Ten Not-to-be-Missed Adult Books for your Back-To-School Shelves
RSSAngela Carstensen
With the new school year just underway-or right around the corner-here are ten must-have adult titles with guaranteed teen appeal to launch your fall reading recommendations. From genres that teens adore to the realism they crave, from coming-of-age to pure adrenaline, from fiction mirroring current events to memoir reflecting on a challenging life, here is something for everyone. Take a chance; your teens will thank you! Clicking on each title will take you the full SLJ review on the Adult Books 4 Teens blog. Quotations within the annotations are taken from those reviews. For further recommendations, try the Best Books of the Year So Far, 2011 list from June. Thanks to HBO's Game of Thrones, it is likely that your fantasy-reading teens started Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series over the summer (if they hadn't already). This long-awaited fifth title in the "holy grail of fantasy series" is not for the squeamish, but is "full of amazing characters. And more of them are teens and children than adults. There is humor and pathos and so much about the journey into adulthood. "You need to know your name" is one character's refrain, and questions of self and family abound." Don't Kill the Birthday Girl by Sandra Beasley Poet Sandra Beasley offers a memoir about living with severe allergies during every stage of her life, including as a teen and college student. "Despite living in a world in which just about everything seems to want to kill her, she writes with a sense of humor that sustains her insights and abundant research." Grant follows up her Alex Award-winning debut (The Vanishing of Katharina Linden) with this creepy gothic novel about a girl whose family moves to a German village so her father can study the legend of the Allerheiligen Glass-medieval stained glass windows that are said to have been cursed by a demon, bringing death to those who gaze upon them. A "brilliant combination of horror, fairy tales, mystery, and romance." Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch Jaffy leaves behind his life on the streets of 19th-century London for an adventure to the Pacific Islands aboard a whaling ship in search of a mythical-yet far too real-dragon in this "enormously satisfying novel of friendship, survival, and redemption." Birch appropriates historical figure Charles Jamrach, who supplied exotic animals to P.T. Barnum among others, and takes inspiration from the voyage of the whaleship Essex (an inspiration shared by Herman Melville). The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern The Night Circus follows the lives of two children, Celia and Marco, kept isolated by two heartless men who care only about training them for a competition of their devising. Meanwhile, a circus, Le Cirque des Rêves, appears without warning on the outskirts of cities around the world. Only open at night, it is filled with magic and theater, and each tent is an experience that fills the senses. Morgenstern has created a world of illusion and dark magic that opens up to the reader like its circus opens up to those who enter its gates. Kelman's debut novel is a phenomenon in England, where its popularity can be compared to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. The story opens with 11-year-old Harri, an immigrant from Ghana living in the projects of London, describing the scene as a classmate is found stabbed to death. Harri and his friend Dean decide to use their expertise (from watching CSI) to investigate. "Teens will appreciate Harri's winning narration and the rising tension when playing detective becomes a high-stakes matter." Considering the recent London riots, could the setting be more timely? Ready Player One by Ernest Cline Imagine if Willie Wonka had been a video game designer. Now imagine a world where most people spend their time as avatars in a virtual reality. The founder of this virtual reality leaves everything to the first to win a contest, comprised of puzzles and tasks based on 1980s popular culture. Three teens go up against an evil conglomerate to win. While gaming enthusiasts might be its ideal audience, "anyone who loves heroes (or villains) will enjoy this adventure." Robopocalypse by Daniel Wilson In this beautifully-written coming-of-age novel two African American sisters living in 1970s and 80s Atlanta share a father who is a bigamist, and tries to keep one family from knowing about the other. "The dovetailing narratives of Dana and Chaurisse add considerable appeal to the novel, and their teen voices ring true." Ideal for realistic fiction readers. Bonus Titles: Karen Russell's Swamplandia is out in paperback; a dazzling, affecting, funny literary novel in which three abandoned siblings each journey away from their isolated island home at their own peril. Heartless, the fourth in Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate novel released in July (following Soulless, Changeless, and Blameless). Series fans will be thrilled to see the latest installment on your shelves. Angela Carstensen is head librarian and an upper school librarian at Convent of the Sacred Heart in New York City, and head of SLJ's blog "Adult Books for Teens." This article originally appeared in School Library Journal's enewsletter SLJTeen. Subscribe here.
A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin
The Glass Demon by Helen Grant
Victoria's past as a foster child and present as a semi-homeless 18-year-old in San Francisco alternate chapters in Diffenbaugh's moving, realistic debut. Victoria found love and acceptance with her foster mom, Elizabeth, at age 8, so why is she aging out of a group home 10 years later? In the present, Victoria finds her first job in a florist shop, putting to use the language of flowers that she learned from Elizabeth. She uses it to reach out in her personal life too (mums=truth; periwinkle=tender recollection), struggling to trust and love despite her difficult past. "Other books have explored the experiences of foster and abandoned youth. The Language o
f Flowers soars above them."
Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman
This artificial intelligence blockbuster of a Robot Wars novel is based on legitimate science; its author holds a Ph.D. in Robotics. "The heroic actions of a handful of characters are told in the form of briefing reports captured after the war. This accessible format with its emphasis on survival in battle and full-throttle action will have particular appeal for reluctant readers and those who enjoy science-gone-wrong thrillers." Have your teens already read it? 2011 boasts more than one excellent science fiction thriller -- consider Spiral by Paul McEuen, 7th Sigma by Steven Gould, and Max Barry's Machine Man.
Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones
