1930s
Yowzers! In the 1930's
teens were cutting a rug over these books. No dice, you say? Holy
mackerel, you have to give them a try. You'll be knocked out!
Boylston, Helen Dore. Sue Barton,
Student Nurse.
Sue enters nursing school, meets new friends, engages in assorted
hospital highjinks and overcomes apprehensions about her personal
courage. (YA Fic)
Lane, Rose Wilder. Let the Hurricane
Roar.
Newlyweds Molly and David work hard on their homestead but when
disaster strikes, David heads east to find work, leaving Molly
and their new baby to face the prairie winter. (YA Fic)
Mitchell, Margaret. Gone With
the Wind.
This sweeping romantic saga about the Civil War tells the story
of Scarlett O'Hara, a headstrong Southern belle who struggles
through the hardships of war. (YA Fic)
Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of
Wrath.
Forced from their home, the Joad family is lured to California
to find work; instead, they find disillusionment, exploitation,
and hunger. (YA Fic)
Tunis, John Roberts. Iron Duke.
Entering Harvard, Jim Wellington finds himself in a different
world from his small hometown but gains poise and a sense of proportion
as he faces the difficulties and disappointments of college life
and running track. (YA Fic)
White, T. H. The Once and Future
King.
A magical epic of King Arthur and Camelot; of Merlin and Owl and
Guinevere; of beasts who talk and men who fly, of wizardry and
war. This is the fantasy masterpiece by which all others are judged.
(Juv Fic SF)
1940s
Hey, these 1940's
books are peachy keen! Teens were so gung-ho they were reading
like gangbusters.
Benson, Sally. Junior Miss.
The misadventures of awkward twelve-year-old New York City schoolgirl
Judy Graves. (YA Fic)
Bradbury, Ray. The Martian Chronicles.
Leaving behind a world on the brink of destruction, man comes
to the Red Planet and finds the Martians waiting, dreamlike. Seeking
the promise of a new beginning, man brings with him his oldest
fears and deepest desires. Man conquers Mars, and in that instant,
Mars conquers him. This strange new world, with its ancient, dying
race and vast, red-gold deserts, casts a spell on him, settles
into his dreams and changes him forever. (Juv Fic SF)
Daly, Maureen. Seventeenth Summer.
17-year-old Angie falls in love for the first time the summer
after high school graduation. (YA Fic)
Du Jardin, Rosamond Neal. Practically
Seventeen.
At "practically seventeen," Tobey Heydon thinks she
is old enough to make her own decisions. Whether it's saving her
sister Alicia from last-minute wedding disasters or hiding her
diary from little sister Midge, Tobey handles it all with boyfriend
Brose by her side. They cope with the arrival of a beautiful blonde
at the lake, but can they survive Tobey's mysterious date for
the Heart Hop? (YA Fic)
Gunther, John. Death Be Not Proud.
Johnny Gunther was only 17 years old when he died of a brain tumor.
During the months of his illness, everyone near him was impressed
by his level-headed courage, his wit and quiet friendliness and,
above all, his unfaltering patience through times of despair.
This deeply moving book is a father's memoir of a brave, intelligent
and spirited boy. (YA 921 G958g)
Orwell, George. Animal Farm.
When the downtrodden beasts of Manor Farm oust their drunken human
master and take over management of the land, all are awash in
collectivist zeal. The animals proclaim their motto: All animals
are equal. No animal shall drink alcohol, wear clothes, sleep
in a bed or kill a fellow-four-footed creature. Too soon,
however, the pigs, who have declared themselves leaders by virtue
of their intelligence, succumb to the temptations of privilege
and power. While this swinish brotherhood sells out the revolution,
the common animals are once again left hungry and exhausted, no
better off than when humans ran the farm. (YA Fic)
Schaefer, Jack. Shane.
A stranger rides into a small Western town in 1889 and creates
a lasting impact on its inhabitants, especially on young Bob Starrett
and his family. (YA Fic)
Smith, Betty. A Tree Grows in
Brooklyn.
Young Francie Nolan experiences the problems of growing up in
a Brooklyn, New York slum. (YA Fic)
Wells, Helen. Cherry Ames, Sudent
Nurse.
