Young Adult (ages 14-18)

Material appropriate for young adults

City Boy

Set in contemporary Malawi, a poignant account of an orphaned boy’s transition from city life to village life. Sam’s widowed mother has died from “the Disease,” and Sam is claimed by his aunt Mercy, who lives in the small African village where Sam’s mother was born and raised. The gap between Sam’s life in the city, where he had his own room, attended private school, and used a computer, and his new life in the dirt-floored one-room hut, which he is to share with his aunt and cousins, is vast beyond imagining. Grief, loneliness, and the absence of everything familiar make for a rocky transition to a traditional culture where possessions count for little and everyone is expected to do his or her share.

See the review at WOW Review, Volume 5, Issue 2

The Cage

A teenage girl recounts the suffering and persecution of her family under the Nazis–in a Polish ghetto, through deportation, and in concentration camps.

Pharaoh’s Boat

The author tells the story of how one of the greatest boats of ancient Egypt came to be built—and built again. In the shadow of the Great Pyramid at Giza, the most skilled shipwrights in all of Egypt are building an enormous vessel that will transport Cheops, the mighty pharaoh, across the winding waterway and into a new world.

There the ships lie until they are discovered by accident in 1954, carefully unearthed, and reconstructed under the direction of the chief of the Restoration Department of Egyptian Antiquities with the help of Nile boat builders.

Out of the Shadows

Deep in the woods, a child with green-tinged skin and long matted hair awakens. She is Isabella Leland, daughter of a healer who was executed as a heretic some 300 years earlier. On her mother’s death, Isabella was taken in by the crow people—faierie folk—who can manipulate space and time. The first time she returned to the real world, Catholics ruled England. Now, those who follow the pope are regarded with suspicion and shunned. When Isabella emerges from her hiding place, she’s discovered by another outcast, Elizabeth Dyer, whose family follows the old ways. Elizabeth wants to befriend Isabella, but she has her own troubles. Her brother has brought home a priest in need of shelter. Hiding him is an act of treason, and his pursuers are closing in. Sarah Singleton has a gift for blending the seen and the unseen, the matter-of-fact and the magical, into a convincing whole. Here she offers a fast-paced plot—a cat-and-mouse game between hunter and hunted—while exploring questions about religious faith and fanaticism that will resonate with YA readers.

A Templar’s Apprentice

Scotland. 1307. Thirteen-year-old Tormod MacLeod is different. He knows things before they happen. Even his own brother treats him differently, and all Tormod can do is bide his time until he’s old enough to leave the village and make something of himself. His chance comes sooner than expected when a Templar knight asks him to deliver a secret message. But Tormod’s efforts end up endangering both their lives. What follows is a desperate journey to escape the army of King Philippe le Bel of France. If he is to survive, Tormod must learn to harness the powers within. “Kat Black is a refreshing voice in young adult fiction–wonderfully original, compelling, and thought-provoking.” –Allen Say “A fascinating book . . . with a depth of history. The blend of religion and the supernatural make this a very intriguing novel. Engrossing, well-researched, and well-told.” –Ed Masessa, Scholastic Book Fairs and author of #1 NY Times bestseller The Wandmaker’s Guidebook “A Templar’s Apprentice hooked me from the first page and never let up. With her amazing gift of bringing ancient settings to life, Black creates a world so complete that when I closed the book I could still feel its pull on me. With one surprising turn after the next, she brings the reader along on an exhilarating adventure of Templar Knights, a stolen map, a mysterious carved statue, and a brave boy with second-sight. I can’t wait for the next in the series.” —Wendy Mass, author of A Mango-Shaped Space

Hate You

A young adult novel explores the path from hatred of an abusive father to healing as Alice learns to sing with her own true voice. Alice Silvers writes songs she can never sing, because she has a broken, “Frankenstein” voice. Her father choked her years before when she got in his way while he was fighting with her mother. After that night, her mother threw him out. Alice has never seen him again. Now she’s 17. Alice has her songs, her words, her mother, her boyfriend, her life. Everything but her voice. Years have passed since that terrifying night, but Alice burns with a hate stronger than anything she’s ever known.

Walking On Glass

Your mother’s suicide attempt has left her in a coma from which she’s never waking up. You know that she wouldn’t want to live like this, but could you really help her die? Here you are, making the hardest decision of your life and there’s no one to help you: Your father has disappeared into depression. Your best friend is becoming someone you no longer want to know. There is a girl who could help, maybe, if you’d let her. But in the end, it’s all up to you.

A free-verse novel from debut author Alma Fullerton plunges deep inside the psyche of a young man faced with a life-and-death decision.

The Illusion of the Epoch

Written nearly fifty years ago, at a time when the world was still wrestling with the concepts of Marx and Lenin, ‘The Illusion of the Epoch’ is the perfect resource for understanding the roots of Marxism-Leninism and its implications for philosophy, modern political thought, economics, and history. As Professor Tim Fuller has written, this “is not an intemperate book, but rather an effort at a sustained, scholarly argument against Marxian views.” Far from demonising his subject, Acton scrupulously notes where Marx’s account of historical and economic events and processes is essentially accurate. However, Acton also points out that Marx is generally right about things that were already widely known and accepted in his own time and indeed had been long understood in the nineteenth century. On the other hand, Acton shows that in many cases Marx either is simply wrong or has stated his views so as to render his theories immune to disproof. Acton also explains why the embodiment of Marxist-Leninist theory in an actual social order would require coercive support if it were not, sooner or later, to collapse of its own contradictions.

The Queen’s Soprano

Seventeen-year-old Angelica Voglia has the voice of an angel. But in seventeenth-century Rome, the pope has forbidden women to sing in public. To make matters worse, her controlling mother is determined to marry her off to a wealthy nobleman, even though Angelica is in love with a poor French artist. Angelica’s only hope to sing before an audience—and escape a forced marriage—is to flee to Queen Christina’s court, where she will become the queen’s soprano. But she soon discovers that the palace walls are not completely secure . . . and her freedom will require even greater sacrifice than she imagined.