2013

Read

for

a L

ifeti

me

Next

2012

Across the Universe

byBeth Revis

Teenaged Amy, a cryogenically frozen passenger on the spaceship Godspeed, wakes up to discover that someone may have tried to murder her.

Book 1

2013

Read

for

a L

ifeti

me

Next

2012

Angela’s Ashesby

Frank McCourt

Book 2

The author recounts his childhood in Depression-era Brooklyn as the child of Irish immigrants who decide to return to worse poverty in Ireland when his infant sister dies.

2013

Read

for

a L

ifeti

me

Next

2012

The Art of Racing in the Rain

byGarth Stein

Book 3

Enzo knows he is different from other dogs. He has educated himself by watching TV and by listening closely to his master, Denny. On the night before his death, Enzo takes stock of his life, hoping in his next life, to return as a human.

2013

Read

for

a L

ifeti

me

Next

2012

Before I Dieby

Jenny Downham

Book 4

A teenage girl named Tessa, has only five months to live. She makes out a list of things to do before she dies. Tessa hopes to get through everything on her list before time runs out.

2013

Read

for

a L

ifeti

me

Next

2012

Beneath a Meth Moon

byJacqueline Woodson

Book 5

After losing her mother and grandmother during Hurricane Katrina, Laurel moves to another town and becomes a meth addict.

2013

Read

for

a L

ifeti

me

Next

2012

Between Shades of Gray

byRuta Sepetys

Book 6

In Lithuania 1941, Lina, her mother, and brother are pulled apart from her father by Soviet guards and sent to two different Siberian work camps. Lina stays hopeful through her artwork and the thought of her father.

2013

Read

for

a L

ifeti

me

Next

2012

Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless

Years of Prohibitionby

Karen Blumenthal

Book 7

Offers information about Prohibition, temperance movements at the end of the eighteenth century, the Eighteenth Amendment, bootlegging, and gangsters.

2013

Read

for

a L

ifeti

me

Next

2012

Butterfly Cluesby

Kate Ellison

Book 8

Lo’s compulsive behaviors are getting her into trouble when she witnesses a murder, collecting things that do not belong to her and obsessing about her brother's death.

2013

Read

for

a L

ifeti

me

Next

2012

Chain Reactionby

Simone Elkeles

Book 9

When Luis Fuentes, high school senior, returns to the south side of Illinois after six years in Colorado, he falls for a girl named Nikki and enters a dark world after learning some disturbing news about his family.

2013

Read

for

a L

ifeti

me

Next

2012

Chimeby

Franny Billingsley

Book 10

In the early 20th century, Briony, who can see the spirits that haunt their town, feels responsible for her twin sister's injury until a young man enters their lives and exposes secrets that even Briony does not know about.

2013

Read

for

a L

ifeti

me

Next

2012

Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares

byRachel Cohn and David Levithan

Book 11

Told in the alternating voices of Dash and Lily, two sixteen-year-olds carry on a wintry scavenger hunt at Christmas time in New York, neither knowing quite what--or who--they will find.

2013

Read

for

a L

ifeti

me

Next

2012

The Fault in Our Starsby

John Green

Book 12

Sixteen-year-old Hazel, a stage IV thyroid cancer patient, has accepted her terminal diagnosis until meeting a boy at her cancer support group forcing her to reexamine her perspective on love, loss, and life.

2013

Read

for

a L

ifeti

me

Next

2012

Heaven is For Realby

Todd Burpo

Book 13

Colton is the four-year old son of a Nebraska pastor who slips from consciousness during emergency surgery and enters heaven. Told by the father, but often in Colton’s own words.

2013

Read

for

a L

ifeti

me

Next

2012

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

byRansom Riggs

Book 14

After a family tragedy, Jacob feels compelled to explore an abandoned orphanage on an island off the coast of Wales, discovering disturbing facts about the children who were kept there.

2013

Read

for

a L

ifeti

me

Next

2012

The Night Circusby

Erin Morgenstern

Book 15

Celia and Marco, have been trained since childhood to compete in "a game," where each must use their powers of illusion to win. Unbeknownst to them, this game is a duel to the death, and the circus is but the stage.

2013

Read

for

a L

ifeti

me

Next

2012

Paper Covers Rockby

Jenny Hubbard

Book 16

In 1982 North Carolina, Alex Stromm writes of the aftermath of the accidental drowning of a friend. His English teacher reaches out to him while he and a fellow boarding school student try to cover things up.

2013

Read

for

a L

ifeti

me

Next

2012

Perfectby

Ellen Hopkins

Book 17

Northern Nevada teenagers Cara, Kendra, Sean, and Andre, tell in their own voices of their very different paths toward perfection and how their goals change when tragedy strikes.

2013

Read

for

a L

ifeti

me

Next

2012

Pick-up Game: A Full Day of Full Court

Marc Aronson, Editor

Book 18

A series of short stories, interspersed with poems and photographs, provides different perspectives on a game of street ball played one steamy July day at the West 4th Street court in New York City known as The Cage.

2013

Read

for

a L

ifeti

me

Next

2012

Playing With the Enemy

byGary W. Moore

Book 19

Gene Moore, from Sesser, Illinois, was signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers at age 15 in 1940. Before that could happen, World War II intervened.

2013

Read

for

a L

ifeti

me

Next

2012

A Prayer for Owen Meany

byJohn Irving

Book 20

Owen Meany hits a foul ball while playing baseball in the summer of 1953 that kills his best friend's mother, an accident that Owen is sure is the result of divine intervention.

2013

Read

for

a L

ifeti

me

Next

2012

The Running Dreamby

Wendelin Van Draanen

Book 21

When a school bus accident leaves sixteen-year-old Jessica an amputee, she returns to school with a prosthetic leg and her track team finds a wonderful way to help rekindle her dream of running again.

2013

Read

for

a L

ifeti

me

Next

2012

Scorpio Racesby

Maggie Stiefvater

Book 22

Returning champion Sean Kendrick competes against Puck Connolly, the first girl ever to ride in the annual Scorpio Races. Both try to keep hold of their water horses long enough to make it to the finish line.

2013

Read

for

a L

ifeti

me

Next

2012

Unwindby

Neal Shusterman

Book 23

In a not-so-distant future, parents can have their children between the ages of 13 and 18 "unwound" and their body parts harvested for use by others. Three teens go to great lengths to uphold their beliefs and keep their lives.

2013

Read

for

a L

ifeti

me

Next

2012

Where Things Come Back

byJohn Corey Whaley

Book 24

Cullen's summer in Arkansas is marked by his cousin's death from an overdose, an alleged spotting of a woodpecker thought to be extinct, failed romances, and his younger brother's sudden disappearance.

2013

Read

for

a L

ifeti

me

Next

2012

Why We Broke Upby

Daniel Handler

Book 25

Sixteen-year-old Min writes a letter to Ed in which she breaks up with him, documenting their relationship and how items in the accompanying box, from bottle caps to a cookbook, foretell the end.