Eighteen-year-old Cherry Ames takes the first steps on the road
to a nursing career as she begins three years of training at Spencer
Hospital. (YA Fic)
1950s
Hip cats in the '50s
flipped over these crazy books and you will too!
Cleary, Beverly. Fifteen.
It seems too good to be true. The most popular boy in school has
asked Jane out - and she's never even dated before. Stan is tall
and good-looking, friendly and hard-working - everything Jane
ever dreamed of. But is she ready for this? Suppose her parents
won't let her go? What if she's nervous and makes a fool of herself?
(YA Fic)
Felsen, Henry Gregor. Hot Rod.
Bud Crayne's motto was: "When you get in a tight spot, use
your head and drive your way out!" The kids idolized him,
his friends envied him and La Verne Shuler was his girl. But Bud
Crayne had enemies, too, and when he got on the wrong side of
the Law, he was playing right into their hands. (YA Fic)
Frank, Anne. The Diary of a Young
Girl.
Dutch Jewish teenager Anne Frank's classic diary, written in an
Amsterdam warehouse, where for two years she hid from the Nazis
with her family and friends. (j940.53)
Golding, William. Lord of the
Flies.
A plane crashes on an uninhabited tropical island during wartime.
A group of schoolboys-the sole survivors-form their own society,
an experiment that quickly descends into chaos and death (YA Fic)
Graham, Lorenz B. South Town.
David Williams encounters bigotry and violence in this novel of
an African American family living in a small town in the south.
(YA Fic)
Heinlein, Robert A. Have Space
Suit- Will Travel.
A high school senior wins a space suit in a contest, takes a last
walk wearing "Oscar" before cashing him in for college
tuition, and suddenly finds himself on a space odyssey. (Juv Fic
SF)
Knowles, John. A Separate Peace.
Gene was a lonely, introverted intellectual. Phineas was a handsome,
taunting, daredevil athlete. See what happened between them at
school one summer during the early years of World War II. (YA
Fic)
Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in
the Rye.
Holden, about to be expelled from school, spends three days in
New York City. This is the story of what he did and suffered there.
(YA Fic)
Stolz, Mary. The Sea Gulls Woke
Me.
A coming of age story of 16-year-old Jean's summer on an island
in Maine. (YA Fic)
Sutcliff, Rosemary. The Lantern
Bearers.
When the last of the Roman legions leaves, Aquila, a young officer,
decides that his loyalties lie with Britain, and he joins the
forces of Roman-British leader Ambrosius to fight against the
Saxon hordes. (YA Fic)
Tolkien, J. R. R. The Lord of
the Rings.
Enter a world of men, orcs, trolls, dwarfs, elves, and hobbits,
all fully imagined, with customs, traditions, and languages of
their own. Full of quiet humor and high moral seriousness, this
trilogy appeals equally to young and old. (Juv Fic SF)
1960s
In the Sixties, teens
freaked out over these groovy books.
Clarke, Arthur C. 2001: A Space
Odyssey.
When an enigmatic monolith is found buried on the moon, scientists
are amazed to discover that it's at least 3 million years old.
Even more amazing, after it's unearthed, the artifact releases
a powerful signal aimed at Saturn. A manned spacecraft is sent
to investigate what sort of alarm has been triggered. The highly-trained
crew is assisted by a self-aware computer, the ultra-capabale
HAL 9000. HAL's programming is a little too similar to the human
mind: he is capable of guilt, neurosis and even murder...and he
controls every one of the spaceship's components. The crew must
overthrow this digital psychotic if they hope to make their rendezvous
with the beings responsible not just for the monolith but maybe
even for human civilization. (Juv Fic SF)
Head, Ann. Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo
Jones.
She's sixteen, he's seventeen, a pregnant bride, and her bewildered
groom - playing a grown-up game with adult consequences. (YA Fic)
Hinton, S. E. The Outsiders.
Three brothers struggle to stay together after their parents'
death as they search for an identity among the conflicting values
of their society in which they find themselves "outsiders."
(YA Fic)
Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird.
Eight-year-old Scout Finch tells of life in a small Alabama town
in the 1930s. When her lawyer father defends a black man, Scout
learns painful lessons about prejudice and human nature. (YA Fic)
Le Guin, Ursula K. A Wizard of
Earthsea.
Sparrowhawk grows to manhood while attempting to subdue the evil
he unleashed on the world as an apprentice to the Master Wizard.
