What Are They Reading for Fun?
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compiled by Marlene Charnizon -- School Library Journal, 10/13/2009
Books about demons, real and imagined
Wendy Scalfaro, G. Ray Bodley High School, Fulton, NY:
Fulton is a small city about 30 miles north of Syracuse. Even before Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” series (Little, Brown) sank its teeth into the neck of teen fiction, our students had a thirst for horror and fantasy. Girls read both genres, but tend to prefer the more romance-heavy supernatural stories such as Amelia Atwater-Rhodes’s Demon in My View (Delacorte, 2000), etc., or Lynne Ewing’s “Daughters of the Moon” books (Hyperion). Boys lean heavily toward fantasy like Christopher Paolini’s Eragon (Knopf, 2003) and its sequels.
Girls also go for biographies and realistic novels that let them explore social issues such as abuse, addiction, and eating disorders, including Go Ask Alice (S & S, 1971), Dave Pelzer’s A Child Called “It” (Health Communications, 1995), Ellen Hopkins’s Crank (S & S, 2004), and Laurie Halse Anderson’s Wintergirls (Viking, 2009). They love Jodi Picoult’s books, especially Nineteen Minutes (Atria, 2007), and anything by Nicholas Sparks. The library’s manga collection is a perennial favorite, and teens enjoy rereading Maki Murakami’s “Gravitation” (Tokyopop), Natsuki Takaya’s “Fruits Basket” (Tokyopop), and Kaho Miyasaka’s “Kare First Love” (Viz Media).
Karen Alexander, Lake Fenton High School, Linden, MI:
Our school has a population of about 500. Students are influenced by booktalking, and they are passing many titles around. Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games (2008) and Catching Fire (2009, both Scholastic), and David Klass’s “Caretaker Trilogy” titles (Farrar) are hard to keep on the shelves. Girls enjoy anything by Ellen Hopkins: Crank (2004), Glass (2007), Impulse (2007), and Identical (2008, all S & S). Flint, MI, author Patrick Jones is popular, with his Things Change (Walker, 2004) being the top choice, and Laurie Halse Anderson rarely misses. John Green’s real characters, as in Looking for Alaska (Dutton, 2005), are appreciated, too. Female fans of Harry Potter are also reading Ally Carter’s I’d Tell You I Love You, but Then I’d Have to Kill You (Hyperion, 2006). When hands are forced, students will pick up nonfiction, including Lori Gottlieb’s Stick Figure: A Diary of My Former Self (S & S, 2000) and Katie Tarbox’s Katie.com (Dutton, 2000), adult titles. As for graphic novels, kids are always looking for Hiromu Arakawa’s “Fullmetal Alchemist” series (Viz Media).
Suzanne Gordon, Peachtree Ridge High School, Suwanee, GA:
In our suburban community just northeast of Atlanta, a student body of 3200 does find time to read more than text messages, Facebook updates, and ever-popular manga series, but the books need to grab them and refuse to let go. Getting lots of traffic are some of this year’s 20 nominees for the Peach Award for Teen Readers, a Georgia YA book award designed to indicate some recent titles worth unplugging for. A bunch of them have had sequels out within the last several months, increasing circulation of series begun by Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games (Scholastic, 2008), Cassandra Clare’s City of Bones (S & S, 2007), and Kristin Cashore’s Graceling (Harcourt, 2008). Many supernatural-romance fans—and even boys—are finding these tales worth potential paper cuts. Also doing well are Nancy Werlin’s Impossible (Dial) and Susan Juby’s Getting the Girl (HarperTeen, both 2008). New books grabbing short attention spans are Amy Efaw’s After (Viking), a gripping tale of a “Dumpster baby’s” mama, and Maggie Stiefvater’s romantic werewolf novel Shiver (Scholastic, both 2009).
