List of Recommended Young Adult Books
Science Fiction | Fantasy | Historical Fiction
Science Fiction Books
| Title | Author | Recommend Grades |
Synopsis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feed | M. T. Anderson | 8-12 |
In a future where most people have computer implants in their heads to control their environment, a boy meets an unusual girl who is in serious trouble. |
| Kindling | Jennifer Armstrong | 6-10 |
A small band of children have joined together trying to survive in a world where it seems that all the adults have been killed off by a catastrophic virus. Series: Fire-Us Trilogy |
| Things Not Seen | Andrew Clements | 6-10 |
When fifteen-year-old Bobby wakes up and finds himself invisible, he and his parents and his new blind friend Alicia try to find out what caused his condition and how to reverse it. |
| House of the Scorpion | Nancy Farmer | 6-10 |
In a future where humans despise clones, Matt enjoys special status as the young clone of El Patron, the 140-year-old leader of a corrupt drug empire nestled between Mexico and the United States. |
| Dr. Franklin's Island | Ann Halam | 7-12 |
After their plane crashes, three science students are imprisoned by a doctor who performs horrifying experiments on humans. |
| Hole in the Sky | Pete Hautman | 7-12 |
In a future world ravaged by a mutant virus, sixteen-year-old Ceej and three other teenagers seek to save the Grand Canyon from being flooded, while trying to avoid capture by a band of renegade Survivors. |
| Xenocide Mission | Ben Jeapes | 6-10 |
In a far-distant solar system, Lieutenant Joel Gilmore and his space observation team are suddenly attacked by the very aliens they were sent to watch. |
| Dream-Weaver | Louise Lawrence | 5-8 |
Using her psychic talents, an apprentice dream-weaver learns that human colonists aboard a spaceship plan to settle on a peaceful planet. |
| Sterkarm Handshake | Susan Price | 7-10 |
Having traveled to a sixteenth century border clan in England through a tunnel created by a twenty-first century company, Andrea must decide in which era she will live. |
Fantasy
| Title | Author | Recommended Grades |
Synopsis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Summerland | Michael Chabon | 5-10 |
Ethan Field, the worst baseball player in the history of the game, finds himself recruited by a 100-year-old scout to help a band of fairies triumph over an ancient enemy. |
| Ropemaker | Peter Dickinson | 7-10 |
When the magic that protects their Valley starts to fail, Tilja and her companions journey into the evil Empire to find the ancient magician Faheel, who originally cast those spells. |
| Sword for the Immerland King | F. W. Faller | 7-12 |
King Sandihar of Immerland struggles between being a good king and father or taking revenge after he asks a blacksmith to forge a sword with mystical powers. Series: Portals of Tessalindria |
| Seer and the Sword | Victoria Hanley | 7-12 |
Princess Torina lives a charmed life until her father seizes the peaceful kingdom of Bellandra and brings back a legendary sword, a seer's glass, and the prince. |
| Rose Daughter | Robin McKinley | 7-12 |
A retelling of the classic story of Beauty and the Beast. |
| Shadow of the Red Moon | Walter Dean Myers | 6-10 |
As the Fens attack his home in the Crystal City, fifteen-year-old Jon is sent into the Wilderness with other young Okalians to search for the Ancient City. |
| Zel | Donna Jo Napoli | 7-12 |
Based on the tale of Rapunzel, the story is told in alternating points of view. |
| Wind Singer: An Adventure | William Nicholson | 7-12 |
Kestrel Hath, her twin brother, and a tagalong classmate follow an ancient map in quest of the legendary silver voice of the wind singer. Series: Wind on Fire Trilogy |
| Eragon | Christopher Paolini | 6-12 |
Eragon finds a mysterious stone that weaves his life into an intricate tapestry of destiny, magic, and power, peopled with dragons, elves, and monsters. |
| Golden Compass | Philip Pullman | 6-10 |
Lyra sets out to prevent her best friend and other kidnapped children from becoming the subject of gruesome experiments. Series: His Dark Materials |
Historical Fiction
| Title | Author | Recommended Grades |
Synopsis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Forgotten Fire | Adam Bagdasarian | 8-12 |
Wealthy Armenian Vahan Kenderian learns what it is like to be hungry, homeless and a survivor after he watches his entire family be executed during the Armenian Holocaust in Turkey. |
| Examination | Malcolm J. Bosse | 8-12 |
In the sixteenth century, Hong accompanies his brother Chen to Beijing where he must pass a difficult examination to become a government official. |
| Goddess of Yesterday | Caroline B. Cooney | 8-12 |
Young Anaxandra must assume many different roles in ancient Sparta to protect herself, and eventually finds herself in the city of Troy on the verge of war. |
| At the Crossing Places | Kevin Holland Crossley | 6-9 |
In late twelfth-century England, thirteen-year-old Arthur goest to begin his new life as a squire to Lord Stephen at Holt, where crusaders ready themselves. |
| Summer of My German Soldier | Bette Greene | 8-12 |
Sheltering an escaped German prisoner of war is the beginning of some shattering experiences for a twelve-year-old Jewish girl in Arkansas. |
| Glory Field | Walter Dean Myers | 7-10 |
The story of one family spanning over 241 years, starting with the capture of an African boy in the 1750's |
| Escape to the Forest | Ruth Yaffe Radin | 5-9 |
A young Jewish girl living in Poland recalls the horrors of living under the Russians and then the Nazis before fleeing to a partisan who tries to save as many Jews as possible. |
| Pirates! | Celia Rees | 6-9 |
Sixteen-year-old Nancy and her friend Minerva escape their Jamaica plantation in order to avoid Nancy's arranged marriage. |
| Numbering All the Bones | Ann Rinaldi | 6-9 |
Eulinda, a thirteen-year-old house slave is faced with difficult decisions as the Civil War nears the end and Lincoln proclaims his "great measure" which will free all Southern slaves. |
| Cross by Day, the Mezuzzah by Night | Deborah Spector Siegel | 6-10 |
In 1492, Isabel must hide her true Jewish identity from everyone, including her best friend, for fear of the Spanish Inquisitors. |
| Dragonwings | Laurence Yep | 6-9 |
A young Chinese boy joins his father in San Francisco and helps him realize his dream of making a flying machine. |