(Juv Fic SF)
L'Engle, Madeleine. Meet the
Austins.
The Austin family's lives are changed by the arrival of self-centered
young Maggy Hamilton, orphaned by the sudden death of her pilot
father. (YA Fic)
Lipsyte, Robert. The Contender.
A Harlem high school dropout escapes from a gang of punks into
a boxing gym and learns that being a contender is hard and often
discouraging work, but you don't know anything until you try.
(YA Fic)
Mowat, Farley. Never Cry Wolf.
This amazing true story of life among arctic wolves. is the report
of the author's observations in the Keewatin Lands northwest of
the Hudson Bay on the caribou and wolf populations living there.
(j599.74442)
Neufeld, John. Lisa, Bright and
Dark.
16-year-old Lisa, smart, attractive and outwardly successful,
suffers from a nervous breakdown that only her closest friends
seem to notice. (YA Fic)
Potok, Chaim. The Chosen.
The story of Reuven Malter and Danny Saunders - one an orthodox
Jew, the other the son of a Hasidic rabbi - and the course of
their friendship as they grow up in Brooklyn. (YA Fic)
Rawls, Wilson. Where the Red
Fern Grows.
A boy living in the Ozarks achieves his heart's desire when he
becomes the owner of two redbone hounds and teaches them to be
champion hunters. (YA Fic)
Wiesel, Elie. Night.
A true account of the author's experiences as a Jewish boy with
his family in a Nazi concentration camp. (YA 940.53)
Zindel, Paul. The Pigman.
A teenage boy and girl, high school sophomores from unhappy homes,
tell of their bizarre relationship with an old man. (YA Fic)
1970s
The reading scene
was far out in the 1970's! These books were out of sight - can
you dig it?
Adams, Douglas. The Hitchhiker's
Guide to the Galaxy.
Seconds before Earth is demolished to make room for a galactic
freeway, a man is saved by his friend and together they journey
across space. (Juv Fic SF)
Adams, Richard. Watership Down.
The adventures of a group of rabbits searching for a safe place
to establish a new warren where they can live in peace. (YA Fic)
Blume, Judy. Forever...
Michael and Katherine, two high school seniors, believe their
love will last forever - until they are separated for the summer.
(YA Fic)
Childress, Alice. A Hero Ain't
Nothin' But a Sandwich.
The life of a 13-year-old black boy on his way to becoming a confirmed
heroin addict, seen from his viewpoint and that of people around
him. (YA Fic)
Cormier, Robert. The Chocolate
War.
A high school freshman discovers the devastating consequences
of refusing to join in the school's annual fundraising drive,
arousing the wrath of the school bullies. (YA Fic)
Craven, Margaret. I Heard the
Owl Call My Name.
Sent to live with an Indian tribe in Canada, a young minister
learns not to fear his coming death. (YA Fic)
Danziger, Paula. The Cat Ate
My Gymsuit.
When the unconventional English teacher who helped her conquer
many of her feelings of insecurity is fired, a junior high student
uses her new-found courage to campaign for the teacher's reinstatement.
(YA Fic)
Duncan, Lois. I Know What You
Did Last Summer.
Four teenagers, desperately trying to conceal their responsibility
for a hit-and-run accident, are pursued by a mysterious figure
seeking revenge. (YA Fic M)
Dygard, Thomas J. Running Scared.
A football coach whose job is on the line discovers a talented
quarterback who is afraid to run. (YA Fic)
Engdahl, Sylvia Louise. Enchantress
From the Stars.
Civilizations from three different planets in widely varying stages
of development clash in what could be either a mutually disastrous
or a beneficial encounter. (Juv Fic SF)
Go Ask Alice.
A 15-year-old drug user chronicles her daily struggle to escape
the pull of the drug world. (YA Fic)
Goldman, William. The Princess
Bride.
When Buttercup hears of Westley's death, she agrees to marry Prince
Humperdinck; Westley is not only alive, but also willing to battle
everything, including death, to get her back. (Juv Fic SF)
Greene, Bette. Summer of My German
Soldier.
Sheltering an escaped German prisoner of war is the beginning
of shattering experiences for a 12-year-old Jewish girl in Arkansas.
(YA Fic)
Guy, Rosa. The Friends.
