2007 ALA Best Books for Young Adults (Fiction Part 1)
Discover the 2007 ALA Best Books for Young Adults (Fiction Part 1) – a curated list of top fiction reads for teens. Find award-winning titles and must-read novels for young adult readers.
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Clay
by David Almond
Fourteen-year-old Davie and his best friend, Geordie, are altar boys at their local Catholic Church. They’re full of mischief, but that all changes when Stephen Rose comes to town. Father O’Mahoney thinks it would be a good idea for Davie and Geordie to befriend him—maybe some of their good nature will rub off on this unhappy soul. But it’s Stephen who sees something special in Davie. Stephen’s a gifted sculptor. One day as Davie looks on, Stephen brings a tiny figure to life. It’s a talent he has, the gift of creation—and he knows that Davie has this talent, too. Davie allows Stephen to convince him to help bring a life-size figure to life—and Clay is born. Clay is innocent, but Stephen has special plans for him. What has Davie helped to unleash on the world? From the Hardcover edition.
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The Pox Party
by M. T. Anderson
A gothic tale becomes all too shockingly real in this mesmerizing magnum opus by the acclaimed author of FEED. It sounds like a fairy tale. He is a boy dressed in silks and white wigs and given the finest of classical educations. Raised by a group of rational philosophers known only by numbers, the boy and his mother — a princess in exile from a faraway land — are the only persons in their household assigned names. As the boy's regal mother, Cassiopeia, entertains the house scholars with her beauty and wit, young Octavian begins to question the purpose behind his guardians' fanatical studies. Only after he dares to open a forbidden door does he learn the hideous nature of their experiments — and his own chilling role in them. Set against the disquiet of Revolutionary Boston, M. T. Anderson's extraordinary novel takes place at a time when American Patriots rioted and battled to win liberty while African slaves were entreated to risk their lives for a freedom they would never claim. The first of two parts, this deeply provocative novel reimagines the past as an eerie place that has startling resonance for readers today.
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The Killer's Tears
by Anne-Laure Bondoux
A young boy, Paolo, and the man who murdered his parents, Angel, gradually become like father and son as they live and work together on the remote Chilean farm where Paolo was born.
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Tyrell
by Coe Booth
The protagonist of this astonishing debut is a young, African-American teen who can't get a break. Tyrell is living (for now) with his spaced-out mother and little brother in a homeless shelter. He feels he needs to score some money to make things better. Will he end up following in his father's footsteps? 320 p.
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The Road of the Dead
by Kevin Brooks
Two brothers, sons of an incarcerated gypsy, leave London traveling to an isolated and desolate village, in search of the brutal killer of their sister.
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Ask Me No Questions
by Marina Budhos
Fourteen-year-old Nadira, her sister, and their parents leave Bangladesh for New York City, but the expiration of the visas and the events of September 11, 2001, bring frustration, sorrow, and terror for the whole family.
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Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
by Rachel Cohn
High school student Nick O'Leary, member of a rock band, meets college-bound Norah Silverberg and asks her to be his girlfriend for five minutes in order to avoid his ex-sweetheart.
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Foundling
by David M. Cornish
Meet Rossamund'a foundling, a boy with a girl's name who is about to begin a dangerous life in the service of the Emperor of the Half-Continent. What starts as a simple journey becomes a dangerous and complicated set of battles and decisions. Humans, monsters, unearthly creatures . . . who among these can Rossamund trust? D. M. Cornish has created an entirely original world, grounded in his own deft, classically influenced illustrations. Foundling is a magic-laced, Dickensian adventure that will transport the reader."
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Just Listen
by Sarah Dessen
This multilayered tale tells the story of a year in the life of a family coming to terms with the imperfections beneath its perfect facade. Includes a teaser chapter of Dessens new hardcover, "Lock and Key."
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Grease Monkey
by Tim Eldred
Mac Gimbensky is an eight hundred pound intelligent gorilla and expert fighter mechanic on the flagship Fist of Earth, where, with the help of his cadet assistant Robin Plotnik, he maintains the ships of the all-female Barbarian Squadron.
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Firebirds Rising
by Sharyn November
A collection of sixteen short science fiction and fantasy stories by award-winning authors.
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Alphabet of Dreams
by Susan Fletcher
Mitra and her brother Babak are exiled royals living on the streets as orphaned beggars. Babak possesses a strange gift of being able to know someone's dreams, and soon they find themselves on the road to Bethlehem in this biblical epic.
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The Braid
by Helen Frost
In this unforgettable novel, award-winning poet Helen Frost eloquently twists strand over strand of language, braiding the words at the edges of the poems to bring new poetic forms to life while intertwining the destinies of two young girls and the people who cross their paths.
