At first you might think the subjects of this novel are off-putting: it features youth gangs running scams and a baby-snatching plot in a maternity ward. Never fear. Between the witty word-smithing of Irish novelist Colin Bateman and the engaging voice of his protagonist, Eddie, readers are in good hands. Poor Eddie. He and his parents were planning a vacation in Spain when his mother announces that his father has run off with a colleague, they are divorcing, and she and Eddie are moving to the city, where she will work in a hospital. Eddie’s mother tries to present this overload of changes in a good light, but Eddie doesn’t buy her spiel. He replies: “I have lost my father, my school, my friends, and my home, and I also have to move to the city, a city you have always said was dark and dangerous and never allowed me to go to.” Eddie is bored in his new home without any friends, so he starts nosing around the hospital. He realizes something is afoot when a celebrity named Alison Beech is about to visit the hospital and make a sizable donation.

Eddie’s situation goes from bad to worse when his mother starts dating Bernard Scuttles, head of security at the hospital, a man whom Eddie instantly hates. He believes Scuttles is behind a plot to kidnap Alison Beech, but it turns out that the problem is instead the kidnapping of babies. Eddie is the only witness, and apparently the only one who can save the babies.

If all of this sounds highly implausible, Eddie’s narration makes it riveting and funny, and the story always rings true. One does need a touch of black humor: for instance, Eddie meets a boy begging in a wheelchair who turns out not to have leg problems, and then another who indeed can’t walk and turns out to be a gang leader.

This is Bateman’s first book for young adults he has written several for adults and the first installment of a trilogy featuring Eddie. His writing is so engaging that you may find yourself seeking out his adult books.

Ann Brashares does it again. In her third book chronicling four adolescent girls and one pair of lucky pants they all share, Brashares taps into the teenage girl psyche with remarkable insight.

Brashares launched the Sisterhood phenomenon in 2001 with The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, a coming-of-age story that featured four girls and a favorite pair of thrift-store jeans. The book became a bestseller that spawned a sequel (The Second Summer of the Sisterhood) and a movie to be released this summer by Warner Bros.

In her newest title, Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood, Brashares again takes us into the hearts and minds of four teenage girlfriends, Tibby, Carmen, Lena and Bridget, whose mothers met at a prenatal aerobics class. This year, we find the girls facing what might be their last summer together as they prepare to head off to college. With love, sex and the fear of change on their minds, the four best friends share laughter, tears and life-changing moments as they help each other deal with the issues at hand. Whereas in Brashares’ two previous books, a pair of “traveling pants” played a major role in the stories, here Brashares focuses on the role of the sisterhood in helping the girls overcome their challenges.

Brashares’ easy writing style helps the reader understand the familiar problems each girl encounters. From experiencing true love for the first time, to accepting things beyond one’s control, to creating a new role in one’s own family, the girls deal with obstacles beyond their initial comprehension. And although they are fearful during the process, each of the “sisters” teaches us that as long as we are true to ourselves, whatever we decide will somehow work out perhaps not the way we have planned it, but it will work out nonetheless. With such candid treatment of important coming-of-age issues, it’s no wonder that Brashares’ books are so popular among the teen and pre-teen crowds. Where else can a girl find not one, but four best friends who truly understand her point of view? Heidi Henneman writes from New York City.

In a simply written, swift-moving narrative that won the 2004 National Book Award for Young People's Literature, Pete Hautman's Godless explores the nature of religion, belief, power, obsession and corruption. This is heady stuff for a short, young adult novel, but Hautman uses humor and snappy dialogue to leaven his weighty plot.

Teenager Jason Bock has started a new religion. He and his followers worship the Ten-legged One and call themselves Chutengodians, a word created out of Church of the Ten-legged God. Their god is the local water tower.

Why not worship a water tower? Jason reasons. What's more important to the life of the town? What is a more essential compound than water? Chutengodians have an immediate feeling of power and grace when they climb the tower and look down upon creation the lights of the town, the glow of the horizon, the night sky all around.

What starts as a whacko idea gathers momentum. A new religion calls for a bible, commandments, a High Priest, a Grand Kahuna, a Keeper of the Sacred Text and devotees. But when local bully Henry Stagg is admitted into the inner circle of the Chutengodians, the seeds of dissension are sown and the potential for evil unleashed. Hautman's funny interludes include Jason's fumbling phone conversation with the beautiful Magda, where Jason, leader of the religion, is reduced to Neanderthal grunts and silences. I'm glad I'm not trying to have a conversation with me, he thinks. It must be boring as hell. A late-night swim in the water tower, a near-fatal fall, arrests and a schism within the church shake up the members, and readers are left to wonder at the appeal of such an unlikely organization. What does each member get out of belonging to it? For Jason, it's the chance to be a leader. For Henry, it's an insidious opportunity for power. For Magda, it's an attraction to tough-guy Henry. By novel's end, Jason has changed only in an envy of other people's beliefs. I have a religion, but I have no faith, he says. Maybe one day I'll find a deity I can believe in. Until then, my god is made of steel and rust.

