalisha | |
| Conception 2008 | |
|
When 15-year-old Shivana Montgomery becomes pregnant by an older married man, shen struggles to carve out a hopeful path to escape a life of challenge and destitution. |
| Bunce, Elizabeth | |
| A Curse as Dark as Gold. 2008 | |
| Upon the death of her father, seventeen-year-old Charlotte struggles to keep the family's woolen mill running in the face of an overwhelming mortgage and what the local villagers believe is a curse, but when a man capable of spinning straw into gold appears on the scene she must decide if his help is worth the price. | |
| Cadnum, Michael | |
| The King's Arrow 2008 | |
| In England's New Forest on the second day of August, 1100, eighteen-year-old Simon Foldre, delighted to be allowed to participate in a royal hunt as squire to the Anglo-Norman nobleman Walter Tirel, finds his future irrevocably altered when, during the hunt, he witnesses the possible murder of King William II. | |
| Caletti, Deb | |
| The Fortunes of Indigo Skye 2008 | |
|
Eighteen-year-old Indigo is looking forward to becoming a full-time waitress after high school graduation, but her life is turned upside down by a large check given to her by a customer who appreciates that she cares enough to scold him about smoking. |
| Carvell, Marlene | |
| Caught Between the Pages 2008 | |
| An indifferent student with few real friends, PJ Barnes accidentally gains possession of his English teacher's personal journal and at the same time becomes involved with some drug dealers, but when his mother is in a car accident that lands her in the hospital, his already complicated life starts to spin out of control. | |
| Cashore, Kristin | |
| Graceling 2008 | |
| In a world where some people are born with extreme and often-feared skills called Graces, Katsa struggles for redemption from her own horrifying Grace, the Grace of killing, and teams up with another young fighter to save their land from a corrupt king. | |
| Cohn, Rachel | |
| In the wake of her cousin's suicide, overweight and introverted seventeen-year-old Miles experiences significant changes in her relationships with her mother and father, her best friend Jamal and his family, and her cousin's father, while gaining insights about herself, both positive and negative. | |
| Colfer, Eoin | |
Airman 2008 |
|
| In the late nineteenth century, when Conor Broekhart discovers a conspiracy to overthrow the king, he is branded a traitor, imprisoned, and forced to mine for diamonds under brutal conditions while he plans a daring escape from Little Saltee prison by way of a flying machine that he must design, build, and, hardest of all, trust to carry him to safety. | |
| Collins, Suzanne | |
| The Hunger Games 2008 | |
| In a future North America, where the rulers of Panem maintain control through an annual televised survival competition pitting young people from each of the twelve districts against one another, sixteen-year-old Katniss's skills are put to the test when she voluntarily takes her younger sister's place. | |
| Conner, Leslie | |
| Waiting for Normal 2008 | |
| Twelve-year-old Addie tries to cope with her mother's erratic behavior and being separated from her beloved stepfather and half-sisters when she and her mother go to live in a small trailer by the railroad tracks on the outskirts of Schenectady, New York. | |
| Crossley-Holland, Kevin | |
| Crossing to Paradise 2008 | |
| When fifteen-year-old Gatty, an illiterate field-girl who sings beautifully, is selected for a pilgrimage, she travels from her home on an English estate to London, Venice, and eventually Jerusalem, and experiences great changes in her circumstances and in herself. | |
| Dessen, Sarah | |
| Lock and Key 2008 | |
| When she is abandoned by her alcoholic mother, high school senior Ruby winds up living with Cora, the sister she has not seen for ten years, and learns about Cora's new life, what makes a family, how to allow people to help her when she needs it, and that she too has something to offer others. | |
| Doctorow, Cory | |
| Little Brother 2008 | |
| After being interrogated for days by the Department of Homeland Security in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco, California, seventeen-year-old Marcus, released into what is now a police state, decides to use his expertise in computer hacking to set things right. | |
| Dowd, Siobhan | |
| Bog Child. 2008 | |
| In 1981, the height of Ireland's "Troubles," eighteen-year-old Fergus is distracted from his upcoming A-level exams by his imprisoned brother's hunger strike, the stress of being a courier for Sinn Fein, and dreams of a murdered girl whose body he discovered in a bog. | |
| Dowd, Siobhan | |
| The London Eye Mystery 2008 | |
| When Ted and Kat's cousin Salim disappears from the London Eye ferris wheel, the two siblings must work together--Ted with his brain that is "wired differently" and impatient Kat--to try to solve the mystery of what happened to Salim. | |