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The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs
by Jack Gantos
On an unseasonably warm Easter Sunday, a young girl named Ivy discovers a chilling secret in the basement of the Rumbaugh pharmacy across the street from the hotel where she lives with her mother. The discovery reveals a disturbing side to the eccentric lives of family friends Abner and Adolph Rumbaugh--it seems that Ab and Dolph have been compelled by a powerful mutual love for their deceased mother to do something extraordinary, something that in its own twisted way bridges the gap between the living and the dead. Immediately, Ivy's discovery provokes the revelation of a Rumbaugh family curse, a curse that, as Ivy will learn over the coming years, holds a strange power over herself and her own mother. With gothic flavor and black humor, author Gantos depicts a group of people bound together by love, compulsion--and a passion for taxidermy.--From publisher description.
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What Happened to Cass McBride?
by Gail Giles
After his younger brother commits suicide, Kyle Kirby decides to exact revenge on the person he holds responsible.
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The Year the Gypsies Came
by Linzi Alex Glass
In Johannesburg, South Africa, in the late 1960s, twelve-year-old Emily, who longs for affection from her quarreling parents, finds comfort in the stories of a Zulu servant and in her friendship with a young houseguest who has an equally troubled family.
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Saint Iggy
by Kelly L. Going
The second novel from a Printz Honor winner. Iggy leaves public housing behind to make something of his life. It's not easy for Iggy--he's just 16, has no skills, and his only friend is mixed up with the dealer who got Iggy's mom hooked.
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Samurai Shortstop
by Alan Gratz
While obtaining a Western education at a prestigious Japanese boarding school in 1890, sixteen-year-old Toyo also receives traditional samurai training which has profound effects on both his baseball game and his relationship with his father.
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An Abundance of Katherines
by John Green
From the #1 bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars Michael L. Printz Honor Book Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist Katherine V thought boys were gross Katherine X just wanted to be friends Katherine XVIII dumped him in an e-mail K-19 broke his heart When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton's type happens to be girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact. On a road trip miles from home, this anagram-happy, washed-up child prodigy has ten thousand dollars in his pocket, a bloodthirsty feral hog on his trail, and an overweight, Judge Judy-loving best friend riding shotgun--but no Katherines. Colin is on a mission to prove The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability, which he hopes will predict the future of any relationship, avenge Dumpees everywhere, and finally win him the girl. Love, friendship, and a dead Austro-Hungarian archduke add up to surprising and heart-changing conclusions in this ingeniously layered comic novel about reinventing oneself.
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Incantation
by Alice Hoffman
From a New York Times bestselling author comes a journey ofloss and rebirth with a startling premise inspired by historical fact.Estrella is a Marrano: one of the Spanish Jews living double lives whenthose who refused conversion risked everything. Estrella's discovery thather family secretly practices the ancient way of wisdom known as kabbalahleads her to her true self and true love-but also to a devastatingconfrontation with unimaginable evil, unleashed by the betrayal of afriend. With themes of faith, friendship, and persecution, Alice Hoffman'stragic and beautiful novel resonates profoundly in our times.
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Over a Thousand Hills I Walk with You
by Hanna Jansen
Jeanne and her family, who are Tutsis living in Rwanda during a time of civil war, flee their home in hopes of evading Hutu soldiers as political events threaten to overtake them.
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Accidents of Nature
by Harriet McBryde Johnson
Having always prided herself on blending in with "normal" people despite her cerebral palsy, seventeen-year-old Jean begins to question her role in the world while attending a summer camp for children with disabilities.
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Devilish
by Maureen Johnson
When Ally sells her soul in exchange for popularity, it's up to Jane to put it all on the line to save her friend.
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Dreamhunter
by Elizabeth Knox
Laura comes from a world similar to our own except for one difference: it is next to the Place, an unfathomable land that fosters dreams of every kind and is inaccessible to all but a select few, the Dreamhunters. These are individuals with special gifts: the ability to catch larger-than-life dreams and relay them to audiences in the magnificent dream palace, the Rainbow Opera. People travel from all around to experience the benefits of the hunters’ unique visions. Now fifteen-year-old Laura and her cousin Rose, daughters of Dreamhunters, are eligible to test themselves at the Place and find out whether they qualify for the passage. But nothing can prepare them for what they are about to discover. For within the Place lies a horrific secret kept hidden by corrupt members of the government. And when Laura’s father, the man who discovered the Place, disappears, she realizes that this secret has the power to destroy everyone she loves . . . In the midst of a fascinating landscape, Laura’s dreamy childhood is ending and a nightmare beginning. This rich novel, filled with beauty, danger, politics, and intrigue, comes to a powerful crescendo, leaving readers clamoring for Book Two. Dreamhunter is a 2007 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.