Moving to a new town and a new school can be a frightening thing. For Imogene, who has decided to leave her troubled ways behind, it is an opportunity to find a real friend. Looking for someone who is not part of a clique, she connects with Maxine, a loner who dresses in knee-length skirts and gets good grades. This could be a case of opposites attracting, since Imogene sports a few tattoos and doesn’t worry much about her grades. But both girls are smart, good-natured and have suffered from the hands of bullies, so as they learn from each other, their friendship blossoms.

Imogene does make a break with her past of gangs and other problems until she finds a new worry in the form of Adrian. It is not that he is a bully: he is a ghost. This would not be a big issue if he did not have a crush on her. His attention draws the notice of other supernatural beings, and Imogene begins to have strange dreams about her imaginary childhood friend, Pelly, and a band of weird creatures. These turn out to be fairies who are drawing an even darker force toward Imogene, one that threatens her very soul.

This urban fantasy, set in writer Charles de Lint’s fictional town of Newford, is full of ingenuity and wonder. De Lint, who describes his work as “mythic fiction,” is a master at creating believable characters and placing them in strange and fascinating situations. Whether or not you ever changed schools or were one of the “weird” kids, there is something for you in this absorbing novel. Colleen Cahill works at the Library of Congress, where one of her duties is Recommending Officer of Science Fiction and Fantasy.

You have to give him credit. Christopher Paul Curtis could have stuck with writing the kind of books that have already brought him much acclaim. The Watsons Go to Birmingham 1963 and Bud, Not Buddy are both historical novels for intermediate readers, and both have been hugely successful. Bucking the Sarge, however, is a contemporary novel for older readers. Its protagonist is 15-year-old Luther T. Farrell, who goes to Whittier Middle School, runs the Happy Neighbor Group Home for Men, has an illegal driver's license and keeps a condom named Chauncey in his wallet. Chauncey and that wallet had been together so long that "Chauncey had worn a circle right in the leather, and a circle ain't nothing but a great big zero, which was just about my chances of ever busting Chauncey loose and using him." And, thus, the comic tone of the novel is established.

If Luther seems older than he is and his voice seems a little worldly and swaggering for a 15-year-old, you just have to figure his mother made him that way for her own purposes; she's a very calculating woman. This is a wholly original, latter-day urban Robin Hood tale, where Luther discredits his reputation as a loser and sets out for revenge against his mother, aka the Sarge. Mrs. Farrell has become fabulously wealthy by creating an empire of slum housing in Flint, Michigan. Luther spends most of his time avoiding the Sarge's coffin smile and Darth Vader voice as she directs him and her hoodlum associates in a web of evil doings.

Luther wants out. He wants to be the world's greatest philosopher, not some spider in his mother's web. So, he sets in motion a plan to redistribute her wealth via a science fair competition. In a brilliant, comic series of events involving his mom's safety deposit boxes and a large-scale distribution of ice cream cones, $200 Air Jordans and Armani suits, Luther takes from the rich and gives to the poor before heading out of Flint in a Buick Riviera that, just minutes before, had belonged to the Sarge's partner. There's not another young adult novel like this one, and readers will cheer the high spirits and good nature of Luther T. Farrell, loser no more.

Dean Schneider teaches middle school English in Nashville.

We think of gifted people as those with special talents, such as math or painting. But what if you had the talent to twist human bodies, cut flesh with a glance or destroy living things with a flip of a finger? These gifts give the peoples of the Uplands power but also shape their society in a dark manner.

For generations, the Upland people have had strange, magical powers. The gifts travel down from father to son or mother to daughter, and those with the strongest abilities become leaders, making decisions, settling disputes and most importantly, protecting their people from others with gifts of their own. It is a hard land, with poverty common even among the clan leaders. This dark world is where Gry and Orrec grow up, and since their parents have strong abilities, they are expected to become the next leaders of their clans. But both are uncomfortable with their gifts: Gry refuses to call animals to her just to have them hunted down and Orrec, who showed his ability late, has no control over his talent. Since his family gift is to unmake things, he binds his eyes with a cloth after several accidents demonstrate that his power needs direction.

