Four of the ten 2013 Alex Award winners were not reviewed here on AB4T, for various reasons. Mark has already written about one of them: One Shot at Forever by Chris Ballard. Today I take on two more. I’m not going to lie. Just looking at the cover and reading the description of Caring is [...]
Weekly Reviews: Historical Fiction
By on February 11, 2013
Some of you might think I’m stretching the definition of historical fiction with the first book up today. But if we consider historical fiction as works in which historical backdrop plays a strong role in the story, I think this qualifies. In any case, I am excited to introduce My One Square Inch of Alaska, a traditional [...]
Best of 2012 compilation
By on February 5, 2013
There are three sources for the annual best of the best adult books for teens: Booklist Editors Choice Adult Books for Young Adults (listed here; blogged about here), the Alex Awards (listed here; blogged about here), and right here at AB4T – our Best Adult Books 4 Teens, 2012. YALSA has also released the 2013 Alex [...]
Weekly Reviews: Nonfiction for Browsing
By on January 30, 2013
Teen behavior in libraries includes a lot of browsing. I have two different display spaces in my small high school library. Fortunately, one of them is right in front of my desk, so I often get the chance to watch students check out the latest books (surreptitiously, lest I scare them away!). Some will just [...]
The Six-Gun Tarot
By on January 25, 2013
Weekly Reviews: Raiders! and Little Wolves
By on January 23, 2013
I am sharing two very different books today, which I can only tenuously connect thanks to the Alex Awards. (Thus the completely unimaginative title of this post!) Let’s begin on a light-hearted note. First, a review of Raiders!, which won a place on the Booklist Editors Choice: Adult Books for Young Adults, 2012. Our reviewer [...]
Commercial Success May Hide a Multitude of Secrets
By on January 16, 2013
from regular AB4T graphic novel guest blogger, Francisca Goldsmith: Cortés gained popular stature last year with his sweetly counterpoint art in satiric Go the F**k to Sleep. That’s part of his genius: giving the eye important information barely hinted at in the text. In “The Secret History” series, of which this exploration of Coffee, Coca, and [...]
Weekly Reviews: Francesca Lia Block and Ursula K. Le Guin
By on January 9, 2013
Today we feature new books by two authors well-known among teen readers. With Francesca Lia Block’s return to adult fiction we have, as Jamie says in her review, a perfect example of the New Adult category. In an Interview Magazine piece, Block was asked about the themes in this book, “In The Elementals, I explore the [...]
The Twelve Tribes of Hattie
By on January 8, 2013
The first big breakout novel of 2013 was actually published in 2012, thanks to Oprah’s Book Club. The Twelve Tribes of Hattie was originally scheduled to be published this month, but after Oprah’s big announcement, Knopf moved up the publication date. With recent reviews in the New York Times, Washington Post, L.A. Times, you name [...]
New Adult
By on January 3, 2013
New Year, new category. Today I am weighing in on New Adult books. This post could be considered a response or addition to Liz Burns’s excellent work over on the Tea Cozy blog. She published three posts on this topic over the weekend, and I recommend that you read at least the first before continuing [...]
A Brief Hiatus
By on December 19, 2012
Dear Readers: Thank you for following our blog. Beginning Wednesday, December 19th, the School Library Journal blogs are being migrated to a new server. Therefore, we will not be able to post for an extended period, perhaps until 2013. The same goes for commenting – if you try to post a comment after midnight December [...]
Booklist Editors’ Choice, 2012
By on December 19, 2012
Booklist is the only other review source that publishes a best of the year list in our category. The Booklist Editors’ Choice: Adult Books for Young Adults, 2012 was released yesterday. Let’s compare to the AB4T Best Books of the Year, shall we? FICTION Of the 12 fiction titles chosen by Booklist, we overlap on 4 [...]
Debut author interviews
By on December 17, 2012
Every other month we publish an interview with a promising AB4T debut author in the SLJ Teen Newsletter. Sometimes I conduct the interview; sometimes I invite one of our reviewers to take it on. As 2012 comes to a close, I feel the urge to look back on those interviews for patterns or themes that [...]
Weekly Reviews: Fiction Set Around the World
By on December 11, 2012
This week we present three literary novels set outside the United States — in Mexico, Cambodia and England — that make great suggestions for mature teen readers.
Juan Pablo Villalobos was born in Mexico, where Down the Rabbit Hole takes place. At just 75 pages this novella is a powerful experiment in voice, one that would [...]
Weekly Reviews: Fiction Set Around the World
By on December 11, 2012
This week we present three literary novels set outside the United States — in Mexico, Cambodia and England — that make great suggestions for mature teen readers. Juan Pablo Villalobos was born in Mexico, where Down the Rabbit Hole takes place. At just 75 pages this novella is a powerful experiment in voice, one that would [...]
Styled with Simplicity, Achieving Eloquence
By on December 6, 2012
from graphic novel guest blogger, Francisca Goldsmith:
No reader, teen or adult, need be an aesthete or an art historian to be aware of the multiplicity of styles imagery can take. Awareness is one matter, but when faced with a style that is abundant with detail, color, line and light/dark interplay, awareness is awakened to a [...]
Teens and Genre Fiction
By on December 4, 2012
On November 19th, Mark made his debut with a post titled “What We Talk About When We Talk About Teens.” He made several terrific points, as did the contributing AB4T reviewers, but there is one thing missing in that discussion –the popularity of genre fiction among teens.
When a teen is a fan of a particular genre, [...]
Best Adult Books 4 Teens, 2012
By on November 30, 2012
What a wonderful year of reading is reflected in the 2012 Best AB4T list. Fictional stories range from the end of the world to waking up in a new body, homesteading in Oregon to super-mean high school cheerleaders, from the Trojan war to the war in Iraq.
On the nonfiction front, we are continually curious about [...]
Best Adult Books 4 Teens 2012
By on November 29, 2012 4 Comments
More Bests
Best Books 2012
Bringing together the best reading of the year among 17 book reviewers resulted in a wonderfully varied group of titles that combines excellence and appeal to young adults. All of these books were originally reviewed on SLJ’s Adult Books 4 Teens blog, which can be found at blog.schoollibraryjournal.com/adult4teen.
There were a few trends in addition to the plentiful coming-of-age fiction and nonfiction memoirs. We ended up with three powerful debut novels about modern war–The Yellow Birds, Billy [...]
Weekly Reviews: Girls
By on November 29, 2012
Title Girls are all that tie these three books together. Otherwise, the combination serves as a great example of the variety of books that appeal to different teen readers.
We begin with a rather intellectual historical fiction novel, Eight Girls Taking Pictures. The tie-in to the arts is a great hook for young adults. Photography is [...]