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Side Effects
by Amy Goldman Koss
Everything changes for Isabelle, not quite fifteen, when she is diagnosed with lymphoma--but eventually she survives and even thrives.
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Rebound
by Bob Krech
Determined to make the varsity basketball team, seventeen-year-old Ray finds his efforts to play both hindered and helped by the atmosphere of racism in his town.
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White Time
by Margo Lanagan
Presents ten short stories, both dark and hopeful, that journey into the past, the future, and altered versions of the present. By the author of Black Juice.
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The Girls
by Lori Lansens
Rarely has the experience of being a sister been so poignantly and memorably captured as in Lori Lansens's triumphant novel. The Girls celebrates life's fundamental joys and trials as it presents Rose and Ruby, sisters destined to live inseparably but blessed with distinct sensibilities that enrich and complicate their shared experiences-of growing up, of finding their way in the world, of saying good-bye.Readers who encounter the girls will find it hard to resist falling under their spell.
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Kampung Boy
by Lat
Relates the life experiences, from birth to beginning boarding school, of a boy growing up on a rubber plantation in rural Malaysia.
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Black Duck
by Janet Taylor Lisle
When Ruben and Jed find a dead body on the Rhode Island shore, they are certain it has something to do with smuggling liquor. Suddenly, the boys find themselves caught in a war between two Prohibition gangs.
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The Lies of Locke Lamora
by Scott Lynch
Debut author Lynch pens a witty and fast-paced narrative that is nearly as much of a con as the wily schemes of its hero.
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Kiki Strike
by Kirsten Miller
Life becomes more interesting for Ananka Fishbein when, at the age of twelve, she discovers an underground room in the park across from her New York City apartment and meets a mysterious girl called Kiki Strike who claims that she, too, wants to explore the subterranean world.
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Black Swan Green
by David Mitchell
By the New York Times bestselling author of The Bone Clocks and Cloud Atlas | Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize Selected by Time as One of the Ten Best Books of the Year | A New York Times Notable Book | Named One of the Best Books of the Year by The Washington Post Book World, The Christian Science Monitor, Rocky Mountain News, and Kirkus Reviews | A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist | Winner of the ALA Alex Award | Finalist for the Costa Novel Award From award-winning writer David Mitchell comes a sinewy, meditative novel of boyhood on the cusp of adulthood and the old on the cusp of the new. Black Swan Green tracks a single year in what is, for thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor, the sleepiest village in muddiest Worcestershire in a dying Cold War England, 1982. But the thirteen chapters, each a short story in its own right, create an exquisitely observed world that is anything but sleepy. A world of Kissingeresque realpolitik enacted in boys’ games on a frozen lake; of “nightcreeping” through the summer backyards of strangers; of the tabloid-fueled thrills of the Falklands War and its human toll; of the cruel, luscious Dawn Madden and her power-hungry boyfriend, Ross Wilcox; of a certain Madame Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck, an elderly bohemian emigré who is both more and less than she appears; of Jason’s search to replace his dead grandfather’s irreplaceable smashed watch before the crime is discovered; of first cigarettes, first kisses, first Duran Duran LPs, and first deaths; of Margaret Thatcher’s recession; of Gypsies camping in the woods and the hysteria they inspire; and, even closer to home, of a slow-motion divorce in four seasons. Pointed, funny, profound, left-field, elegiac, and painted with the stuff of life, Black Swan Green is David Mitchell’s subtlest and most effective achievement to date. Praise for Black Swan Green “[David Mitchell has created] one of the most endearing, smart, and funny young narrators ever to rise up from the pages of a novel. . . . The always fresh and brilliant writing will carry readers back to their own childhoods. . . . This enchanting novel makes us remember exactly what it was like.”—The Boston Globe “[David Mitchell is a] prodigiously daring and imaginative young writer. . . . As in the works of Thomas Pynchon and Herman Melville, one feels the roof of the narrative lifted off and oneself in thrall.”—Time
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Off Road
by Sean Murphy
Greg is having a great day. Not only did his dad just buy him a brand new yellow Jeep, but it's also the day his friend Trent is coming home from college to visit. Trent, on the other hand, has been in better moods. He's broken-hearted and alone yet again after his cheating girlfriend dumped him. Their other friend, Brad, isn't doing so well either. He's been getting into fist fights with his dad. Brad and Greg are convinced that a party is the solution to all their woes, but Trent wants to break in Greg's new Jeep with some serious off road adventure. Are these three truly prepared for what they'll find when they leave the pavement behind? Not a chance!
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Street Love
by Walter Dean Myers
In this Harlem story told in free verse, seventeen-year-old Damien takes a bold step to ensure that he and his new love will not be separated.