Fantasy

Black, Holly. Tithe

Sixteen-year-old Kaye, who has been visited by faeries since childhood, discovers that she herself is a magical faerie creature with a special destiny.

Bray, Libba. A Great and Terrible Beauty.

After the suspicious death of her mother in 1895, sixteen-year-old Gemma returns to England, after many years in India, to attend a finishing school where she becomes aware of her magical powers and ability to see into the spirit world. 

Colfer, Eoin. Artemis Fowl

When a twelve-year-old evil genius tries to restore his family fortune by capturing a fairy and demanding a ransom in gold, the fairies fight back with magic, technology, and a particularly nasty troll.

Farmer, Nancy. Sea of Trolls

After Jack becomes apprenticed to a Druid bard, he and his little sister Lucy are captured by Viking Berserkers and taken to the home of King Ivar the Boneless and his half-troll queen, leading Jack to undertake a vital quest to Jotunheim, home of the trolls.

Gaiman, Neil. Stardust.  

In nineteenth century England, a young man named Tristan must travel into a world of magic to find a fallen star, in order to win the heart of a woman. Much to his surprise, the star turns out to be a live creature. (Illustrated  novel). 

Larbalastier, Justine. Magic or Madness

From the Sydney, Australia home of a grandmother she believes is a witch, fifteen-year-old Reason Cansino is magically transported to New York City, where she discovers that friends and foes can be hard to distinguish.

Marr, Melissa. Wicked Lovely

Seventeen-year-old Aislinn, who has the rare ability to see faeries, is drawn against her will into a centuries-old battle between the Summer King and Winter Queen, and the survival of her life, her love, and summer all hang in the balance.

Nix, Garth. Sabriel

Sabriel, daughter of the necromancer Abhorsen, must journey into the mysterious and magical Old Kingdom to rescue her father from the Land of the Dead.  

 

Oppel, Kenneth. Airborn

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.

 

Pierce, Tamora. Terrier

When sixteen-year-old Beka becomes “Puppy” to a pair of “Dogs,” as the Provost’s Guards are called, she uses her police training, natural abilities, and a touch of magic to help them solve the case of a murdered baby in Tortall’s Lower City.

 

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. 

 

Watts, Leander. Beautiful City of the Dead

After joining a heavy metal band, high school student Zee learns that she is a god of water and is called upon to fight sinister forces that want her powers for their own.

 

Zevin, Gabrielle. Elsewhere

After fifteen-year-old Liz Hall is hit by a taxi and killed, she finds herself in a place that is both like and unlike Earth, where she must adjust to her new status and figure out how to “live.”

Historical Fiction

Anderson, Laurie Halse. Fever 1793

In 1793 Philadelphia, sixteen-year-old Matilda Cook, separated from her sick mother, learns about perseverance and self-reliance when she is forced to cope with the horrors of a yellow fever epidemic.

 

Anderson, MT. Astonishing life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation

Various diaries, letters, and other manuscripts chronicle the experiences of Octavian, a young African American, from birth to age sixteen, as he is brought up as part of a science experiment in the years leading up to and during the Revolutionary War.

 

Brown, Don. The Notorious Izzy Fink

In the 1890’s, thirteen-year-old Sam copes with poverty and violence on the streets of New York’s Lower East Side.

Bruchac, Joseph. Code Talker: a novel about the Navajo Marines of World War Two

After being taught in a boarding school run by whites that Navajo is a useless language, Ned Begay and other Navajo men are recruited by the Marines to become Code Talkers, sending messages during World War II in their native tongue.

Larson, Kirby. Hattie Big Sky

After inheriting her uncle’s homesteading claim in Montana, sixteen-year-old orphan Hattie Brooks travels from Iowa in 1917 to make a home for herself and encounters some unexpected problems related to the war being fought in Europe.

Sayres, Meghan Nuttall. Anahita’s Woven Riddle

In Iran, more than 100 years ago, a young girl with three suitors gets permission from her father and a holy man to weave into her wedding rug a riddle to be solved by her future husband, which will ensure that he has wit to match hers.

Sharenow, Robert. My Mother the Cheerleader

Thirteen-year-old Louise uncovers secrets about her family and her neighborhood during the violent protests over school desegregation in 1960 New Orleans.

Zusak, Marcus. The Book Thief

Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel–a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors.

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