Summer is half over! How easy is it to fill in your card? Here are more suggestions for each of our squares in the Teen Book Bingo, two titles per square.
Finding books set in the Pacific Northwest can be a challenge. The easiest way to search for them is to do a keyword search for words like “Seattle” and “fiction,” then use the limits to narrow your search to books for teen audiences. Two great books that have fallen off the radars of many teens are The Jump, by Brittney Morris, and The Game of Love and Death, by Martha Brockenbrough. In The Jump, four Seattle teens face an evil multinational corporation that wants to destroy everything they love about their neighborhoods. The Game of Love and Death imagines Seattle in 1937, when a white teen, Henry, falls in love with a black teen, Flora. What they don’t realize is Flora is a pawn of Death, and Henry is the pawn of Love, and Love and Death have placed a bet on whether their love will survive.
Multiple perspectives can also be hard to find. A good search strategy in our catalog is to look for lists with the words “multiple POV” and “teen” in them. Some great titles include The Blackwoods, by Brandy Colbert, and Six Truths and a Lie, by Ream Shukairy. In The Blackwoods, teen cousins Hollis and Ardith must reckon with the legacy of their famous great-grandmother when she dies, and how they will move forward in their own lives, whether they want to work in Hollywood or not. Six Truths and a Lie follows six Muslim teens who are in the wrong place at the wrong time when an explosion destroys a nearby oil rig and the six are framed as suspects. When revealing their closely held secrets means their possible freedom, what will they choose in the end?
Face Your Fears poses a question to readers: are you supposed to read books about your own fears, or about someone else facing their fear? The answer is either! Maureen Stiles’s book Life Skills Book for Teens will help teens face one of their biggest fears: how to grow up and interact with the world like the adults around them. It includes advice on everything from dressing and acting appropriately in social and professional occasions to managing money. For fiction, try Lamar Giles’s novel Ruin Road, which follows Cade, a high school football player who wishes on a magic ring for everyone around him to stop being afraid. Unfortunately, people stop being afraid right when it might help them survive another day in his tough neighborhood.
Graphic Novel Memoirs are popular, but not very common. Sunshine, by Jarrett Krosoczka, tells how Jarrett spent some summers volunteering at a camp for children with serious illnesses. Worried that the place will be depressing and sad all the time, he is amazed to meet some extraordinary kids and their families. In A First Time for Everything, Dan Santat tells of his first summer field trip to Europe in middle school, where he finds his first Fanta, his first encounter with punks, and his first crush.
For the Revolution square, here are two titles, one historical and one futuristic. Ruta Sepetys tells a dark tale of a time in Communist Romania in her novel I Must Betray You. Her teen protagonist, Cristian, has learned to keep his thoughts to himself and his ideas secret, but when the spymaster at his school recruits him to spy on his friends and family, he finds himself caught between loyalty to those he loves and the cruel dictates of the state, and how it inspires fear in absolutely everyone. In S.K. Ali’s novel Fledgling, two teens are to wed each other and bring peace to their separate realms: Upper Earth and Lower Earth. Their bond will allow Lower Earth to gain new technologies, but the cost is the freedom of everyone down there.
The Cursed square has lots of possibilities, whether they are fantasy novels or realistic stories with a twist. For fantasy, try The Forest Grimm, by Kathryn Purdie. In this novel, Clara believes she is cursed to die young, but if she can just consult the Book of Fortunes, now hidden in a mysterious forest, she might be able to outwit fate. In the realistic vein, Jandy Nelson’s novel When the World Tips Over follows three siblings as they try to reconcile with their father’s disappearance. After they meet a mysterious girl at different points in their lives, they begin to see a way to fix an ancient curse that seems to hang over their family.
Looking for books published the year you were born? It’s easy once you know how. Do a keyword search for your topic, like “teen fiction” or “young adult fiction.” Then scan the limiter on the left side that says Publication Year. Find your year and find a book!
For the category of banned books, there are unfortunately far too many to find, and yet we don’t have a special section or way of finding them in our catalog. You can try searching for “teen banned books” or “young adult banned books” in the List category of our catalog and find many lists of titles that way. Two suggestions are Last Night at the Telegraph Club, by Malinda Lo, and New Kid, by Jerry Craft. In Last Night at the Telegraph Club, Chinese American Lily discovers growing feelings for a white classmate and will do almost anything to spend time with her, even as their secret relationship threatens her father’s hard-won citizenship status. In the graphic novel New Kid, Jordan is enrolled at a private academy where he is just one of a few kids of color. How can he fit in at the new school when no one thinks he really belongs?
Dark Academia is a rich vein in horror fiction. In Rory Power’s book Wilder Girls, a boarding school is put under quarantine when a strange plague hits. While waiting for a cure that never comes, one girl goes missing, and her best friend will stop at nothing to find her, even if that means breaking the quarantine. In Boys with Sharp Teeth, by Jenni Howell, Marin infiltrates a boarding school to avenge her cousin’s death, but her attraction to two of the boys there and the discovery of supernatural secrets complicates her plan.
Stories of revenge and betrayal abound, and they aren’t always mean and vicious. In Kasie West’s Better than Revenge, Finley studies hard to win a spot in her school’s podcast, but when her boyfriend jumps the line on a whim and gets the job she wanted, she is approached by a boy who wants very much to help her turn the tables on her boyfriend. In Hope Larson’s novel Be That Way, Christine is navigating senior year, her father’s death, and her pushy best friend Landry’s suggestions on how to improve herself. After an ugly scene at a party, the friendship is over, and Christine must make her way in the world on her own.
~posted by Wally B.