DBRLTeen

This year’s Teen Reading Challenge is Express Yourself. Teens who sign up for the reading challenge will get a journal to write or sketch in. Complete the challenge by reading for 20 hours and doing six activities such as writing a book review. Finishers will get, beginning July 6, a t-shirt to decorate or personalize and be entered in a drawing for other rewards.

Sign up starting Monday June 15 (but you can always start reading before then…)

And You Thought You Could Do Anything?

Not a new book (published in 1998), but this is a great mystery that shouldn’t be missed!  David, a high school senior and the narrator of this story, has been accused of murdering his girlfriend.  The jury found him not guilty, but did he do it?  Do his parents really believe he is innocent?  The reader can’t be sure, because David only slowly reveals the details of his past.  He moves to a new town to escape the community that still has suspicions about him, and moves in with his uncle to finish high school.  His aunt, however, is not happy that he is there, and neither is his eleven-year-old cousin Lily, who turns out to be much less innocent than she appears.  To make matters more complicated, Lily’s older sister (and David’s cousin) Kathy died tragically three years ago, and she seems to be haunting her old home.  Or is David just imagining things?  This book will keep you guessing right up to the surprising ending.  Which of the three cousins in the book is really the killer?

So DBRLTeen recommends The Killer’s Cousin, by Nancy Yerlin, because we all need to learn to live with our mistakes, no matter how big they are (and you’ll have to read the book to understand what that means ).

From Booklist Magazine Online, May 14 2009 -

Perhaps reflecting the unease in every society that something darker lurks beneath the veneer of civilization, a growing body of dystopian literature has recently dominated the YA science-fiction and fantasy genres. In the same spirit as Lois Lowry’s now-classic The Giver (1993), these books not only offer teens excellent escapist fare rife with survivalist adventure and grim imaginings of future worlds but also an opportunity to reflect on how the issues in their own lives and societies are mirrored in these worlds gone horribly wrong.

See the complete list of suggested titles by clicking here.

DBRLTeen has previously reviewed Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother – click here to read our review.

Eighth Grader Molly wants to play baseball (BASEball, not SOFTball) on her school’s team.   There is a girl’s softball team, but no girl’s baseball team.  There is a baseball team, but since there are only boys on it, it appears to be the boy’s baseball team.  DBRLTeen loves to read books about teens who do not let obstacles stand in their way!  Molly tries out for the “boy’s” team, and although some (not all) of the boys try to intimidate her, she persists in following her dream.  Fortunately she can (sometimes) pitch a very useful knuckleball…

So DBRLTeen recommends The Girl Who Threw Butterflies, by Mick Cochrane, because we all need to be reminded not to let others keep us from reaching our goals, AND make sure we’re not keeping others from their goals.