2010

1. 2010 Level 9-12

2. Acceleration by Graham McNamee Duncan's summer job is a nightmare. He's working in the subway's lost and found, in a room he calls the Dungeon, far, far below the city streets. He's bored out of his skull, until he finds the little brown book. The book is a diary filled with the dark and dirty secrets of an anonymous serial killer stalking his prey. Duncan can't stop reading, can't stop thinking. Somewhere in the city, the writer of this diary is hunting. Duncan has to stop him before it's too late. He has to anticipate the killer's next move. Stalk the stalker. Duncan knows – it's up to him. Can Duncan stop a serial killer? Will he be next? Mystery/Thriller

3. Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr Rule #3: Don't stare at invisible faeries.Aislinn has always seen faeries. Powerful and dangerous, they walk hidden in mortal world. Aislinn fears their cruelty—especially if they learn of her Sight — and wishes she were blind to their presence. Rule #2: Don't speak to invisible faeries. Now faeries are stalking her. One of them, Keenan, who is equal parts terrifying and alluring, is trying to talk to her, asking questions Aislinn is afraid to answer. Rule #1: Don't ever attract their attention. But it's too late. Keenan is the Summer King who has sought his queen for nine centuries. Without her, summer itself will perish. He is determined that Aislinn will become the Summer Queen at any cost—regardless of her plans or desires. Suddenly none of the rules are working anymore, and everything is on the line: her freedom; her best friend, Seth; her life; everything. Fantasy

4. Dreamland By Sarah Dessen Ever since she started going out with Rogerson Biscoe, Caitlin seems to have fallen into a semiconscious dreamland where nothing is quite real. Rogerson is different from anyone has ever known. He’s magnetic. He’s compelling. He’s dangerous. Being with him makes Caitlin forget about everything else — her missing sister, her withdrawn mother, her lackluster life. But what happens when being with Rogerson becomes a larger problem than being without him? Wake Up, Caitlyn! Realistic Fiction

5. Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland; and Through the Looking-Glass By Lewis Carroll “Curiouser and Curiouser!” cried Alice In this Wonderland adventure, Alice attempts to make sense of a nonsensical world, along the way meeting some of the most intriguing characters, including the White Rabbit, the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat, and Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Fantasy/Classic

6. Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer Miranda’s disbelief turns to fear in a split second when a meteor knocks the moon closer to the earth. How should her family prepare for the future when worldwide tsunamis wipe out the coasts, earthquakes rock the continents, and volcanic ash blocks out the sun? As summer turns to Arctic winter, Miranda, her two brothers, and their mother retreat to the unexpected safe haven of their sunroom, where they subsist on stockpiled food and limited water in the warmth of a wood-burning stove. Everything was normal until the moon was knocked out of orbit. Will I survive? My family? My future? Could this happen to you, your family...to all of us? ScienceFiction

7. The Book Thief by Markus Zusack Germany 1939: Liesel, a German girl, is sent by her mother to live with foster parents in a small town near Munich. As she learns to cope with her new environment, all the pains she has endured, and the unhappiness of pre-war and wartime Germany, she yearns to escape via reading. Her foster father helps her learn to read, and Liesel finds books here and there — in a snowy graveyard, in a Nazi book-burning, and inside the local mayor's house. She has a few friends; first her neighbor and classmate, Rudy, and later the son of a soldier, a Jew whom her new family must hide in their basement. While the toll of WWII, Allied bombing, and Nazi brutality increases, Liesel's world starts to crumble, but words and reading sustain her. Historical Fiction

8. What does war look like through the eyes of a child soldier? A Long Way Gone By Ismael Beah My high school friends have begun to suspect I haven’t told them the full story of my life. “Why did you leave Sierra Leone?” “Because there is a war.” “Did you witness some of the fighting?” “Everyone in the country did.” “You mean you saw people running around with guns and shooting each other?” “Yes, all the time.” “Cool.” I smile a little. “You should tell us about it sometime.” “Yes, sometime.” Beah, now twenty-six years old, tells a powerfully gripping story of a young boy trained to be a soldier. Non-fiction/Memoir

9. Boy’s Life by Robert McCammon Mysterious serpent in the river? A bike with a golden eye? The year is 1964. On a cold spring morning before the sun, Cory Mackenson is with his father on his milk delivery route. Without warning a car appears in the road before them and plunges into a lake some say is bottomless. Cory's father makes a desperate attempt to save the driver, but instead comes face-to-face with a vision that will haunt and torment him: a dead man handcuffed to the steering wheel, naked and savagely beaten, a copper wire knotted around his neck. The lake's depths claim the car and the corpse, but the murderer's work is unfinished as, from that moment, both Cory and his father begin searching for the truth. A 106 year old lady who conjures up snakes and hears voices from the dead ? ? Mystery/Fantasy