What created the gulf between Phyllisia and her best friend: her
mother's death, her father's tyrannical behavior or her own selfish
pride? (YA Fic)
Holman, Felice. Slake's Limbo.
13-year-old Aremis Slake, hounded by his fears and misfortunes,
flees into New York City's subway tunnels, thinking never to emerge.
(YA Fic)
Houston, Jeanne Wakatsuki. Farewell
to Manzanar.
The author recalls the Manzanar internment camp: her fear, confusion,
and bewilderment as life unfolds there during World War II. (j301.453)
Kerr, M. E. Dinky Hocker Shoots
Smack!
Many things change in a teenage boy's life when he meets the overweight
girl who answers his advertisement for the cat he must give away.
(YA Fic)
McCaffrey, Anne. Dragonsong.
Forbidden by her father to indulge in music in any way, a girl
on the planet Pern runs away, taking shelter with fire lizards
who help to open a new life for her. (Juv Fic SF)
McKinley, Robin. Beauty.
Beauty grows to love the Beast at whose castle she is compelled
to stay. Through her love, she releases him from the spell which
had turned him from a handsome prince into an ugly beast. (Juv
Fic SF)
Mazer, Harry. Snow Bound.
Two teenagers caught in a snowstorm face a fight for survival
in a desolate area. (YA Fic)
Myers, Walter Dean. Fast Sam,
Cool Clyde, and Stuff.
New to New York's 116th St., a boy soon makes friends and begins
a year of unusual experiences. (YA Fic)
O'Brien, Robert C. Z for Zachariah.
After a year of believing herself to be the only survivor of a
nuclear holocaust, 16-year-old Ann makes a startling discovery:
a scientist has also survived - but this surprise quickly turns
sinister. (Juv Fic SF)
Peck, Richard. Are You in the
House Alone?
As the recipient of threatening notes and phone calls, a high
school girl becomes aware that she is under constant observation.
(YA Fic M)
Peck, Robert Newton. A Day No
Pigs Would Die.
To a 13-year-old Vermont farm boy, maturity comes early as he
learns "doing what's got to be done," especially with
his pet pig who cannot have a litter. (YA Fic)
Stewart, Mary. The Crystal Cave.
Merlin, the son of a Welsh princess, survives a perilous childhood
on his way to fulfill his destiny as mentor, advisor, and friend
to King Arthur. (YA Fic)
White, Robb. Deathwatch.
A hunting trip becomes a test for survival as Ben guides a ruthless
businessman into the desert. (YA Fic)
1980s
Oh my gawd, like,
these 1980s books were, like, totally awesome! Teens were chillin'
with these rad books! No way. Way!
Block, Francesca Lia. Weetzie
Bat.
The wild adventures of Weetzie Bat and her L.A. friends Dirk,
Duck, and My-Secret-Agent-Lover-Man. (YA Fic)
Card, Orson Scott. Ender's Game.
Ender, the result of genetic experimentation, may be the military
genius Earth needs in its war against an alien enemy. (Juv Fic
SF)
Garden, Nancy. Annie On My Mind.
Liza puts aside her feelings for Annie after a disaster at school,
but eventually she allows love to triumph over people's ignorance.
(YA Fic)
Hentoff, Nat. The Day They Came
to Arrest the Book.
High school students and faculty become embroiled in a censorship
case over Huckleberry Finn. (YA Fic)
Klein, Norma. No More Saturday
Nights.
A 17-year-old unmarried father wins custody of his son and goes
off to college, where he finds an apartment with three girls.
(YA Fic)
Magorian, Michelle. Good Night,
Mr. Tom.
A battered child learns to embrace life when he is taken in by
an old man in the English countryside during World War II. (YA
Fic)
Mahy, Margaret. The Changeover.
When her little brother seems to become possessed by an evil spirit,
14-year-old Laura seeks the help of the strangely compelling older
boy at school who she is convinced has supernatural powers. (YA
Fic M)
Mazer, Norma Fox. After the Rain.
After discovering her grandfather is dying, 15-year-old Rachel
gets to know him better than ever before but finds the experience
bittersweet. (YA Fic)
Myers, Walter Dean. Fallen Angels.