| Feldman, Jody | |
| The Gollywhopper Games 2008 | |
| Twelve-year-old Gil Goodson competes against thousands of other children at extraordinary puzzles, stunts, and more in hopes of a fresh start for his family, which has been ostracized since his father was falsely accused of embezzling from Golly Toy and Game Company. | |
| Fleischman, Side | |
| The Entertainer and the Dybbuk 2007 | |
| A struggling American ventriloquist in post-World War II Europe is possessed by the mischievous spirit of a young Jewish boy killed in the Holocaust. | |
| Freitas, Donna | |
| The Possibilities of Sainthood. 2008 | |
| While regularly petitioning the Vatican to make her the first living saint, fifteen-year-old Antonia Labella prays to assorted patron saints for everything from help with preparing the family's fig trees for a Rhode Island winter to getting her first kiss from the right boy. | |
| Gaiman, Neil | |
| The Graveyard Book. 2008 | |
| Nobody Owens is a normal boy, except that he has been raised by ghosts and other denizens of the graveyard. | |
| Galante, Cecilia | |
| The Patron Saint of Butterflies 2008 | |
| When her grandmother takes fourteen-year-old Agnes, her younger brother, and best friend Honey and escapes Mount Blessing, a Connecticut religious commune, Agnes clings to the faith she loves while Honey looks toward a future free of control, cruelty, and preferential treatment. | |
| Gardner, Sally | |
| The Red Necklace: A Story of the French Revolution 2008 | |
| In the late eighteenth-century, Sido, the twelve-year-old daughter of a self-indulgent marquis, and Yann, a fourteen-year-old Gypsy orphan raised to perform in a magic show, face a common enemy at the start of the French Revolution. | |
| Geerling, Marjetta | |
| Fancy White Trash 2008 | |
| Fifteen-year-old Abby Savage hopes that her five rules for falling in love will keep her from making the same mistakes as her mother and two older sisters--all unwed mothers who have slept with the same man, among others--while she also tries to help her best friend Cody admit that he is gay, and decide how she really feels about Cody's older brother, Jackson. | |
| George, Madeleine | |
| Looks. 2008 | |
| Two high school girls, one an anorexic poet and the other an obese loner, form an unlikely friendship. | |
| Giff, Patricia Reilly | |
| Eleven 2008 | |
| When Sam, who can barely read, discovers an old newspaper clipping just before his eleventh birthday, it brings forth memories from his past, and, with the help of a new friend at school and the castle they are building for a school project, his questions are eventually answered. | |
| Gilman, David | |
| The Devil's Breath 2008 | |
| When fifteen-year-old Max Gordon's environmentalist-adventurer father goes missing while working in Namibia and Max becomes the target of a would-be assassin at his school in England, he decides he must follow his father to Africa and find him before they both are killed. | |
| Godbersen, Anna | |
| The Luxe 2007 | |
| In Manhattan in 1899, five teens of different social classes lead dangerously scandalous lives, despite the strict rules of society and the best-laid plans of parents and others. | |
| Golding, Julia | |
| The Diamond of Drury Lane: A Cat Royal Adventure 2008 | |
| Orphan Catherine "Cat" Royal, living at the Drury Lane Theater in 1790s London, tries to find the "diamond" supposedly hidden in the theater, which unmasks a treasonous political cartoonist, and involves her in the street gangs of Covent Garden and the world of nobility. | |
| Goodman, Allegra | |
| The Other Side of The Island. 2008 | |
| Born in the eighteenth year of Enclosure, ten-year-old Honor lives in a highly regulated colony with her defiant parents, but when they have an illegal second child and are taken away, it is up to Honor and her friend Helix, another "unpredictable," to uncover a terrible secret about their island and the corporation that runs everything. | |
| Grant, Michael | |
| Gone 2008 | |
| In a small town on the coast of California, everyone over the age of fourteen suddenly disappears, setting up a battle between the remaining town residents and the students from a local private school, as well as those who have "The Power" and are able to perform supernatural feats and those who do not. | |
| Green, John | |
| Paper Towns. 2008 | |
| One month before graduating from his Central Florida high school, Quentin "Q" Jacobsen basks in the predictable boringness of his life until the beautiful and exciting Margo Roth Spiegelman, Q's neighbor and classmate, takes him on a midnight adventure and then mysteriously disappears. | |
| Griffin, Paul | |
| Ten Mile River 2008 | |
| Having escaped from juvenile detention centers and foster care, two teenaged boys live on their own in an abandoned shack in a New York City park, making their way by stealing, occasionally working, and trying to keep from being arrested. | |
| Haddix, Margaret Peterson | |
