Southbury Public Library

2005 Best Books for Teens

The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) has prepared the 2005 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
Allen, Thomas B.
	George Washington, Spy Master: How the Americans Outspied the British and Won the Revolutionary War 2004
	A biography of Revolutionary War general and first President of the United States, George Washington, focusing on his use of spies to gather intelligence that helped the colonies win the war.
Bausum, Ann
	With Courage and Cloth: Winning the Fight for a Woman's Right to Vote 2004
Bolden, Tonya
	Wake Up Our Souls: A Celebration of Black American Artists 2004
	Presents a history of African American visual arts and artists from the days of slavery to the present.
Freedman, Russell
	The Voice That Challenged a Nation: Marian Anderson and the Struggle for Equal Rights 2004
	In the mid-1930s, Marian Anderson was a famed vocalist who had been applauded by European royalty and welcomed at the White House. But, because of her race, she was denied the right to sing at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. This is the story of her resulting involvement in the civil rights movement of the time.
McWhorter, Diane
	A Dream of Freedom: The Civil Rights Movement from 1954-1968 2004
	In this history of the modern Civil Rights movement, the author focuses on the monumental events that occurred between 1954 (the year of Brown v. the Board of Education) and 1968 (the year that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated).
Unger, Zac
	Working Fire: The Making of an Accidental Fireman 2004
	The author chronicles his journey from Ivy League graduate to dedicated firefighter and paramedic, discussing his training, the moments of triumph and tragedy, the harrowing and hilarious calls, and his passion for his work.
Fiction
Almond, David
	Fire-Eaters 2004
	In 1962 England, despite observing his father's illness and the suffering of the fire-eating Mr. McNulty, as well as enduring abuse at school and the stress of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Bobby Burns and his family and friends still find reasons to rejoice in their lives and to have hope for the future.
Bass, L.G.
	Sign of the Qin: Outlaws of Moonshadow March, No. 1 2004
	In long-ago China, Prince Zong, the mortal young Starlord chosen to save humankind from destruction, joins the twin outlaws, White Streak and Black Whirlwind, to fight the Lord of the Dead and his demon hordes.
Braff, Joshua
	The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green 2004
	A witty, sensitive boy observes the darkly humorous goings-on in his Orthodox Jewish family in the 1970s.
Choldenko, Gennifer
	Al Capone Does My Shirts 2004
	A twelve-year-old boy named Moose moves to Alcatraz Island in 1935 when guards' families were housed there, and has to contend with his extraordinary new environment in addition to life with his autistic sister.
Curtis, Christopher Paul
	Bucking the Sarge 2004
	Deeply involved in his cold and manipulative mother's shady business dealings in Flint, Michigan, fourteen-year-old Luther keeps a sense of humor while running the Happy Neighbor Group Home For Men, all the while dreaming of going to college and becoming a philosopher.
De Lint, Charles
	The Blue Girl 2004
	New at her high school, Imogene enlists the help of her introverted friend Maxine and the ghost of a boy who haunts the school after receiving warnings through her dreams that soul-eaters are threatening her life.
Dunkle, Clare B.
	The Hollow Kingdom 2003
	in nineteenth-century England, a powerful sorcerer and King of the Goblins chooses Kate, the elder of two orphan girls recently arrived at their ancestral home, Hallow Hill, to be his bride and queen.
Farmer, Nancy
	The Sea of Trolls 2004
	After Jack becomes apprenticed to a Druid bard, he and his little sister Lucy are captured by Viking Berserkers and taken to the home of King Ivar the Boneless and his half-troll queen, leading Jack to undertake a vital quest to Jotunheim, home of the trolls.
Fusco, Kimberly Newton
	Tending to Grace 2004
	When Cornelia's mother runs off with a boyfriend, leaving her with an eccentric aunt, Cornelia must finally confront the truth about herself and her mother.
