For Teens
Fiction for Teens - Ages 14 and Older
Chicago Public Library recommends the following books as some of the best fiction published in 2010 for teens in high school. For more ideas of outstanding things to read, please check out Teen Volume Reads, browse the Teen Volume collection at your neighborhood library and ask your librarian for assistance. Best of the Best is part of the Kraft Great Kids Initiative. Read, Learn, Discover!
Annexed
By Sharon Dogar
Houghton Mifflin
In July of 1942, sixteen-year-old Peter Van Pels was locked away in an attic in Amsterdam with his parents and another Jewish family with two daughters. Hear the story of the Annex, Anne Frank and the tragic outcome of the families from a new perspective.
The Body Finder
By Kimberly Derting
Harper
Since she was little, Violet has had a gift: the ability to find the dead. However, when her gift leads her to the body of a murder victim she finds herself drawn to the murderer as well.
By the Time You Read This, I’ll Be Dead
By Julie Anne Peters
Hyperion
After years of fierce bullying and several failed suicide attempts, Daelyn Rice logs onto a website for “completers” to countdown the last days of her life, at the same time trying to avoid a budding friendship with a boy dealing with his own pain.
Finnikin of the Rock
By Melina Marchetta
Candlewick
While living among desperate and dying exiles, Finnikin finds a young woman who has visions that will guide him back to his people and help them rebuild their homeland.
Audio
Glimpse
By Carol Lynch Williams
Simon & Schuster
After Lizzie is institutionalized for trying to kill herself, her younger sister, Hope, struggles to understand why and find a way to protect them both from their abusive mother.
I Am Number Four
By Pittacus Lore
HarperCollins
Once there were nine hiding on Earth in order to develop their legacies for defending their planet from the Mogadarians. Now three are dead and Number Four must develop his powers to save not only his species, but the rest of the planet too.
EAudio
Incarceron
Sapphique
By Catherine Fisher
Dial
Claudia and Finn fight for escape from their respective worlds while they search for the truth about the sentient prison Incarceron, and themselves, in this dystopian duo.
Audio | EAudio | Large Print
Lockdown
By Walter Dean Myers
Amistad
When he’s shut in lockdown Reese has a chance to also shut out the world, but a letter from his sister and a new job at the Evergreen nursing home begin to change his feelings about life.
Matched
By Ally Condie
Dutton
After the Officials choose Cassia’s mate for life something strange happens as the familiar face she knows vanishes. But the Society never makes mistakes . . . or does it?
Audio
The Mockingbirds
By Daisy Whitney
Little, Brown
After Alex is date raped at her prestigious boarding school she is convinced that the only way to bring the perpetrator to justice is by turning to a secret society of students, the Mockingbirds.
Not That Kind of Girl
By Siobhan Vivian
Push
The line between good and bad choices blurs when one assertive freshman girl enters Ross Academy and causes the newly-elected Student Council President to question her “perfect” existence.
Numbers
By Rachel Ward
Scholastic/Chicken House
Jem has never wanted to look into anyone’s eyes, because when she does she sees the date on which they will die. While trying to escape this truth, she begins to fall in love despite the warning date looming in her friend’s eyes.
Audio | EAudio
Revolution
By Jennifer Donnelly
Delacorte
When her estranged father returns to New York to deal with the aftermath of her brother’s death, Andi is forced to leave her mother and travel to Paris where she finds a mysterious diary sending her on an adventure from which she may not be able to ever return.
EAudio
Revolver
By Marcus Sedgwick
Roaring Brook
Sig’s father gave him “a perfect machine”—a revolver—when he turned twelve, and his mother gave him lessons about faith, hope, love and peace, and in the rough and greedy world of early 1900s gold and iron mining, Sig needs the knowledge of both.
Ship Breaker
By Paolo Bacigalupi
Little, Brown
In a future where entire cities are under water, oil coats the sea and the Fates decide one’s future, Nita is being chased and Nailer, who is as “tough as nails,” comes to her aid by taking a stand for what is right, despite how he was raised.
The Sky is Everywhere
By Jandy Nelson
Dial
As Lennie faces the scary realization that she doesn’t know who she is since her sister’s death, she finds herself drawn to two different boys and begins to change her focus, from what she lost to what she could gain by opening up her heart.
EAudio
StarCrossed
By Elizabeth Bunce
Arthur A Levine/Scholastic
In a country where magic has been forbidden, Digger must use her skills as a thief and spy to protect a group of rebelling nobles and a band of mysterious travelers without betraying a secret of her own.
The Things a Brother Knows
By Dana Reinhardt
Random House/Wendy Lamb
Levi has never quite understood or forgiven his brother for announcing one day that he would not be going to one college, but instead was joining the marines. Three years later, he comes home a “town hero,” but scared and broken.
Audio
This Gorgeous Game
By Donna Freitas
FSG
When Olivia wins a contest and meets a famous writer she idolizes, she feels like she is living in a dream. When Father Mark’s enthusiasm for her writing turns into obsession, she feels trapped in a nightmare of her own making.
Will Grayson, Will Grayson
By John Green & David Levithan
Dutton
Will Grayson is unhappy . . . with his friends, his school and his love life. Everything changes for the fabulous after a chance encounter in Chicago with “himself”—another guy named Will Grayson.
Audio | EAudio | EResource | Digital Player
2011 Award Winners
Michael L. Printz Award
Ship Breaker
By Paolo Bacigalupi
Little, Brown
William C. Morris Award
The Freak Observer
By Blythe Woolston
Carolrhoda Lab
Great Kids Read, generously sponsored by The Kraft Foods Foundation, through the Chicago Public Library Foundation, is a collaboration created by the Chicago Public Library and the Chicago Park District to emphasize the importance of reading and family literacy at an early age.
Published in February 2011