| Uprising 2008 | |
| In 1927, at the urging of twenty-one-year-old Harriet, Mrs. Livingston reluctantly recalls her experiences at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory, including miserable working conditions that led to a strike, then the fire that took the lives of her two best friends, when Harriet, the boss's daughter, was only five years old. Includes historical notes. | |
| Halam, ann | |
| Snakehead 2008 | |
| Compelled by his father Zeus to accept the evil king Polydectes's challenge to bring the head of the monstrous Medusa to the Aegean island of Serifos, Perseus, although questioning the gods' interference in human lives, sets out, accompanied by his beloved Andromeda, a princess with her own harsh destiny to fulfill. | |
| Halpern, Julie | |
| Get Well Soon 2007 | |
| When her parents confine her to a mental hospital, an overweight teenage girl, who suffers from panic attacks, describes her experiences in a series of letters to a friend. | |
| Harmon, Michael | |
| The Last Exit to Normal 2008 | |
| Yanked out of his city life and plunked down into a small Montana town with his father and his father's boyfriend, seventeen-year-old Ben, angry and resentful about the changed circumstances of his life, begins to notice that something is not quite right with the little boy next door and determines to do something about it. | |
| Hartnett, Sonya | |
| The Ghost's Child. 2008 | |
| When a mysterious child appears in her living room one day, the elderly Maddy tells him the story of her love for the wild and free-spirited Feather, who tried but failed to live a conventional life with her, and her search for him on a fantastical voyage across the seas. | |
| Hearn, Julie | |
| Ivy 2008 | |
| In mid-nineteenth-century London, young, mistreated, and destitute Ivy, whose main asset is her beautiful red hair, comes to the attention of an aspiring painter of the pre-Raphaelite school of artists who, with the connivance of Ivy's unsavory family, is determined to make her his model and muse. | |
| Hernandez, David | |
| Suckerpunch 2008 | |
| Shy, seventeen-year-old Marcus and his sixteen-year-old brother, Enrique, accompanied by two friends, drive from their home in southern California to Monterey to confront the abusive father who walked out a year earlier, and who now wants to return home. | |
| Hesse, Karen | |
| Brooklyn Bridge 2008 | |
| In 1903 Brooklyn, fourteen-year-old Joseph Michtom's life changes for the worse when his parents, Russian immigrants, invent the teddy bear and turn their apartment into a factory, while nearby the glitter of Coney Island contrasts with the dismal lives of children dwelling under the Brooklyn Bridge. | |
| Hijuelos, Oscar | |
| Dark Dude 2008 | |
| In the 1960s, Rico Fuentes, a pale-skinned Cuban American teenager, abandons drug-infested New York City for the picket fence and apple pie world of Wisconsin, only to discover that he still feels like an outsider and that violent and judgmental people can be found even in the wholesome Midwest. | |
| Holt, Simon | |
| The Devouring. 2008 | |
| The existence of Vours, supernatural creatures who feast on fear and attack on the eve of the winter solstice, becomes a terrifying reality for fifteen-year-old Reggie when she begins to suspect that her timid younger brother might be one of their victims. | |
| Hooper, Mary | |
| Newes from the Dead 2008 | |
| In 1650, while Robert, a young medical student, steels himself to assist with her dissection, twenty-two-year-old housemaid Anne Green recalls her life as she lies in her coffin, presumed dead after being hanged for murdering her child that was, in fact, stillborn. | |
| Hopkins, Ellen | |
| Identical 2008 | |
| Sixteen-year-old identical twin daughters of a district court judge and a candidate for the United States House of Representatives, Kaeleigh and Raeanne Gardella desperately struggle with secrets that have already torn them and their family apart. | |
| Horvath, Polly | |
| My One Hundred Adventures. 2008 | |
| Twelve-year-old Jane, who lives at the beach in a run-down old house with her mother, two brothers, and sister, has an eventful summer accompanying her pastor on bible deliveries, meeting former boyfriends of her mother's, and being coerced into babysitting for a family of ill-mannered children. | |
| Jenkins, A.M. | |
| Night Road 2008 | |
| Battling his own memories and fears, Cole, an extraordinarily conscientious vampire, and Sandor, a more impulsive acquaintance, spend a few months on the road, trying to train a young man who recently joined their ranks. | |
| Jocelyn, Marthe | |
| Would You 2008 | |
| When her beloved sister, Claire, steps in front of a car and winds up in a coma, Nat's anticipated summer of working, hanging around with friends, and seeing Claire off to college is transformed into a nightmare of doctors, hospitals, and well-meaning neighbors. | |
| Johnson, Maureen | |
| Suite Scarlett. 2008 | |