	Gothic: Ten Original Dark Tales 2004
	Drawing on dark fantasy, the fairy tale, horror and wild humor, ten acclaimed authors pay homage to the gothic tale in a wide-range of supernatural and surreal stories.
Hautman, Pete
	Godless 2004
	When sixteen-year-old Jason Bock and his friends create their own religion to worship the town's water tower, what started out as a joke begins to take on a power of its own.
Horowitz, Anthony
	Eagle Strike: An Alex Rider Adventure 2004
	After a chance encounter with assassin Yassen Gregorovich in the South of France, teenage spy Alex Rider investigates international pop star and philanthropist Damian Cray whose new video game venture hides sinister motives involving Air Force One, nuclear missiles, and the international drug trade.
Janeczko, Paul B.
	Worlds Afire: The Hartford Circus Fire of 1944 2004
	In this novel written as a collection of eyewitness poems, the excitement and anticipation of attending the circus on July 6, 1944 in Hartford, Connecticut, turns to horror when a fire engulfs the circus tent, killing nearly 180 people, mostly women and children.
Johnson, Angela
	Bird 2004
	Devastated by the loss of a second father, thirteen-year-old Bird follows her stepfather from Cleveland to Alabama in hopes of convincing him to come home, and along the way helps two boys cope with their difficulties.
Johnson, Kathleen Jeffrie
	A Fast and Brutal Wing 2004
	A series of journal entries, emails, stories, and newspaper articles reveals the strange events that led to the disappearance of a reclusive author on Halloween night and the involvement of a teenager and his friends--a brother and sister some say can transform into animals and back again.
Johnson Maureen
	The Key to the Golden Firebird 2004
	As three teenaged sisters struggle to cope with their father's sudden death, they find they must reexamine friendships, lifelong dreams, and their relationships with each other and their father.
Koertge, Ron
	Margaux with an X 2004
	Margaux, known as a "tough chick" at her Los Angeles high school, makes a connection with Danny, who, like her, struggles with the emotional impact of family violence and abuse.
Konigsburg, E.L.
	The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place 2004
	Upon leaving an oppressive summer camp, twelve-year-old Margaret Rose Kane spearheads a campaign to preserve three unique towers her grand uncles have been building in their back yard for over forty years.
Lawrence, Iain
	B is for Buster 2004
	In the spring of 1943, sixteen-year-old Kak, desperate to escape his abusive parents, lies about his age to enlist in the Canadian Air Force and soon finds himself based in England as part of a crew flying bombing raids over Germany.
Lawrence, Michael
	A Crack in the Line 2004
	Sixteen-year-old Alaric discovers how to travel to an alternate reality, where his mother is alive and his place in the family is held by a girl named Naia.
Leavitt, Martine
	Heck, Superhero 2004
	Abandoned by his mentally ill mother, thirteen-year-old Heck tries to survive on his own as his mind bounces between the superhero character he imagines himself to be and the harsh reality of his life.
Morgan, Nicola
	Fleshmarket 2004
	In nineteenth-century Scotland, following the death of his mother during surgery, Robbie decides to take revenge on the surgeon who performed the operation, Dr. Robert Knox, and in the process, makes a gruesome discovery about the lengths the medical profession will go to advance its knowledge of anatomy.
Napoli, Donna Jo
	Bound 2004
	In a novel based on Chinese Cinderella tales, fourteen-year-old stepchild Xing-Xing endures a life of neglect and servitude, as her stepmother cruelly mutilates her own child's feet so that she alone might marry well.
Oppel, Kenneth
	Airborn 2004
	Matt, a young cabin boy aboard an airship, and Kate, a wealthy young girl traveling with her chaperone, team up to search for the existence of mysterious winged creatures reportedly living hundreds of feet above the Earth's surface.
Peck, Richard
	The Teacher's Funeral: A Comedy in Three Parts 2004
	In rural Indiana in 1904, fifteen-year-old Russell's dreams of quitting school and joining a wheat threshing crew are disrupted when his older sister takes over the teaching at his one-room schoolhouse after mean old Myrt Arbuckle "hauls off and dies."
