These are YA books for children between the ages of 13 and 20.
Shifting Sight, a YA novel about a teenager with a psychic gift, is extraordinary on many levels. First, it opens readers’ eyes to understanding prejudice at its roots. Ben Cleary, the youth telling the story in the first person narrative present tense, discloses how his best friend, Mike Brown, hates Melissa Alterwood and her mother…
Tyler Moore spent most of his early childhood in and out of hospitals. He had cystic fibrosis, a life-threatening hereditary disease causing thick mucus to build up in the lungs and digestive tract. But Tyler wouldn’t let his disability stop him, so when he entered Harpers Ferry Junior High School he decided he would be…
Abbie Adams has all the problems of most 5th graders—a strict teacher, a lot of homework, and a pesky little brother, Munch (short for Munchkin). Since she’s a witch, she also has other tribulations. Take the time she notices Munch sprout hair and large teeth. He was about to chomp down on his first grade…
I’ve read quite a few fairy tale revisions and watched their counterpart movies and TV shows, but none were as creative and entertaining as Anita Valle’s Sinful Cinderella. Valle’s premise strikes a logical chord. “How could she [Cinderella] stay so sweet and cheerful when she gets nothing but abuse from her family?” With that in…
Are you aware of “The Animal Code?” I didn’t think so. It’s a set of ethics all animals live by and includes never speaking to humans. Yes, we’ve all read about acts of courage animals have demonstrated over the years that reveal their inner fortitude, but never have any of them come forth to acknowledge…
Gnosticism is the belief that the material world should be shunned in favor of the spiritual world. With that theme in mind, Michael Sussman created a brilliant YA novel, Crashing Eden. Joss, a self-described “seventeen-year-old punk” bullied his brother unmercifully until a neighbor took over the chore. Not surprisingly, Eli, a middle school student, hung…
Pop evaluates a lot of books on his blog, so readers are starting to demand that he rate the books. On Amazon or Goodreads books are rated with one to five stars depending on the quality of the novel. Keeping that rating system in mind, Pop has decided on this following system for his blog. …
In celebration of Koren Thal’s 28th birthday, Solstice Publishing will release for publication Koolura and the Mayans on March 19, 2016. This novel is author Michael Thal’s third installment to the Koolura Series and his fifth published YA novel. In The Legend of Koolura, Koolura Akopyan received extraordinary psychic powers at birth from an alien…
The Empty World Series are four YA science fiction adventure books where characters from our world are transported to a planet light years from Earth through a portal built by an ancient alien technology developed before humans walked the Earth. If Portal Through the Pond (Empty World Series Book 1) holds the theme key to…
As a teacher fresh out of grad school and subbing for the Los Angeles Unified School District, I began reading YA fiction to uncover gems to motivate my students. I initially discovered Seventeenth Summer by Maureen Daly. Published in 1942 and considered the first book explicitly written for teens, Daly’s novel for girls had a…