| Fifteen-year-old Scarlett Marvin is stuck in New York City for the summer working at her quirky family's historic hotel, but her brother's attractive new friend and a seasonal guest who offers her an intriguing and challenging writing project improve her outlook. | |
| Jones, Diana Wynn | |
| House of Many Ways 2008 | |
| When Charmain is asked to housesit for Great Uncle William, the Royal Wizard of Norland, she is ecstatic to get away from her parents, but finds that his house is much more than it seems. | |
| Jordan, Hillary | |
| Mudbound 2008 | |
| Two young heroes return to their neighboring families after World War II. Jamie is haunted by horrors of the war, Ronsel by the horrors of the segregated South. | |
| Juby, Susan | |
| Another Kind of Cowboy 2007 | |
| In Vancouver, British Columbia, two teenage dressage riders, one a spoiled rich girl and the other a closeted gay sixteen-year-old boy, come to terms with their identities and learn to accept themselves. | |
| Kadohata, Cynthia | |
| Outside Beauty 2008 | |
| Thirteen-year-old Shelby and her three sisters must go to live with their respective fathers while their mother, who has trained them to rely on their looks, recovers from a car accident that scarred her face. | |
| Kasischke, Laura | |
| Feathered 2008 | |
| While on Spring Break in Cancun, Mexico, high-school seniors and best friends Anne and Michelle accept the wrong ride and Michelle is lost--seemingly forever. | |
| Katcher, Brian | |
| Playing with Matches 2008 | |
| While trying to find a girl who will date him, Missouri high school junior Leon Sanders befriends a lonely, disfigured female classmate. | |
| Kephart, Beth | |
| House of Dance 2008 | |
| During one of her daily visits across town to visit her dying grandfather, fifteen-year-old Rosie discovers a dance studio that helps her find a way to bring her family members together. | |
| Kephart, Beth | |
| Undercover. 2007 | |
| High school sophomore Elisa is used to observing while going unnoticed except when classmates ask her to write love notes for them, but a teacher's recognition of her talent, a "client's" desire for her friendship, a love of ice skating, and her parent's marital problems draw her out of herself. | |
| Kluger, Steve | |
| My Most Excellent Year 2008 | |
| Three teenagers in Boston narrate their experiences of a year of new friendships, first loves, and coming into their own. | |
| Koertge, Ron | |
| Deadville. 2008 | |
| While visiting an injured classmate in the hospital, sixteen-year-old Ryan, who is trying to come to terms with his sister's death from cancer, meets a young patient who claims to be able to see into the world where the dead live. | |
| Lanagan, Margo | |
| Tender Morsels. 2008 | |
| A young woman who has endured unspeakable cruelties is magically granted a safe haven apart from the real world and allowed to raise her two daughters in this alternate reality, until the barrier between her world and the real one begins to break down. | |
| Landman, Tanya | |
| I am Apache 2008 | |
| A young Apache woman, Siki seeks to avenge her brother's death by becoming an Apache warrior -- and learns a startling truth about her own identity. | |
| Le Guin, Ursula K. | |
| Lavinia 2008 | |
| Lavinia grows up knowing nothing but peace and freedom, until suitors come. Her mother demands that she marry handsome, ambitious Turnus. But omens and prophecies spoken by the sacred springs say she must marry a foreigner - that she will be the cause of a bitter war - and that her husband will not live long. When a fleet of Trojan ships sails up the Tiber, Lavinia decides to take her destiny into her own hands. | |
| Lecesne, James | |
| Absolute Brightness 2008 | |
| In the beach town of Neptune, New Jersey, Phoebe's life is changed irrevocably when her gay cousin moves into her house and soon goes missing. | |
| Lester, Julius | |
| Guardian. 2008 | |
| Ansel’s world set in the 1946 deep South disintegrates from the hatred and injustice consuming his family and community following a brutal murder and an innocent man being lynched. | |
| Levithan, David | |
| How They Met, and Other Stories 2008 | |
| A collection of eighteen stories describing the surprises, sacrifices, doubts, pain, and joy of falling in love. | |
| Little, Melanie | |
| The Apprentice's Masterpiece 2008 | |
| In the cruel times after Queen Isabella I of Spain begins the Spanish Inquisition, teen boys, one Jewish, one Muslim, learn what really matters: survival, each other, their people. | |
| Lockhart, E. | |
| The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks 2008 | |
| Frankie Landau-Banks has a chip on her shoulder and is determined to bring down the all-male Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds of Alabaster Preparatory Academy. | |
| Lurie, April | |
| The Latent Powers of Dylan Fontaine 2008 | |