10. Fahrenheit 451 By Ray Bradbury This classic science fiction tale is told through Guy Montag, a fireman who burns books for a living. It takes place in the 24th century in an overpopulated world in which the media controls the masses, censorship prevails over intellect, and books are considered evil because they make people question and think. Science Fiction/Classic

11. Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston Farewell to Manzanar is the true story of a Japanese-American family's confinement in an internment camp during World War II. Jeanne Wakatsuki- Houston was 7 years old when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and created the hysteria that forced 110,000 Japanese Americans from their homes. She remembers the stress of camp life—the stripping away of dignity and privacy, the withering of parental authority, and the divisive pressure to sign loyalty oaths. She also recalls what she took away from Manzanar after it closed—an odd sense of shame and a fierce determination to be accepted as American. Non Fiction/ Autobiography

12. The Gospel According to Larry by Janet Tashjiian Help? Josh Swensen isn't your average teenager - when he observes America, he sees a powerhouse of consumerism and waste. He's even tried to do something about it, with his start-up controversial website. But when Josh rises to messiah status of the internet world, he discovers that greed and superficiality are not easily escaped. Trapped inside his own creation, Josh feels his only way out is to stage his death and be free of his internet alter-ego, "Larry." But this plan comes with danger, and soon Josh finds himself cut off from the world, with no one to turn to for help. Blogging at its best or ...its worst? Realistic Fiction

13. 2007 Printz Award Winner National Book Award finalist ALA best Book for Young Adults, Top Ten List Publisher's Weekly Best Book of the Year School Library Journal Best Book of the Year Booklist Editors' Choice Book San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year NPR Holiday Pick Amazon.com Best Graphic Novel/Comic of the Year American Born Chinese By Gene Luen Yang This graphic novel follows three story lines that converge unexpectedly. The first story is that of a monkey king who thinks he is better than the gods. The second story is that of a second-generation Chinese immigrant who has adventures with his best friend and his first crush who is all- American girl. The final story is that of a white boy who is humiliated when his stereotypical Chinese cousin comes to visit every year. This book is for graphic novel readers & everybody else! Fantasy/GraphicNovel

14. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins Twenty- four are forced to enter. Only the winner survives. In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. Each year, the districts are forced by the Capitol to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the Hunger Games, a brutal and terrifying fight to the death – televised for all of Panem to see. Romance Adventure Fear Survival Death Science Fiction

15. Nineteen Minutes By Jodi Picoult In Sterling, New Hampshire, 17-year-old high school student Peter Houghton has endured years of verbal and physical abuse at the hands of classmates. His best friend, Josie Cormier, succumbed to peer pressure and now hangs out with the popular crowd that often instigates the harassment. One final incident of bullying sends Peter over the edge and leads him to commit an act of violence that forever changes the lives of Sterling’s residents. Bullying Peer Pressure Friendship Realistic Fiction

16. Deathwatch by Robb White Imagine you've been hired to be a hunting guide in the desert when you're the guy that is being hunted. Your customer accidentally shot an old prospector whom nobody knows and doesn't want to go to jail for it. So he makes you take off all your clothes and tells you to try to walk to town, which happens to be 60 miles from where you are. With no food and no water you are forced to walk or do what you need to do, to try to stay alive. So you wander in the desert mountains trying to find water while being watched through a ten-power scope of a .358 caliber Winchester Magnum. . . Well, this is what Ben has to face when he’s hired to be a hunting guide. Adventure/Survival

17. The Book of Fred by Abby Bardi Mary Fred Anderson, raised in an isolated fundamentalist sect whose primary obsessions seem to involve an imminent Apocalypse and the propagation of the name “Fred,” is hardly your average fifteen-year-old. She’s never watched TV, been to a supermarket, or even read much of anything beyond the inscrutable dogma laid out by the prophet Fred. But this is all before Mary Fred’s whole world tilts irrevocably on its axis: before her 2 brothers get sick and pass on to “the World Beyond”; before Mama and Papa are escorted from the Fredian Outpost in police vans; and Mary Fred herself is uprooted and placed in foster care. Realistic Fiction