Drugstore owner Frank Robinson wants to bring Dayton, Tennessee, back to life. Since Cumberland Coal and Iron shut down its blast furnace, business is hurting and the population is declining. Robinson’s solution? Publicity! Let the outside world know the town’s charms. So, when the ACLU seeks a teacher willing to test a law that bans the teaching of evolution, Robinson thinks of John Scopes, a young football and basketball coach who taught the chapter on evolution when he was a substitute teacher in science class. Complicating matters is 15-year-old Frances Robinson, who has a crush on Scopes and finds herself torn between loyalty to her father and her love for Johnny. She is forced to grow up and see the world in new ways that summer.

As the 1925 trial of the century shapes up, Dayton does, indeed, attract publicity. It becomes the laughingstock of the entire nation. Readers who know the story through Inherit the Wind will enjoy Ronald Kidd’s retelling in Monkey Town: The Summer of the Scopes Trial. Kidd does a fabulous job of recreating the sense of a small Tennessee town taking on more than it can handle. When William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow hash out evolution versus science, with H.L. Mencken reporting for the national papers, Judge Raulston decides to limit the case to a simple matter of whether Scopes did indeed teach evolution. All of the fiery rhetoric comes to naught when Scopes is found guilty after nine minutes of jury deliberation and fined $100.

In the chaos of a little town inundated by the outside world and a young girl in love with a man on trial, all lives are changed.

Readers will find inevitable similarities to To Kill A Mockingbird in this superb historical novel, which has a strong sense of place, well-developed characters and clearly related ideas. Dean Schneider is a teacher in Nashville.

Donna Jo Napoli, an author long admired for her fairy tale retellings (Zel, Beast, Bound and The Prince of the Pond), explores the famous Hans Christian Andersen story of The Ugly Duckling in a new version set in Tasmania.

Mother, a Pacific black duck, desperately encourages the enormous green egg in her nest to hatch. But when it does finally hatch, Mother is the only one who is happy. It seems that every critter on Dove Lake has it out for poor Ugly. The freckled ducks gang up on him, the grebes are simply terrified, and the teal ducklings bite him. Soon Mother has no choice. For the safety of the rest of her family, she sorrowfully lets him know his fate: You're my little genius. If you use your head, you have a chance. But if you stay here, you have none. The other ducks of Dove Lake will surely kill you. She advises him to make a friend. A friend helps. All anyone really needs is one good friend. So, sadly, that is what Ugly sets out to do, make a friend.

Napoli warmly embraces the wildlife of Tasmania through the eyes and beak of Ugly. First he attempts to befriend a plainspoken wallaby. But the wallaby seems only interested in boxing and protecting itself from the odious Tasmanian Devil, his most feared predator. Then, our unlikely hero meets up with a wombat, who promises to be a better friend, even though he stays in a hole and lives in fear of quolls. And on through the wonderful world of Tasmanian wildlife Ugly goes from wombat to swamphens to geese to human beings to possums and, finally, to swans. He learns the truth about himself and finds out that his mother was right after all: all anyone really needs is a good friend.

Napoli's hilarious ducky voice rings through this entertaining tale. She chooses not to talk down to her young readers, filling her prose with such scientific words as crepuscular, undulate, nocturnal and monotreme. A professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College, Napoli conveys a contagious delight in language and a charming animal's-eye view of the world.

Rose and Ivy Latham are sisters, friends and companions, until one winter night when a new driver in a blue truck slides off a mountain road into their car. Eighteen-year-old Ivy was driving, but now she is in a coma in a convalescent home. Though she is not technically brain dead, doctors find virtually no brain function. When she is experimentally taken off the ventilator, Ivy tries to breathe and convinces her bereft mother that she wants to live. So her life continues. She is fed by a stomach tube, her hair grows, her eyes stay closed, even when her sister sits with her for hours and hours, reading and talking to her.

Anyone who has lived through the horror of a traumatic brain injury will recognize the survivors. First we have 17-year-old Rose, who relives the terror of the accident every day. She wakes up, hoping that this memory is nothing more that a terrible nightmare. But it isn't. Every quiet moment is filled with the blue truck, the brakes, the rainy road, the blood, the terror and the emptiness. It can not be filled by the hours and hours spent visiting Ivy and reading to her. It cannot be filled with gratuitous sex. Nothing can make her feel anything. The weight of the accident is too much for Rose as she is consumed with memories and the thoughts of what she would give up to have Ivy back. Would she sacrifice even her life?