| Fifteen-year-old Dylan's friend Angie is making a film about him while he is busy trying to keep his older brother from getting caught with drugs, to deal with his mother having left the family, and to figure out how to get Angie to think of him as more than just a friend. | |
| Lyga, Barry | |
| Hero-Type. 2008 | |
| Feeling awkward and ugly is only one reason sixteen-year-old Kevin is uncomfortable with the publicity surrounding his act of accidental heroism, but when a reporter photographs him apparently being unpatriotic, he steps into the limelight to encourage people to think about what the symbols of freedom really mean. | |
| Lynch, Chris | |
| The Big Game of Everything 2008 | |
| Jock and his eccentric family spend the summer working at Grampus's golf complex, where they end up learning the rules of "The Big Game of Everything." | |
| Mackel, Kathy | |
| Boost. 2008 | |
| Thirteen-year-old Savvy's dreams of starting for her elite basketball team are in danger when she is accused of taking steroids. | |
| MacLeod, Doug | |
| I'm Being Stalked by a Moonshadow 2007 | |
| As his odd parents fight the regional environmental health officer about their dung-covered house and his melodramatic younger brother demands attention, fourteen-year-old Australian Seth Parrot simply seeks the muscular woman of his dreams. | |
| Marchetta, Melina | |
| Jellicoe Road 2008 | |
| Abandoned by her drug-addicted mother at the age of eleven, high school student Taylor Markham struggles with her identity and family history at a boarding school in Australia. | |
| Marillier, Juliet | |
| Cybele's Secret 2008 | |
| Scholarly eighteen-year-old Paula and her merchant father journey from Transylvania to Istanbul to buy an ancient pagan artifact rumored to be charmed, but others, including a handsome Portuguese pirate and an envoy from the magical Wildwood, want to acquire the item, as well. | |
| Marr, Melissa | |
| Ink Exchange. 2008 | |
| Seventeen-year-old Leslie wants a tattoo as a way of reclaiming control of herself and her body, but the eerie image she selects pulls her into the dangerous Dark Court of the faeries, where she draws on inner strength to make a horrible choice. | |
| Martin, C. K. Kelly | |
| I Know It's Over. 2008 | |
| Sixteen-year-old Nick, still trying to come to terms with his parents' divorce, experiences exhiliration and despair in his relationship with his girlfriend Sasha especially when, after instigating a trial separation, she announces that she is pregnant. | |
| Mazer, Norma Fox | |
| The Missing Girl 2008 | |
| In Mallory, New York, as five sisters, aged eleven to seventeen, deal with assorted problems, conflicts, fears, and yearnings, a mysterious middle-aged man watches them, fascinated, deciding which one he likes the best. | |
| McCarthy, Maureen | |
| Rose by Any Other Name 2008 | |
| During a road trip with her mother from Melbourne to Fairy Point, Australia, to see her dying grandmother, nineteen-year-old Rose gains a new perspective on events of the previous year, when family problems, the end of a long-term friendship, and bad personal choices dramatically transformed her near-perfect life. | |
| McKinley, Robin | |
| Chalice 2008 | |
| A beekeeper by trade, Mirasol's life changes completely when she is named the new Chalice, the most important advisor to the new Master, a former priest of fire. | |
| McMann, Lisa | |
| Wake 2008 | |
| Ever since she was eight years old, high school student Janie Hannagan has been uncontrollably drawn into other people's dreams, but it is not until she befriends an elderly nursing home patient and becomes involved with an enigmatic fellow-student that she discovers her true power. | |
| McMullan, Margaret | |
| When I Crossed No-Bob 2007 | |
| Ten years after the Civil War's end, twelve-year-old Addy, abandoned by her parents, is taken from the horrid town of No-Bob by schoolteacher Frank Russell and his bride, but when her father returns to claim her she must find another way to leave her O'Donnell past behind. | |
| McNish, Cliff | |
| Angel. 2008 | |
| An unlikely friendship develops between fourteen-year-olds Stephanie, an angel-obsessed social outcast, and Freya, a popular student whose visions of angels sent her to a mental institution and who is now seeing a dark angel at every turn. | |
| Meehl, Brian | |
| Suck It Up. 2008 | |
| After graduating from the International Vampire League, a scrawny, teenaged vampire named Morning is given the chance to fulfill his childhood dream of becoming a superhero when he embarks on a League mission to become the first vampire to reveal his identity to humans and to demonstrate how peacefully-evolved, blood-substitute-drinking vampires can use their powers to help humanity. | |
| Meldrum, Christina | |
| Madapple 2008 | |
| A girl who has been brought up in near isolation is thrown into a twisted web of family secrets and religious fundamentalism when her mother dies and she goes to live with relatives she never knew she had. | |
| Meyer, Stephanie | |
| The Host 2008 | |