In Ursula Le Guin's new young adult novel, Gifts, we see a society based on the most gifted demonstrating the worst and the best of human nature. Gry and Orrec must not only decide how to use their talents wisely, but also how to deal with family pressures, clan diplomacy, and their usefulness as political pawns. After a brief visit from a man from the Lowlands who wanted to see the witches of the hills, both have a growing feeling that there could be another way to live.

As always, Le Guin has delivered a story that captivates and draws the reader in. Anyone who enjoyed her Earthsea trilogy will relish this new work and fans of dark fantasy, such as Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass, will want to check out this title as well. It is another of a long line of gifts from this talented author and well worth your time.

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

“What’s to be done about the gloom that’s everywhere?” McNulty, the fire-eater, says to 13-year-old Bobby Burns. He’s a small man, his skin scarred and covered with tattoos of women and dragons. He has pointed gold teeth and deeply creased cheeks, and he smells of smoke and sweat. He’s a “devil, a demon, a rascal,” and it turns out that Bobby’s father knew him in Burma during World War II, that “mad mad time before your time, from a time of bloody blasted war” that spawned fakirs, magic men, dervishes and miracle-makers in the markets, roadsides and frontiers of Asia.

And now the world is near disaster again. It’s 1962. Russia has been testing nuclear bombs, and the Cuban Missile Crisis has made fragile everything Bobby and his friends love in little Keely Bay, a coal-mining town in England. What’s to be done when your small part of the world your family and friends and home is endangered? What do you do when your father is sick, perhaps about to die? Almond’s novels have won several major awards including the Whitbread Award for Best Children’s Book and the Smarties Book Prize in England and the Printz Award in the United States for best young adult novel. No writer today writes so poetically, beautifully and philosophically in such simple, elegant prose as David Almond. In this short tale of one moment in one town, Almond writes of friends and community, life and death, evil and resistance to evil.

What’s to be done about war and sickness and evil? “There’s ancient battles to be fought,” says Bobby’s father. “Let’s do it boldly and bravely,” and in the meantime, “Make sure you get your good times in, son. You never know what’s round the corner.” The world may be mysterious and threatening, but Bobby comes to appreciate his place in it. In an evocative passage near the end of the novel, Bobby records the pleasures and things to value in his “tiny corner of the world.” Almond takes on big ideas in little Keely Bay, and readers will be awed by this beautiful story about living in a world where wonders never cease. “Sometimes,” says Ailsa, “the world’s just so amazing.” And so is this novel.

Top-selling author Louise Rennison has once again captured the more hilarious elements of the teen experience with Away Laughing on a Fast Camel: Even More Confessions of Georgia Nicolson. Although the title doesn’t mention nunga-nungas or snogging, never fear: written in Rennison’s trademark, freewheeling, made-up-word-laden style, Away Laughing picks right up where Dancing In My Nuddy-Pants left off.

The action takes place during two eventful months in the life of Georgia, a self-obsessed, yet kind teenager who’s got an upbeat, wacky personality and a keen eye for the humor in ordinary situations. Her minute-by-minute descriptions of the showdowns between her cat, Angus, and Mr. And Mrs. Across the Street are some of the book’s funniest bits.

There are, of course, many funny bits in Away Laughing, and Rennison’s talent for character development adds to the book’s compulsive readability. Although Georgia chatters on about numerous people, from best friend Jas to hapless teacher Elvis Attwood, each one is memorable.

Georgia fends her way through a forest of vexation, frustration and hormonal fluctuation. Her boyfriend, the Sex God, has gone away and hardly ever writes, but then there’s Dave the Laugh, a friend who gives her good advice and is also pretty sexy. Georgia’s parents seem intent on embarrassing her with their mere existence, and her little sister, well, here’s a quote: “My life is over and I am a mad toddler’s playdough person.” Drama aside, though, Georgia’s a good kid whose love for her imperfect parents and sister is evident beneath the harrumphing and eye-rolling. She’s also a character with a knack for creative linguistics. Some words have “osity” at the end for emphasis (“dignity” becomes “dignitosity”), while others are recognizable as English words or expressions, such as “bacofoil” instead of “aluminum foil.” There are certain words, though “boy entrancers” and “pingy pongoes” come to mind for which it’s best to rely on context clues, or turn to the glossary in the back of the book. Easy-peasy! Linda M. Castellitto writes from her marvy home in Rhode Island.

When I was growing up, teenagers had adulthood thrust upon them in the form of an unpopular war and its accompanying cultural upheaval. We learned—and believed—that the only way to change the world was to be a part of it. We lobbied to lower the voting age to 18, and won. We changed the world all right, but the law of unintended consequences caught up with us, and the reverberations of that time echo across the generations. Today, that passion for change is gone, and voting has declined to a point to where our participation in democracy is no better than many third-world dictatorships. So what’s a kid to do?

