Each year, School Library Journal releases their annual “Best Adult Books 4 Teens” list in early December. That list, which is available in print and online, includes titles reviewed in the blog during the previous 12 months. This list incorporates additional, high-interest adult fiction and nonfiction that make important contributions to conversations and topics covered in the high school curriculum. The reviews here are excerpted; for the full discussion of each book, follow the links provided. Let’s begin with some exercises in critical thinking. Are there two contemporary cultures farther apart than women in Afghanistan and football in America? Probably not, but a couple of recently published books—one each on those topics—ask readers to reconsider some cultural assumptions about both. Football is under siege of late, and Steve Almond tackles the effects of money and racism on a favorite pastime in Against Football. In I Am a Begger of the World, Eliza Griswold blows away preconceived notions about women in Afghanistan and introduces readers to a possibly unfamiliar poetic form. Whether in literature, photography, or history class, these books beg to be discussed. ALMOND, Steve. Against Football: One Fan’s Reluctant Manifesto. 160p. Melville. 2014. Tr $22.95. ISBN 9781612194158. Alex Award winner Almond (Candyfreak) is a longtime devoted football fan, and he solidifies his football bona fides before presenting an onslaught of reasons that he feels he can no longer watch his favorite game. The author spends chapters on concussions and sub-concussive hits; the game’s twisted monetary incentives, especially in college football; its cult of violence; its racism; and its vexed relationship with the American institutions of capitalism and patriotism. The sheer weight of the evidence he marshals is impressive and difficult to ignore. Particularly strong is Almond’s complete demolition of the argument that the mere popularity and fixity of the game in our nation’s consciousness somehow put it above criticism. These are arguments that deserve to be considered deeply and to be grappled with, and teens—who have not yet devoted their lives or opinions for or against the sport—are in a perfect position to take on Almond’s manifesto.—Mark Flowers, John F. Kennedy Library, Vallejo, CA I Am the Beggar of the World: Landays from Contemporary Afghanistan. tr. by Eliza Griswold. photos by Seamus Murphy. 150p. Farrar. 2014. Tr $24. ISBN 9780374191870. LC 2013035179. When Griswold, a poet and journalist, learned about an Afghani girl who burned herself after being forbidden to compose poetry, she and photographer Murphy traveled to Afghanistan to discover more. She found that many women there learn traditional short poems by heart and create new ones to share. These verses, which are called landays, are part of an ancient folk tradition practiced in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. From love and marriage to drone strikes and violence, the two-line poems cover a range of topics and are adapted to changes in the women’s lives and what they daily witness. The poems—some sad, some titillating, and some quite modern in their subject matter—are here accompanied by striking images.—Karlan Sick, Library Consultant, New York City Makerspaces, coding, and 3-D printers are all the rage, and both Minecraft and The World Exchange will find eager audiences in high school libraries. The first is a biography of an entrepreneurial tech genius and the other, a two-for-one: a dystopian novel that plays with both technology and language. LARSSON, Linus & Daniel Goldberg. Minecraft: The Unlikely Tale of Markus "Notch" Persson and the Game That Changed Everything. tr. from Swedish by Jennifer Hawkins. 256p. bibliog. photos. Seven Stories.  Tr $21.95. 2013. ISBN 9781609805371. More than 35 million copies of Minecraft have been downloaded, and YouTube is flooded with related videos. In this biography of its creator, the game is explored from pre-inception to the launch of the official version at MineCon in November, 2011. Persson, known as “Notch,” a programmer who rarely left his computer, worked at gaming companies while developing Minecraft on the side. As its sole creator, he was at one point pulling in thousands of dollars a day. The simplicity of the game’s graphics point to the fact that the genius of Minecraft isn’t in its art; it’s in the ambition and planning of a man who knows how games work and how people like to play them. Both eminently readable and delightfully informative, the book is recommended for people who play and the librarians and teachers who serve them.–Jamie Watson, Baltimore County Public Library, MD GRAEDON, Alena. The Word Exchange. 370p. Doubleday. 2014. Tr $26.95. ISBN 9780385537650. LC 2013033165. Graedon’s debut novel is an SAT-prep dystopian tour de force. Anana works for her father at the North American Dictionary of the English Language (NADEL), but NADEL is dying, along with the printed word. Americans are so dependent on their memes (wearable smartphones) that they welcome the invention of implants and mind-control technology. However, when corporations misuse the technology, a viral word flu devastates the country. Those affected become nauseated and mentally unstable, and substitute invented terms for actual words. Thousands die, riots ensue, and the protagonist must find her missing father to help solve this communication-disaster mystery. Anana, her family, and friends speak as if they digested a SAT prep book: amanuensis, ouroboros, and scurf are typical of the words that pepper their vocabulary. But the author also creates delightful new terms, and the chapters told from the point of view of word-flu sufferers are standouts.