Open Book is an email newsletter of book recommendations for teens. It is sent twice a month and includes book excerpts in six teen fiction categories (realistic fiction, historical fiction, action/ adventure/fantasy/science fiction, romance, the buzz: middle school, and the buzz: high school). If you wish to subscribe to Open Book, please email smatathia@minlib.net or sign up in person at the Youth Services desk at the Library. Open Book email newsletters are also archived here on our blog.
Here are the picks for this week…
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Realistic Fiction
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
Hyperion. 2008. 345 pages.
Sophomore Frankie starts dating senior Matthew Livingston, but when he refuses to talk about the all-male secret society that he and his friends belong to, Frankie infiltrates the society in order to enliven their mediocre pranks.
See excerpt
See longer excerpt and excerpts from Lockhart’s other books here
Historical Fiction
Bamboo People by Mitali Perkins
Charlesbridge. 2010. 272 pages.
Two Burmese boys, one a Karenni refugee and the other the son of an imprisoned Burmese doctor, meet in the jungle and in order to survive they must learn to trust each other.
See excerpt
Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Science Fiction
Simon Pulse. 2009. 440 pages.
In an alternate 1914 Europe, fifteen-year-old Austrian Prince Alek, on the run from the Clanker Powers who are attempting to take over the globe using mechanical machinery, forms an uneasy alliance with Deryn who, disguised as a boy to join the British Air Service, is learning to fly genetically-engineered beasts.
Read excerpt
Hear excerpt read aloud
Romance
Three Rivers Rising:: A Novel of the Johnstown Flood by Jame Richards
Alfred A. Knopf. 2010. 292 pages.
Sixteen-year-old Celestia is a wealthy member of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, where she meets and falls in love with Peter, a hired hand who lives in the valley below, and by the time of the torrential rains that lead to the disastrous Johnstown flood of 1889, she has been disowned by her family and is staying with him in Johnstown. Written in verse.
See excerpt
Buzz: What’s Hot in Middle School
Hyperion Books for Children. 2006. 284 pages.
As a sophomore at a secret spy school and the daughter of a former CIA operative, Cammie is sheltered from “normal teenage life” until she meets a local boy while on a class surveillance mission.
See excerpt
Read chapter one
Buzz: What’s Hot in High School
Dutton Books. 2008. 305 pages.
One month before graduating from his Central Florida high school, Quentin “Q” Jacobsen basks in the predictable boringness of his life until the beautiful and exciting Margo Roth Spiegelman, Q’s neighbor and classmate, takes him on a midnight adventure and then mysteriously disappears.
Hear excerpt read aloud
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