Teen Services
Top 10 Best Books for Teens in 2005
All books are listed in alphabetical order by author. Click here to see if a book is in!
The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green
by Joshua Braff
It is Jacob Green, our narrator, whose unthinkable thoughts serve as the underpinnings of this tale. Against the backdrop of the Sex Pistols, est seminars, and Farrah Fawcett hairdos, Jacob's fantastic, funny, and unfiltered inner monologue keeps rolling. He idolizes his rebellious older brother, who is talented enough to get himself suspended from Hebrew school for drawing a rabbi in a compromising position with a lobster and a pig. He dreams about his babysitter and wonders if her taking off her shirt and bra and asking for a back rub means anything. And he reckons with his father, whose demand for perfection is overwhelming and whose constant need for love is almost unbearable.
Bucking the Sarge
by Christopher Paul Curtis
Deeply involved in his cold and manipulative mother's shady business dealings in Flint, Michigan, fourteen-year-old Luther keeps a sense of humor while running the Happy Neighbor Group Home For Men, all the while dreaming of going to college and becoming a philosopher.
The Race to Save the Lord God Bird
by Phillip M. Hoose
Tells the story of the ivory-billed woodpecker's extinction in the United States, describing the encounters between this species and humans, and discussing what these encounters have taught us about preserving endangered creatures.
The Realm of Possibility
by David Levithan
A variety of students at the same high school describe their ideas, experiences, and relationships in a series of interconnected free verse stories.
Saving Francesca
by Melina Marchetta
Sixteen-year-old Francesca could use her outspoken mother's help with the problems of being one of a handful of girls at a parochial school that has just turned co-ed, but her mother has suddenly become severely depressed.
Private Peaceful
by Michael Mopurgo
When Thomas Peaceful's older brother is forced to join the British Army, Thomas decides to sign up as well, although he is only fourteen years old, to prove himself to his country, his family, his childhood love, Molly, and himself.
Under the Wolf, Under the Dog
by Adam Rapp
Steve Nugent is in a facility called Burnstone Grove. It's a place for kids who are addicts, like Shannon Lynch, who can stick $1.87 in change up his nose, or for kids who have tried to commit suicide, like Silent Starla, whom Steve is getting a crush on. But Steve doesn't really fit in either group. He used to go to a gifted school. So why is he being held at Burnstone Grove? Keeping a journal, in which he recalls his confused and violent past, Steve is left to figure out who he is by examining who he was.
Airborn
by Kenneth Oppel
Matt, a young cabin boy aboard an airship, and Kate, a wealthy young girl traveling with her chaperone, team up to search for the existence of mysterious winged creatures reportedly living hundreds of feet above the Earth's surface.
Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood
by Benjamin Alire Saenz
As a Chicano boy living in the unglamorous town of Hollywood, New Mexico, and a member of the graduating class of 1969, Sammy Santos faces the challenges of "gringo" racism, unpopular dress codes, the Vietnam War, barrio violence, and poverty.
So B. It
by Sarah Weeks
After spending her life with her mentally retarded mother and agora phobic neighbor, twelve-year-old Heidi sets out from Reno, Nevada, to New York to find out who she is.