—Sarah Hill, Lake Land College, Mattoon, IL Aligning fiction with curriculum inevitably brings to mind historical novels. The very best in this genre offer readers a new level of understanding of the past and ultimately illuminate the present. The following two books address slavery, a topic examined in the history classroom. KIDD, Sue Monk. The Invention of Wings. 384p. Viking. 2014. Tr $27.95. ISBN 9780670024780. In 1803, on Sarah Grimke’s 11th birthday, her parents presented her with Handful (an enslaved 10-year-old nicknamed Hetty). So begins this powerful novel spanning 30 years and told in chapters alternating between the voices of Sarah and Handful. Sarah, a member of a large Charleston, SC,  family that owns 14 slaves, attempts to free the young girl. She’s unsuccessful, but it’s the beginning of her life as an abolitionist and equal rights advocate. Throughout the novel, theirs is a complex relationship made vivid through the dual points of view. Handful wonders if Sarah’s feelings towards her spring from love or guilt, and she doesn’t know if her reaction to Sarah are borne from love or a need to be safe. In real life, Sarah and her sister Angelina were known as the first pro-abolition feminists, and by the late 1830s, were the “most famous and infamous women in America.” An extensive author’s note identifies fact and fiction and interestingly, though Handful’s character is fictional, her story is the most compelling.—Jane Ritter. Mill Valley School District, CA TURNER, Nancy E. My Name Is Resolute. 585p. bibliog. glossary. St. Martin’s Pr./Thomas Dunne Bks. 2014. Tr $27.99. ISBN 9781250036599. As the pampered daughter of the owner of the Two Crowns Plantation in Jamaica, 10-year old Resolute Talbot spends her days hearing tales of charms, spells, and magic shared by the Jamaican slaves who serve her family. But no spell can ward off the pirates who come one September day in 1729, destroy their home, and throw her family into the hold of a slave ship, crammed with hundreds of other slaves. The treacherous ocean journey proves fatal to her father, precarious for her brother, and requires her sister to make difficult choices to obtain food. Once ashore, the family members are separated and sold into slavery. Over the next few years, as she is sold and re-sold, Resolute learns to spin and weave, becoming a master weaver. With the help of local Native Americans, she eventually escapes and makes her way to Lexington, MA, determined to earn a passage home. What Resolute finds there is love, an opportunity to use her skills, and a new home in the center of a brewing revolution. Teens will not only admire this young woman, but will become enmeshed in the history that unfolds.–Connie Williams, Petaluma High School, CA Another pervasive topic in history classrooms is war. Beyond battle strategy, shifting borders, and politics are the human stories that bring these events and everyday life during times of conflict into focus. The following books deliver stories of unusually brave women on the front lines. MCCABE, Erin Lindsay.I Shall Be Near to You. 320p. Crown. 2014. 2014.  Tr $24. ISBN 9780804137720. LC 2013028670. When her fiancé and his friends decide to join in the Union Army, Rosetta tries to dissuade Jeremiah from signing up. But he is determined to go, and after the wedding he takes off, leaving his bride behind. Never afraid of hard work, this farm girl sets her mind to following her husband. She cuts her hair, binds her breasts, alters Jeremiah’s clothes to fit her, and heads off to find his regiment. In her disguise, Rosetta is able to fit into the unit, but as the war progresses, she and its other members discover that the reality of war is far more gruesome than they could have ever imagined. Rosetta is an amalgam of many females who disguised themselves as men to join the army during the Civil War. I Shall Be Near To You imagines the strength of love that motivates one young woman to defy all conventions in order to be close to the person she loves.–Connie Williams, Petaluma High School, CA VANDERBES, Jennifer. The Secret of Raven Point. 320p. Scribner. 2014. Tr $26. ISBN 9781439167007; ebk. ISBN 9781439167052. It’s 1941 and Juliet is a science-loving 10th grader and her beloved brother, Tuck, captain of the high school football team. After the attack on Pearl Harbor occurs, Tuck enlists and Juliet begins training to be an army nurse. When her sibling goes missing in action, Juliet manages to get assigned to a hospital camp on the front lines in Italy where her brother was last stationed. Months later, a soldier is brought in who served in Tuck’s company. Barnaby is comatose following a suicide attempt; when he finally wakes and speaks, it only deepens the mystery of Tuck’s disappearance. The immediacy of Vanderbes’s writing, coupled with a focus on the emotional toll of combat, are certain to appeal to teens, who through Juliet’s compelling story will find themselves immersed in a little-studied arena of World War II.–Angela Carstensen, Convent of the Sacred Heart, New York City