Then, we have their mother. She fills her day at the brewery, righting bottles, straightening labels and blindly working. At night, her hands are busy, too. She is obsessively folding 1,000 paper cranes, folding and folding as if that will save her girl. She does not fill her days visiting her comatose daughter, however. In the words of her compassionate neighbor, William T., she is doing the best she can.

Though Rose's mother is living in denial and in her own pain, William T. and a childhood friend, Tom Miller, recognize her pain and help her move toward healing. Little by little, Rose comes to realize that Ivy was someone who lived her life like a rushing river, while Rose has to rely on her inner lake of calm to restore herself.

All Rivers Flow to the Sea presents a sad, touching and altogether realistic story. The first-person narrative can, at times, be almost too painful, too close. But McGhee's voice is always clear and honest.

Rain May’s life seems to have fallen apart, as revealed in the opening line of Stranded in Boringsville: “When Dad moved out of our home and into Julia’s apartment, Mum changed her name to Maggie, put our house up for sale and had a huge clean-out.”

Rain May and her mom leave Melbourne, Australia, and move into her deceased grandmother’s old house in a small town. She’s a city girl suddenly adrift in the country, but luckily there’s a boy next door to keep her company. Daniel is a bit younger, and the unlikely pair forge a friendship. Both are sensitive and isolated (Rain May, by the way, gets her name from a line of poetry by e.e. cummings). Daniel is a brain who is shunned by his peers, but he takes refuge in chess and Star Trek. Rain May tries to figure out how to enjoy new friends at school without being disloyal to Daniel.

Author Catherine Bateson is a poet and children’s writer in Australia, where this novel was first published as Rain May and Captain Daniel, capturing a Book of the Year Award from the Children’s Book Council of Australia. The plot moves quietly but quickly along, as Rain May goes back and forth between her mother and father and tries to comprehend her father’s new life and significant other, Julia.

The Australian setting adds interest and universality to the everyday joys and sorrows. Rain May slowly starts to appreciate her new surroundings, especially when she and Daniel spot a platypus after days of failed watching attempts. Daniel’s father, a busy physician, tells them: “You’ve joined an exclusive club, kids. Not many people these days have seen a platypus in the wild.”

Stranded in Boringsville is a lovely account of trying to comprehend the many changes of adolescence. Rain May and Daniel are believable characters who tackle their problems with grace and humor. How lovely, too, to see a book about a deep friendship between a lonely boy and a lonely girl that has no sexual overtones, and is simply a story of giving and caring.

Alice Cary writes from Groton, Massachusetts.

If your teen prefers short stories to novels, The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy for Teens, edited by Jane Yolen and Patrick Nielson Hayden, offers a range of excellent choices culled from stories published in 2004. In the first such collection especially for teens, the 11 entries cover the gamut from high fantasy to hard science fiction and everything in-between. From fairies living in handbags to augmented super dogs, flying islands, dark changelings and baby dragons, there is something for every reader’s taste. The contributors include many authors already popular with kids today, such as Garth Nix and David Gerrold, as well as some who might be new to teenage readers, including Theodora Goss and Kelly Link. A bonus story by Rudyard Kipling, first published 100 years ago, gives historic range to the collection. With suggestions for other books to read and a list of Honor Stories that came out in 2004, this anthology can lead the reader to even more wonderful tales. Colleen Cahill is Recommending Officer of Science Fiction and Fantasy at the Library of Congress.

In Stephen Baxter’s The Web: GulliverZone we are shown what teenagers might do for entertainment in the near future. Sarah is delighted to be spending World Peace Day by spinning into the Web and visiting the hot new theme park GulliverZone, which is based on Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. She is not amused that her little brother and the most unpopular girl in school are tagging along, but sometimes older sisters have to pay a price and this one is not too high for the latest Web entertainment spot. Sarah and her companions had hoped for cool rides but instead stumble into a dark plot, one that could lead them to become slaves of an evil force that is trying to take over the entire Web. Only three kids stand between chaos and saving the whole computer network. This exciting book is especially good for those interested in computers and virtual reality.

Colleen Cahill is Recommending Officer of Science Fiction and Fantasy at the Library of Congress.

The word Siberia conjures up images of hardship and grueling labor in snowy wastelands. Rosita and her mother are banished to such a place in Ann Halam’s Siberia, her third science fiction novel for young adults. Once a scientist, Rosita’s mother now makes nails from scrap metal and tries to keep her daughter alive in a challenging environment. Both mother and daughter share a secret in their treasure box of seeds: these are seeds not of plants, but of animals, a cache of species that are endangered or extinct. In this repressive society, Rosita finds that even small mistakes can be dangerous; her mother disappears and she is sent away to a prison school. Toughened by life, Rosita sets out on a journey to reach sanctuary, not just for her own sake, but also to save her mother’s treasure. This compelling story is science fiction but has the atmosphere of a fairy tale, which makes it attractive to fans of either genre. Colleen Cahill is Recommending Officer of Science Fiction and Fantasy at the Library of Congress.

