BookPage Teen Top Pick, January 2015

Rural Russia is not a kind place for Jews in the early 20th century. Miserable, powerless peasants make their Jewish neighbors the scapegoats for everything that goes wrong—and things go wrong all the time. For teenager Clara, the repression tightens as she watches her father and brothers spend their days studying the Torah, while she sweeps floors and prepares meals. As a girl, Clara is forbidden to learn how to read, write or speak Russian—but secretly, she does all three.

When violence explodes against the Jewish villagers, Clara’s family immigrates to New York City. There, Clara feels trapped by the same Jewish traditions that bound her in Russia. While the men continue to read and study, Clara works 10-hour days in a sweatshop. But she will not be caged, not by tradition or injustice. Learning about the formation of unions to protect workers, Clara risks her life to join the crusade.

Based on the true story of Clara Lemlich, Audacity throbs with the emotions of this exceptional young woman who fought for equal rights and improved labor standards in factories. Melanie Crowder’s verses spit out Clara’s rage, cradle her longing and soar like the birds that are her constant companions. Pair with Margaret Peterson Haddix’s Uprising or Elizabeth Winthrop’s Counting on Grace to get a full picture of early labor conditions for young immigrants.

Diane Colson works at the Nashville Public Library. She has long been active in the American Library Association's Young Adult Library Association (YALSA), serving on selection committees such as the Morris Award, the Alex Award and the Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Award.

This article was originally published in the January 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

In There Will Be Lies, a young girl and her mother are on the run from an untrustworthy past filled with unsavory characters, all the while protecting themselves from everything and everyone under a freshly woven blanket of lies.

Shelby Jane Cooper is 17 years old and knows nearly nobody in her home of Phoenix, Arizona. Since she is homeschooled by her uber-protective, overweight, painfully shy mother who’s scared of everything—especially men—Shelby doesn’t get out much, or even have the chance to talk with other people. But this has been her life for so long that it doesn’t even seem unusual to her. That is, until she gets struck by a car after leaving the library one afternoon. While lying on the hot pavement, Shelby has a vision of a coyote—considered cosmically dangerous and ominous by the local Navajo tradition—trot up to her and tell her, “There will be two lies. Then there will be the truth. And that will be the hardest of all.” As soon as Shelby can be released from the hospital, her mother uncharacteristically rushes her into a rental car packed with all their belongings. As they put some ground between them and Phoenix, Shelby’s mom finally begins to reveal what may be the truth about her father: He’s not dead after all, and he may be coming after them at this very moment.

Nick Lake is a publishing director by day and a Printz Award-winning YA novelist by night. In this emotionally charged thrill ride, he honors the existential through his masterful storytelling to remind us that life is what we make of it, and that it is meant to be lived fully, regardless of how terrifying it may at first seem.

Justin Barisich is a freelancer, satirist, poet and performer living in Atlanta. More of his writing can be found at littlewritingman.com.

This skillfully rendered novel traces Malcolm X's life through flashbacks, from his father's death to his imprisonment and eventual understanding of his father’s wisdom. X reads like a biography, in part because the author is Malcolm X’s daughter Ilyasah Shabazz, written with the multiple award-winning Kekla Magoon.

Against the backdrop of the racist 1930’s, Malcolm is a promising student until a teacher tells him he won’t amount to much because of his color. This conversation sends 15-year-old Malcolm on a downward spiral across state and ethical lines.

The circular storytelling pattern works well as readers experience Malcolm’s struggles and insights right along with him. In Boston he is seduced by the underbelly of society and eventually moves to Harlem for more action. Wanted by a numbers racket boss, he flees New York, and when back in Boston, he engages in a hustle that lands him in jail.

Throughout Malcolm’s many tribulations, he searches for his true self. Eventually he, like the story, comes full circle, and Malcolm fully embraces his father’s words: “You can be and do anything you put your mind to.”

The book contains racial slurs, and readers will encounter episodes of alcohol and drug use, sex, violence, as well as a description of the aftermath of a lynching, though none are extremely graphic. The publication of this book marks the 50th anniversary of Malcolm X’s assassination (February 21) and is a worthy tribute to the man.

Comparing a new young adult author to superstar John Green is risky business. Fans of Green’s work are bound to bring a certain set of expectations to their next read—expectations that All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven meets and even exceeds.