Seventeen-year-old Richie Perry, just out of his Harlem high school,
enlists in the Army in the summer of 1967 and spends a devastating
year on active duty in Vietnam. (YA Fic)
Paulsen, Gary. Hatchet.
After a plane crash, 13-year-old Brian spends 54 days in the wilderness,
learning to survive with only the aid of a hatchet given him by
his mother, and learning also to survive his parents' divorce.
(YA Fic)
Paterson, Katherine. Jacob Have
I Loved.
Having felt deprived all her life of schooling, friends, mother,
and even her name by her twin sister, Louise finally begins to
find her identy. (YA Fic)
Spiegelman, Art. Maus.
This early graphic novel/memoir portrays Jews as mice and Nazis
as cats. (YA 940.5318)
Voigt, Cynthia. Homecoming.
13-year-old Dicey takes care of her siblings and tries to find
a new home for all of them after they are abandoned by their mother.
(YA Fic)
1990s
Teens in the 1990s
were stoked about reading these fly books. You, too, can chill
with these phat reads!
Anderson, Laurie Halse. Speak.
A traumatic event during the summer has a devastating effect on
Melinda's freshman year. (YA Fic)
Avi. Nothing But the Truth.
A 9th-grader's suspension for singing "The Star-Spangled
Banner" during homeroom becomes a national news story. (YA
Fic)
Cooney, Caroline B. The Face
on the Milk Carton.
A photograph of a missing girl on a milk carton leads Janie on
a search of her real identity. (YA Fic)
Creech, Sharon. Walk Two Moons.
After her mother leaves home suddenly, 13-year-old Sal and her
grandparents take a car trip tracing her mother's route. (YA Fic)
Crutcher, Chris. Ironman.
Bo has been at war with his father for as long as he can remember.
Close to explusion following an angry outburst in class, Bo is
forced to attend an anger management program, where he meets a
hard-edged pack of survivors whose defenses are rigged as high
as his. (YA Fic)
Cushman, Karen. Catherine, Called
Birdy.
The daughter of a knight keeps a journal in which she records
the events of her life, including her longing for adventures beyond
the usual role of women and her efforts to avoid being married.
(YA Fic)
Farmer, Nancy. The Ear, the Eye,
and the Arm.
In 2194 in Zimbabwe, General Matsika's 3 children are kidnapped
and put to work in a plastic mine, while mutant detectives use
special powers to search for them. (Juv Fic SF)
Filipovic, Zlata. Zlata's Diary.
The diary of a girl living in Sarajevo, begun just before her
11th birthday when there was still peace in her homeland. (YA
949.742)
Klause, Annette Curtis. Blood
and Chocolate.
Having fallen for a human boy, a beautiful teenage werewolf must
battle both her packmates and the fear of the townspeople to decide
where she belongs and with whom. (YA Fic M)
Levine, Gail Carson. Ella Enchanted.
In this novel based on the story of Cinderella, Ella struggles
against the childhood curse that forces her to obey any order
given to her. (Juv Fic SF)
Marsden, John. Tomorrow, When
the War Began.
7 Australian teenagers return from a camping trip in the bush
to discover that their country has been invaded and they must
hide to stay alive. (YA Fic)
Nix, Garth. Sabriel.
Sabriel, daughter of necromancer Abhorsen, journeys into the mysterious
magical Old Kingdom to rescue her father from the Land of the
Dead. (Juv Fic SF)
Pullman, Philip. The Golden Compass.
Accompanied by her daemon, Lyra Belacqua sets out to prevent her
best friend and other kidnapped children from becoming the subject
of gruesome experiments in the Far North. (Juv Fic SF)
Sachar, Louis. Holes.
As further evidence of his family's bad fortune which they attribute
to a curse on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnats is sent to a
hellish correctional camp in the Texas desert where he finds his
first real friend, a treasure, and a new sense of himself. (YA
Fic)
Wolff, Virginia Euwer. Make Lemonade.
In order to earn money for college, 14-year-old LaVaughn babysits
for a teenage mother. (YA Fic)
Wrede, Patricia C. Dealing With
Dragons.
Bored with traditional palace life, a princess goes to live with
a group of dragons and soon becomes involved with fighting against
disreputable wizards who want to steal the dragons' kingdom. (Juv
Fic SF)
10/3/05
Duluth Public Library, 520 W. Superior St., Duluth, MN 55802