bluesyemre

• Bringing together the best reading of the year among 17 book reviewers resulted in a wonderfully varied group of titles that combines excellence and appeal to young adults. All of these books were originally reviewed on SLJ’s Adult Books 4 Teens blog, which can be found at blog.schoollibraryjournal.com/adult4teen. There were a few trends in addition to the plentiful coming-of-age fiction and nonfiction memoirs. We ended up with three powerful debut novels about modern war–The Yellow Birds, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, andThe Book of Jonas–and three titles that use the western canon as a basis–The Song of Achilles (The Iliad),Goliath (The Bible) and Dotter of Her Father’s Eyes (the works of James Joyce). It was exciting to find a trio of important global nonfiction titles here: Behind the Beautiful Forevers (India), Escape from Camp 14 (North Korea) and The Distance Between Us (Mexico). Surprisingly, The Age of Miracles is the only dystopian novel (might the tide be turning?). Many thanks to reviewers Amy Cheney, Diane Colson, Priscille Dando, Vicki Emery, Mark Flowers, Sarah Flowers, Paula Gallagher, Francisca Goldsmith, Charli Osborne, Laura Pearle, Carla Riemer, Jane Ritter, John Sexton, Karlan Sick, Jamie Watson, and Connie Williams.

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