Reeve, Philip
	Predator's Gold: A Novel 2004
	In the distant future, when cities move about and consume smaller towns, Tom and Hester hope that the ice city of Anchorage will reach the rumored haven of the Dead Continent--America--before the savage Hunstmen of Arkangel find them.
Rosoff, Meg
	How I Live Now 2004
	To get away from her pregnant stepmother in New York City, fifteen-year-old Daisy goes to England to stay with her aunt and cousins, with whom she instantly bonds, but soon war breaks out and rips apart the family while devastating the land.
Satrapi, Marjane
	Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return 2004
	This sequel to the graphic novel memoir, Persepolis, presents the story of the author's reluctant return to her home of Iran after a self-imposed exile in Vienna.
Schmidt, Gary D.
	Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy 2004
	In 1911, Turner Buckminster hates his new home of Phippsburg, Maine, but things improve when he meets Lizzie Bright Griffin, a girl from a poor, nearby island community founded by former slaves that the town fathers--and Turner's--want to change into a tourist spot.
Shusterman, Neal
	The Schwa Was Here 2004
	A Brooklyn eighth-grader nicknamed Antsy befriends the Schwa, an "invisible-ish" boy who is tired of blending into his surroundings and going unnoticed by nearly everyone.
Strasser, Todd
	Can't Get There From Here 2004
	Tired of being hungry, cold, and dirty from living on the streets of New York City with a tribe of other homeless teenagers who are dying, one by one, a girl named Maybe ponders her future and longs for someone to care about her.
Stratton, Allan
	Chanda's Secrets 2004
	A girl's struggle amid the African AIDS pandemic, Chanda, is an astonishingly perceptive girl living in the small city of Bonang, a fictional city in Southern Africa. When her youngest sister dies, the first hint of HIV/AIDS emerges, Chanda must confront undercurrents of shame and stigma.
Stroud, Jonathan
	The Golem's Eye: The Bartimaeus Trilogy, Book Two 2004
	In their continuing adventures, magician's apprentice Nathaniel, now fourteen years old, and the djinni Bartimaeus travel to Prague to locate the source of a golem's power before it destroys London.
Turnbull, Ann
	No Shame, No Fear 2004
	In England in 1662, a time of religious persecution, fifteen-year-old Susanna, a poor country girl and a Quaker, and seventeen-year-old William, a wealthy Anglican, meet and fall in love against all odds.
Updale, Eleanor
	Montmorency: Thief, Liar, Gentleman? 2004
	In Victorian London, after his life is saved by a young physician, a thief utilizes the knowledge he gains in prison and from the scientific lectures he attends as the physician's case study exhibit to create a new, highly successful, double life for himself.
Weeks, Sarah
	So B. It: A Novel 2004
	After spending her life with her mentally retarded mother and agoraphobic neighbor, twelve-year-old Heidi sets out from Reno, Nevada, to New York to find out who she is.
Werlin, Nancy
	Double Helix 2004
	Eighteen-year-old Eli discovers a shocking secret about his life and his family while working for a Nobel Prize-winning scientist whose specialty is genetic engineering.
Wolf, Allan
	New Found Land: Lewis and Clark's Voyage of Discovery 2004
	The letters and thoughts of Thomas Jefferson, members of the Corps of Discovery, their guide Sacagawea, and Captain Lewis's Newfoundland dog, all tell of the historic exploratory expedition to seek a water route to the Pacific Ocean.
Wooding, Chris
	The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray 2004
	As Thaniel, a wych-hunter, and Cathaline, his friend and mentor, try to rid the alleys of London's Old Quarter of the terrible creatures that infest them, their lives become entwined with that of a woman who may be either mad or possessed.
Woodson, Jacqueline
	Behind You 2004
	After fifteen-year-old Jeremiah is mistakenly shot by police, the people who love him struggle to cope with their loss as they recall his life and death, unaware that 'Miah is watching over them.