2006 NYPL Books for the Teen Age (Science Fiction)
Explore the 2006 NYPL Books for the Teen Age Science Fiction list—curated recommendations of top sci-fi novels for young adults. Discover thrilling reads for teens!
Book
The Diary of Pelly D
by L. J. Adlington
Toni V is a teenager working for the City Five demolition crew. While drilling through concrete he unearths a battered water can containing a parcel wrapped in faded brown paper. Though he's supposed to turn over anything he salvages, Toni V smuggles the package back to his room, unwraps it, and finds a notebook. This is the diary of Pelly D. It's totally secret, so if you're reading it I hate you already. Toni V figures there's no harm in paging through it since he doesn't even know this Pelly D. I'm not being arrogant. That's just the way it is at school. . . . I'm Pelly D. It's pretty simple. I RULE! The more Toni V reads, the more he thinks Pelly D is rich, stupid, and petty. Yet he can't help starting to care for her, especially as her words slowly reveal the chilling state of her world. I know it doesn't matter what gene tag you have -- Mum's made that clear again & again like a stuck CD. It's just . . . How can I face everyone at school if . . . What happened to Pelly D? Toni V needs to know. And he has one clue: Dig -- dig everywhere.
Book
Fledgling
by Octavia E. Butler
A young girl suffering from amnesia wakes up to find that she's actually a middle-aged vampire.
Book
Jimmy Coates: Assassin?
by Joe Craig
This action-packed debut thriller introduces genetically engineered superkid, Jimmy Coates. Jimmy has just found out he's no ordinary kid, but the secret police are after him and he doesn't know why.
Book
Flux
by Beth Goobie
Several years earlier Nellie and her mother fled the Interior and its hated security police for the Outbacks, a loose-knit resistance of small cities, towns and rural areas. Since then her mother has disappeared and twelve-year-old Nellie is on her own, scrounging a living where she can find it. When loneliness opens her mind to flux, the ability to alter her vibratory state in the molecular field, she learns to travel to other levels of reality. When a prank by the Skulls, an unruly gang of boys, reveals several large scars on her scalp, Nellie is forced to confront the terrifying truth that her vague memories of experiments that took place while she lived in the Interior are real. Befriended by fourteen-year-old Deller, leader of the Skulls, Nellie learns of the disappearance of his younger brother Fen. Using her ability to travel the levels, she eventually finds Fen trapped in an experimental laboratory deep in another reality. Although Nellie is unable to free him, her discovery precipitates a series of events that lead her and Deller back to the Interior, and straight into the memories she has been trying so hard to forget.
Book
New World Order
by Ben Jeapes
Only the completely original and unalloyed Jeapesian imagination could think of launching a full-scale alien invasion right into the middle of the English Civil War. Oliver Cromwell' s New Model Army, as well as a young King Charles II, face the full might of the powerful Holekhors as alien airships fly in the skies over 17th-century London. This is an extraordinary and thrilling novel, entirely original, and based in one of the most interesting periods of English history. Read about what might have happened in the 17th century-- life could have been very different for us all. . . .
Book
The Secret Under My Skin
by Janet McNaughton
In the year 2368, humanity struggles to recuperate from a technocaust that has left a generation of orphans in its wake. Strict government regulations convince people that technology is dangerous; confusion and fear rule the earth. Blay Raytee is a government work-camp orphan. Her future seems as bleak as that of the world around her. But when she is chosen for a special mission by a guardian of the environment named Marrella, Blay begins to discover that all may not be as it seems. The secrets she uncovers could hold the key both to the healing of the world and to her own past. What she learns may just empower her to join those who struggle to restore democracy -- and to discover at last who she really is. Master storyteller Janet McNaughton vividly imagines an all-too-believable future where one child's brave search for the truth could restore a broken world.
Book
Only You Can Save Mankind
by Terry Pratchett
The inimitable author of the bestselling Discworld series brings to life a reality-bending tale of aliens, war, and virtual heroism, as 12-year-old Johnny Maxwell discovers that the boundary between war and war games is perilously thin.
Book
The Last Universe
by William Sleator
When her desperately ill older brother insists that she take him into their mysterious backyard garden, designed by their quantum physicist great uncle, fourteen-year-old Susan discovers that things are not always what they seem.
Book
Truesight
by David Stahler Jr.
Everyone in Jacob's colony is born blind. It has always been this way. They embrace the philosophy of Truesight: Blindness brings unity, purity, and freedom. It is an exceptional community. Everyone is happy. As Jacob nears his thirteenth birthday, he anxiously anticipates his new role as an adult and all the changes that will bring. But as the day approaches, a far greater change threatens Jacob's future. It all starts with a searing pain in his eyes ... This is the first book of David Stahler Jr.'s gripping Truesight trilogy. Ages 12+
Book
Jumpman
by James Valentine
In the future, kids don't play with Game Boys, they play with JumpMans.
Book
Double Helix
by Nancy Werlin
Rich and suspenseful with a hair-raising conclusion, this is Nancy Werlin's most dynamic novel yet--one that explores the ethics and amazements of genetic engineering.