Sorcery is usually seen as a great power, but in Justine Larbalestier’s Magic or Madness magic can be a dark curse. Reason Cansino has had an unusual childhood, as her mother Sarafina keeps the family traveling through Australia, trying to outrun Esmeralda, an evil witch and Reason’s grandmother. After Sarafina tries to kill herself, Reason finds she is now in the custody of her grandmother. If she had any doubts about Esmeralda working spells, one trip to the basement cures her uncertainty and sends the girl on a search for answers about her family background. Magic runs throughout her family tree, and Reason seems to have a choice of using the evil power or going mad. With the help of her neighbor Tom, Reason tries to escape her grandmother’s grasp and goes through a door that sends her to New York. Some hard lessons are learned as Reason searches for a way to make her life more than a choice between two unhappy paths.

Colleen Cahill is Recommending Officer of Science Fiction and Fantasy at the Library of Congress.

Carol Emshwiller is an award-winning writer whose new book for young adults, Mister Boots, is a fantasy, but don’t expect fairies, elves or magic wands. Ten-year-old Bobby is more familiar with California’s arid ranches and the poverty of the Great Depression than Oz or Narnia. While exploring one night Bobby discovers a naked man sleeping under a tree, a man who claims to be a horse. It is soon clear that Mister Boots is sometimes a man and sometimes a horse. He asks Bobby to keep his secret, something Bobby is good at because unbeknownst to all but her mother and sister, Bobby is actually Roberta. This disguise is not to fool the locals, but to protect her from an abusive, often absent father who obsessively desires a son. When her mother dies and Bobby’s father returns, it takes all of Mister Boots’ and Bobby’s magic to face the challenge.

Colleen Cahill is Recommending Officer of Science Fiction and Fantasy at the Library of Congress.

How would you feel if your country was attacked, suddenly, without warning? How would you feel if you were put under suspicion, regarded with contempt, even afraid for your life, because you were of the same nationality as the attackers? How would you feel if you were still viewed with prejudice even after you had volunteered to serve your country? If you think we're referring to 9/11, it only serves to reinforce the adage that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. The attack in question here wasn't on the island of Manhattan, but on the island of Oahu Pearl Harbor, to be exact. Graham Salisbury's new book for teens, Eyes of the Emperor, deals with the effects of the attack on a Japanese-American teen, his efforts to prove his loyalty to his country and the strange and dangerous pathways prejudice can take us down in a time of war.

Eddy Okubo isn't like his dad; the old man builds boats for his customers, both Asian and haole (white), taking equal care with each. Pop Okubo wants his sons to attend university in Japan some day, but 16-year-old Eddy just wants to play baseball and be like his two buddies who have enlisted in the Army. He alters his birth certificate and does enlist, much to his father's consternation, but shortly after he finishes boot camp, America is attacked and Eddy's life changes drastically. He and other Asian soldiers are held at gunpoint, then put to work doing menial tasks. Even so, they manage to prove themselves loyal. Eddy's desire to serve his country is put to the test when he, along with the rest of his Japanese-American squad, are shipped out to the unlikeliest of places to serve as guinea pigs in the unlikeliest of experiments, and he'll need all of his courage and wits to survive.

Eyes of the Emperor may be a novel, and quite a good one at that, but the story is based on actual events. When you read it, you'll think to yourself, could this really have happened? Yes, it did, and Salisbury's meticulous research brings Eddy's story to life in a remarkably immediate way.

In Valerie Hobbs’ new novel, Defiance, we are introduced to two people from different worlds. Pearl is 94, born before television or computers or cell phones. She milks cows, grows tomatoes and writes poetry. She grew up in a time when reading was a pleasure and reading together could be romantic. But now she is going blind, though her milky blue eyes still see much in her new friend. Toby is 11, a skinny, bald boy with eyes too big for his face. He watches television, surfs the Web and gets scanned by magnetic resonance imaging. Toby has cancer. Yet, Toby muses, None of these differences mattered, they were friends just the same. Toby meets Pearl while spending time at a cabin in the country with his mom. Out riding his bike one day, he sees a crazy, witchy woman screaming at the crows threatening her garden. Toby ends up helping her around the house learning to milk Blossom the cow, tend her garden and read poetry. Both have given up on life in some way, and the friendship they share affects them deeply. Toby has noticed that a lump has recurred, but so horrifying were his treatments that he vows not to go through them again, knowing his life is at stake. Pearl’s life got too dark, not because of her incipient blindness, but because her husband was shot and killed coming out of a florist shop, carrying yellow tulips. A senseless thing, and so she stopped writing. Yet other poets’ words are still important to her and she shares them with Toby.