Theodore Finch is the school freak. He can rattle off statistics about suicide as easily as literary quotations, and he’s never bothered joining Facebook because he doesn’t have any friends. His fellow senior Violet Markey is a frustrated writer struggling to redefine her identity and reframe her future plans after the car accident that killed her older sister. When the two teens find themselves working together on a geography project, they soon discover that there’s much more to be learned on their “wanderings” than mere sightseeing. As Violet draws Finch out his shell and Finch teaches Violet to make peace with the past, their relationship seems headed toward long-term happiness. But some problems turn out to be too deeply entrenched to be solved.

Told in alternating perspectives, this heart-wrenching, deeply personal novel includes lots of motifs familiar to Green fans, like road trips, physics metaphors and even references to unusual Indiana landmarks. Niven expertly crafts both of her narrative voices to reflect her characters’ changing moods and perspectives, and she’s at her strongest exactly when her characters are at their most conflicted. In the end, as the two travelers learn, life isn’t as much about what you take as what you leave behind.

Jill Ratzan teaches research rudiments in central New Jersey. She learned most of what she knows about YA lit from her terrific grad students.

The 12 constellations that form the houses of the Zodiac are the backdrop for this intriguing debut novel. Cancrian Rho is attending school when she begins to have a recurring vision of a dark mass entering the universe beyond Pisces, the 12th House. Like everyone else, Rho has heard rumors of a mysterious 13th House, ruled by an evil renegade named Orphiuchus, and she suspects this might be his return to the Zodiac.

The mass seems to be stretching the fabric of the solar system and will cause disasters throughout all of the 12 houses. No one of importance credits Rho’s vision, however. But after she accurately predicts the collision of Cancer’s four moons, Rho becomes the new Guardian of her sign—a big responsibility for a 16-year-old girl. Fortunately, Rho has help from two young men vying for her affection.

Science-fiction fans will appreciate the complexity of the Zodiac universe, from the inventive ephemeral technology to the detailed creation of life in each of the 12 houses. Rho’s Cancer, for example, is a blue planet covered with water, beloved by home-loving Cancrians. Some readers may find the 12 houses to be similar in purpose to the factions and districts in other YA dystopias, complete with love interests from opposing camps. Like Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles series, Zodiac blends elements of myth, futuristic technology and space adventure. The book’s end offers a satisfying tease for the next installment.

Diane Colson works at the Nashville Public Library. She has long been active in the American Library Association's Young Adult Library Association (YALSA), serving on selection committees such as the Morris Award, the Alex Award and the Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults Award.

Maddie Diaz is looking forward: to a new life once she starts college; to a better relationship with her mother, whose acrimonious divorce is finally coming through; and to a little distance from her friends so she can spread her wings. Cutting through a park after a late shift at work, she witnesses a crime that threatens her future happiness . . . and her life. On the Edge looks at the costs of integrity in an often-lawless world.

Author Allison Van Diepen’s (Street Pharm) books are often recommended for reluctant readers, and On the Edge is no exception. Maddie is an overachiever in school and a hard worker, but she parties hard in her free time. She’s editor of the school paper and uses her analytical skills to make sense of her new normal. After witnessing the crime, she's on the run from a gang but protected by an anonymous stranger known only as Lobo. Male and female readers alike will root for Maddie to succeed. This is a love story, but one with side trips through gang hideouts, drug abuse and the frightening realities of human trafficking.

Maddie and her friends are hardened by life in their Miami neighborhood, where crime is commonplace, but they never stop looking for a better life despite the odds against them. When she is jumped and severely beaten as a warning not to testify about what she’s seen, her friend describes her appearance as “so Guantanamo.” On the Edge is rife with harsh realities but reminds us that it’s how we face them that counts.

The diamond mines of Marange in Zimbabwe serve as the setting for this portrait of a family in turmoil, which focuses on a tenacious 15-year-old boy named Patson Moyo. Patson and his little sister, Grace, adore their father, a man who has dedicated his life to teaching. But it is their new stepmother, known simply as “the Wife,” who compels her husband to leave his home and seek wealth by moving to Marange, where her brother James is involved in mining. In Marange, she claims, there are “diamonds for everyone.”

“I had never met Uncle James, but I knew I wouldn’t like him,” reflects Patson before the family sets off on their journey. From the outset, it is clear they have entered a treacherous world. Their driver will not even take them all the way to Marange for fear of danger on the roads. The school Patson’s father hopes to work at has closed; the government housing is an empty promise.