Janet Tashjian has her own answer, and his name is Larry, or rather his alias is Larry. His real name is Josh Swensen, and he’s back to tweak a complacent country in Vote For Larry. It’s been almost two years since the events of The Gospel According to Larry, Tashjian’s award-winning teen novel wherein the young crusader took on America’s consumer culture via the Internet. After faking his own death, he’s been hiding out in Colorado, decidedly not practicing the anti-consumerism philosophy he espoused to the world. He’s created a new identity, enrolled in college (at UC-Boulder), and found himself a new girlfriend. His embrace of the consumer culture comes to a shocking halt when someone from his past reappears in his life.

What follows is vintage Larry. His former soulmate, Beth, along with her boyfriend Simon, is determined to be a part of the American political system, and she wants Josh along for the ride. If you’re Josh Swensen, you don’t do anything halfway, so he decides to run for the biggest prize of all: president of the United States. The fact that he’s too young to serve is only a minor obstacle, and Vote For Larry takes us along on Josh’s passionate quest to make a difference. Things won’t be easy, though, with the media and both political parties dead set against him, not to mention his old nemesis, "Betagold."

Vote For Larry is a crash course in the rough and tumble world of national politics, and teen readers will get a taste of just what it takes in idealism and courage to achieve such goals.

When this story opens, 15-year-old Ruby says, “My life better not turn out to be like one of those hideous books where the mother dies.” She hates books like that, where the main character’s mother dies, she has to go live with her alcoholic father who beats her, and she turns into a psychopathic ax murderer. Ruby doesn’t want that. But she doesn’t want what she has either. Her mother has just died, and she’s flying off to Hollywood to live with a father she has never even known, the famous actor Whip Logan, who divorced her mother before Ruby was born, or so she thinks. Ruby is miserable in Hollywood, and she is determined never to give her father a break. She lives in a mansion with a front hall twice the size of her old house, an indoor fishpond, a curved marble staircase and a bedroom right out of her dreams. She is committed to detesting it all, including the drives to school in any of her father’s several classic cars, the bizarre array of actors’ sons and daughters at her new school and classes such as Freudian Dream Interpretation. Still, it is kind of cool to have Cameron Diaz as a next-door neighbor.

For all of her acute and humorous observations of the high school scene and her self-righteous attacks on her father, there are things Ruby doesn’t know or understand, and there are surprises in store for her and the reader. Sonya Sones is one of the leading practitioners of the novel in verse for young adult readers, and readers will enjoy this new book every bit as much as her previous novel, What My Mother Doesn’t Know, a huge hit with teens. Ruby’s voice is pitch-perfect, with all of the humor, high spirits, melodrama and wisecracking typical of a smart teenager plopped down in an unwanted situation.

By the end, Ruby is beginning to find her way in this bizarre new life, and she finds pieces of the puzzle of her life that begin to make her seem whole. She likes that, and her life no longer seems destined to be a hideous book. Dean Schneider teaches middle school English in Nashville.

Julie Anne Peters' newest novel, Luna, is a wonderfully crafted story about a young girl named Regan and her brother, Liam. Liam is unhappy in his boy's body, and has, ever since he can remember, wanted to be a girl. And so, at night, under the gentle light of the moon, he becomes one a carefree girl named Luna.

Regan is supportive of her brother, and patiently allows him to wake her up each night as he slips into her room and tries on girlhood, with the assistance of her clothing and makeup. She joins him in keeping his secret from their parents and their peers, and empathizes with the pain he feels at not revealing his true self.

A breaking point is approaching, however: The teenaged Liam decides he is no longer willing to hide his true identity, and Regan is afraid of what will happen if he shares his secret with their family, friends and schoolmates. Will they be understanding and kind, or will they ostracize him? Will Liam always need her to be constantly by his side always ready to listen, to praise his girlhood, to be nearly consumed by him just as she is beginning to learn more about her own place in the world?

Peters has written several acclaimed novels for teens and middle-grade readers, including Define "Normal" and Keeping You a Secret. In Luna, her skill shines through in her honest and sensitive exploration of what can happen when a relationship shifts, when people need to stretch and grow as individuals and risk possible damage to their strong connection. Her portraits of the children's parents, and her depictions of Luna's tentative forays into public places, are powerful and memorable. So, too, is Luna as a whole: It's an important story told in a way that will surely educate and inspire its readers, be they transgender teens who have heretofore felt alone and misunderstood, or the people who love them.