When Blossom dies and the fact of death is before them, Pearl and Toby come up with an unspoken challenge, to be warriors and do what must be done: it’s not Toby’s time to die, and Pearl must write her poetry. As Pearl says when teaching Toby how to read a poem, Poetry is all about stopping at the right places. Just because you come to the end of a line doesn’t mean you have to stop there. Stop at the periods, just like you do anywhere else. Now begin again. And so they begin again, realizing their lives are not at the proper stopping places yet.

This brief, poetic novel an ode to life, friendship and the power of words will linger for a long time in the minds of its readers.

Heller Highland is aptly named; he careens on his bicycle through the steaming streets of New York City like a bat out of the proverbial underworld, dodging trucks, avoiding policemen and frightening pedestrians. It’s his job. Heller works for Soft Tidings, a messenger service with an angle the message, whether good or bad, is delivered in person, verbally. Burning City, a new novel by the father-son team of Ariel and Joaquin Dorfman, tells the story of Heller’s summer, when one boy takes the first steps to becoming a man. It’s 2001, the summer before the Twin Towers apocalypse, and Heller has been abandoned by his parents, globe-trotting relief workers, to live with his grandparents in a small, second-story walk-up. For a 16-year-old kid who dreams of one day competing in the Tour de France, being a bike messenger might seem like a dream job, but like all dreams, there’s more here than meets the eye. For one thing, it’s Heller’s job to deliver bad news; he has a knack for empathizing with his clients and somehow seems to know the right thing to say to ease the pain of the message, whether it be a sudden death, a lost opportunity or, in the case of Salim Adasi, a lover’s rejection.

Heller knows all about rejection. He’s madly in love with a girl he’s too shy to approach, but things change when he meets Salim. The Turkish immigrant takes the boy under his wing and gives him some unusual life lessons as they wind their way through the multicultural streets of the city. When Salim’s dubious book business, an irate cop and Heller’s adolescent drives result in tragedy, the boy must grow up fast.

Burning City, like many coming-of-age novels, deals with immersing one’s self in the unknown. Widely traveled but sorely lacking in social skills, Heller is no different than any other adolescent on the verge of adulthood, and with the help of Salim and his friends, he learns the delights and responsibilities of growing up. While adult in tone and language, Burning City is an excellent choice for teen readers. It admirably evokes the streets of the big city and the angst of every teen with big dreams.

Navigating the halls of high school is a hard enough challenge for a teenager. Add to that a parental breakup, a move from a distant location and a school where the rules of normality are thrown out the window and you’ve got the makings of The Rise and Fall of a 10th-Grade Social Climber, a new novel for teens by Lauren Mechling and Laura Moser.

The co-authors, who met while sharing acne medication in a company ladies’ room, share an eye-opening glimpse into the life of Mimi Schulman, a 15-year-old Texas transplant who finds herself in the heart of New York City’s eclectic scene. Shortly after her arrival, Mimi is goaded into making a bet with a childhood friend in which she pledges to become friends with the Coolies, the most popular and seemingly shallowest girls in her class. Though initiated as a joke, the wager soon becomes the bane of Mimi’s existence. As she grows closer and closer to the Coolies, Mimi learns that although the Coolies seem egotistical and uncaring, they are actually a closely knit group of sympathetic friends. Their perceived egotism comes not from feeling better than those around them, but from a desire to protect each other from the various traumas of their lives. Once she is let in on each of the girls’ secrets a battle with drug addiction, a habit of shoplifting, a mother on the verge of a nervous breakdown, an inability to make the grade Mimi struggles to admit her own little secret: that her friendship with them is based on lies and deceit. But before she can come clean to her newfound friends, Mimi’s ill-conceived scheme is exposed. The Coolies turn on her and she is left to sort out who she is on her own. The authors present a no-holds-barred look at the realities of being an adolescent in today’s society: parental breakups, peer pressure, drugs, alcohol and sex. And though not every teenager will be confronted with these issues, it is clear from this glimpse into the adolescent world that the challenges of being a teenager today are more complex than most of us realize.