Patson and his father go to work in the mines, with Patson becoming part of a syndicate of teen miners who hope to pool their profits to get a chance at a better life—and find that one priceless stone. But when government soldiers arrive to put an end to the “diamond rush,” Patson’s world is shattered.

Michael Williams, who has written young adult novels such as Crocodile Burning and Now Is the Time for Running, is also the managing director of Cape Town Opera in South Africa. He brings a strong sense of place and authenticity to this gripping look into events that took place after the discovery of diamonds in Zimbabwe in 2006.

Deborah Hopkinson lives near Portland, Oregon. Her most recent book for young readers is The Great Trouble.

BookPage Teen Top Pick, November 2014

Kekla Magoon’s books just keep getting better. The first time I read her work, I was serving on the Coretta Scott King Awards committee, and we honored Magoon with the Steptoe New Talent Award for The Rock and the River. So it’s with special pride that I look forward to each of her subsequent releases.

A review of How It Went Down could read like a cliché: “ripped from the headlines . . . as fresh as the morning paper . . . as gripping as any story on the nightly news.” But this book is not cliché at all. Written shortly after the death of Trayvon Martin and published shortly after the killing of Michael Brown and the response in Ferguson, Missouri, it’s a hard book to read without flashing back to headlines.

It’s the story of one young man, Tariq Johnson, who is shot while walking down the street at 5:30 p.m. by a white man who drives away in a borrowed car. Though Tariq carried no weapon, the shooter claims self-defense and is released after questioning. What might have been a linear story is made much more interesting as many of the survivors—grief-stricken, angry family members, gang friends and neighbors—reveal their own tales. Each person has an attachment to Tariq, and each tries to figure out the truth.

The reader gets caught in the same maze as everyone else: Who was Tariq? What happened on that afternoon? These hundreds of vignettes, with their varying narrators and conflicting perspectives, could leave the reader confused, but Magoon keeps a firm hand on her story. We may never find the answers we’re looking for, but after reading this book, we will look at the headlines with a much more critical eye.

This is not only a book to read in one gulp; it’s a book that asks you to slow down and read it over and over again. It’s an important, compelling story that everyone should read, especially high school students trying to make sense of our supposed post-racial world.

This article was originally published in the November 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Contemporary young adult literature is full of teenage heroines trying to survive in a world, either real or fantastical, that has gone completely mad. Sometimes the power they find within themselves is natural, sometimes supernatural; it can be a gift or a curse. Marie Lu’s wonderful new novel has many of these familiar qualities.

In The Young Elites, a plague has left many adults dead and young children marked and scarred. When some of the children start to display strange powers, society decides that they are dangerous, cursed—a malfetto. For Adelina Amouteru, this means that her cruel father will do just about anything to get rid of her.

When Adelina commits a crime and tries to run away, she is caught by the Inquisitors and sentenced to death. It is only the arrival of the infamous Young Elites—malfettos who live in hiding—that saves her. Adelina must learn to control her powers if she wants to be one of them, but there are external forces testing her loyalties and decisions that are nearly impossible to make.

Lu portrays Adelina with heart-wrenching authenticity. We cheer for her, but we fear her a little, too. The Young Elites is the first in a series but ends neatly. Here’s hoping she’s already at work on the second one.

Jennifer Bruer Kitchel is the librarian for a Pre-K through eighth level Catholic school.

Set in the wealthy fictional town of Haverport, New York, The Doubt Factory is the story of one teen’s determination to fight society’s most overlooked evil—the public relations industry that covers up and spins corporate atrocities, even if the worst firm happens to be headed by her own father.

Alix Banks attends the prestigious and exclusive Seitz Academy, where affluent parents pay to have their children taught by the best and to be insulated from the evils of the outside world. However, the school’s charade of security comes crashing to the ground when Moses Cruz, the leader of a radical crew of teen activists, assaults the principal and vandalizes a school building. During the fray, Moses grabs Alix and suggests that her father is much more than he appears. When Alix starts monitoring her father’s behavior, she is confronted by the darkest sides of Big Brother, the radicals who fight the unseen Man, conspiracy theories and the illusions of safety and privacy in a country that claims to uphold and protect the inalienable right of free speech.

In this incredible thriller, unexpected plot twists occur as often as every page turn, and morality and rightness oscillate within a gray area. National Book Award finalist Paolo Bacigalupi’s smart and honest approach to critiquing the PR industry is rare and refreshing.

This article was originally published in the October 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.