The Seer of Shadows
Avi

Horace Carpetine does not believe in ghosts.

Raised to believe in science and reason, Horace Carpetine passes off spirits as superstition. Then he becomes an apprentice photographer and discovers an eerie—and even dangerous—supernatural power in his very own photographs.

When a wealthy lady orders a portrait to place by her daughter's gravesite, Horace's employer, Enoch Middleditch, schemes to sell her more pictures—by convincing her that her daughter's ghost has appeared in the ones he's already taken.

It's Horace's job to create images of the girl. Yet Horace somehow captures the girl's spirit along with her likeness. And when the spirit escapes the photographs, Horace discovers he's released a ghost bent on a deadly revenge. . . .

The Boy Who Dared
Susan Campbell Bartoletti

In Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler’s Shadow, Booklist’s 2005 Top of the List for youth nonfiction, 2005, Bartoletti included a portrait of Helmuth Hübener, a German teenager executed for his resistance to the Nazis. In this fictionalized biography, she imagines his story as he sits in prison awaiting execution in 1942 and remembers his childhood in Hamburg during Hitler’s rise to power. Beaten and tortured to name his friends, he remembers how he started off an ardent Nazi follower and then began to question his patriotism, secretly listened to BBC radio broadcasts, and finally dared to write and distribute pamphlets calling for resistance. The teen’s perspective makes this a particularly gripping way to personalize the history, and even those unfamiliar with the background Bartoletti weaves in–the German bitterness after World War I, the burning of the books, the raging anti-Semitism––will be enthralled by the story of one boy’s heroic resistance in the worst of times. A lengthy author’s note distinguishes fact from fiction, and Bartoletti provides a detailed chronology, a bibliography, and many black-and-white photos of Helmuth with friends, family, and members of his Mormon church. This is an important title for the Holocaust curriculum. See the Booklist interview with Bartoletti, in which she discusses how this teen’s story moved her.

Taken
Edward Bloor

Bloor sets his latest novel in Florida, 2035, in a world sharply divided by wealth and race. Kidnapping has become a "major growth industry," and everyone knows the rules: pay up within 24 hours, and the child is returned. Thirteen-year-old Charity's rich family lives in the Highlands, a tightly secured gated community; they have a butler who doubles as a heavily armed security guard. Even so, Charity is "taken." But for some reason, the payoff goes tragically wrong, and Charity is forced to step outside the rule book and fight for her life. Although many of the secondary characters are flat, Charity is an appealing observer who looks beyond class and begins to think for herself. Her calm recounting of the kidnapping scenario increases the tension, while interspersed flashbacks provide believable details of her disturbing world. This page-turner will grab readers at the outset, and its unexpected twist at the close will send them back through events to look for embedded clues. Pair this with Caroline Cooney's Code Orange (2005).

Diamonds in the Shadow
Caroline B. Cooney

Cooney's Connecticut church has sponsored war refugee families, and her stirring teen novel neither sensationalizes nor minimizes the brutality of their experiences. Her story unfolds through the alternating narratives of the American teens in a host family and African refugee teens, who can't forget what happened even as they adjust to their new surroundings and try to convince themselves they will eventually find a safe home. While Jared is angry that he has to share his room with Mattu and introduce the refugee at school, his younger sister tries to help Alake, who is mute and still. What horrors did Alake witness? Even in America, there's fear to be dealt with: a killer wants the uncut diamonds he forced Mattu and Alake to smuggle out for him. The climax is too neat, but tension mounts in a novel that combines thrilling suspense and a story about innocence lost.

Football Hero
Tim Green

In this novel by a former NFL star, middle schooler Ty Lewis is going through a tough time following the death of his parents. He has been taken in by his aunt and uncle, but they treat him badly, dressing him in hand-me-downs, making him sleep on a mattress on the floor of the laundry room, and forcing him to use a portable toilet in the backyard even though there is a bathroom in the house. Ty is having problems at school as well, where his appearance, social status, and bookishness lead to his being bullied. Through all his troubles, he is buoyed by his faith in his older brother, who is an All-American college football player soon to sign a lucrative pro contract. Ty has his own dreams of football glory after being recruited by the middle school coach, who has noticed that Ty is the fastest boy in the sixth grade. His plans are derailed, however, when his uncle makes him work after school in his cleaning business. After Thane signs his pro contract, Uncle Gus's organized-crime associates press Ty for inside information on injured players on Thane's team, which he innocently supplies. This gets both brothers in trouble with the FBI, but they cooperate with authorities and all ends well. While there are some implausible elements (including Ty's overpowering a crowbar-wielding mafia hitman), the novel is briskly paced and undemanding, and might be a good bet for sports-minded reluctant readers.

The Great Wide Sea
M. L. Herlong

Soon after their mother’s death, 15-year-old Ben and his two younger brothers are stunned when their father sells their home, buys a sailboat, and announces that they will live on board and cruise the Bahamas for the next year. Wrenched from everything he knows and forced to obey his father-captain’s orders, Ben starts out angry and finds no escape. As he says, “We were always together.” When their father sets a course for Bermuda and disappears overboard one night, the boys have little time to wonder if he jumped or fell before they’re struggling to stay afloat in a fierce Atlantic storm. Lost at sea in a damaged boat, they find their way to an island where they are stranded with little food, little water, and little hope of rescue. Herlong’s first book is a great survival story and a fine portrayal of family relationships in a time of crisis. Justifiably angry, yet logical, reflective, and at times compassionate, Ben makes a sympathetic protagonist, and his brothers are no less appealing. With enough detail to make the settings real and a minimum of metaphor, the first-person narrative is clean and direct. This page-turner of an adventure story is also a convincing, compelling, and ultimately moving novel.

Do Not Pass Go
Kirkpatrick Hill

In his small Alaskan town, Deet is certain that everyone in his school will learn that his stepfather has been jailed for drug possession. He faces his classmates with trepidation, but even more intimidating is the prison, where Deet goes to visit his stepdad. Through these visits, Deet comes to know some of the prisoners and gains insight into their stories. Most of these insights are explained in Deet's homework assignment for English class, and he forms a friendship with a fellow student whose brother is also in jail. Hill is a master of the telling detail; she conveys the atmosphere of the visitor's center of the jail, for example, in a few vivid sentences. Best is her portrait of Deet, a strong, thoughtful teenager, forced through circumstances to hold things together for his family. There's not a great deal of action here, but the story is compelling nonetheless.

Lawn Boy
Gary Paulsen

This short and hilarious tale pitches an ordinary preteen with an old riding lawn mower into a dizzying ascent up the financial ladder. His sights set no higher than a new inner tube for his bike, the young narrator is thrilled to make $60 in one day, mowing his neighbors' lawns. Just as demand for his services skyrockets, he meets Arnold, an honest, home-based stockbroker who becomes his business manager . . and less than a month later, the lad has a dozen migrant laborers in his employ. The legality of these workers is left vague, but their young employer treats them fairly, and the thousands of dollars he earns goes into some wildly successful investments--including sponsorship of a rising prizefighter whose help comes in handy when the burgeoning enterprise attracts a shakedown artist. Thanks to quick lessons in, to quote some of the chapter heads, "Capital Growth Coupled with the Principles of Product Expansion" and "Force of Arms and Its Application to Business," the young tycoon ends up smarter than when he started out, and worth half a million dollars. When it comes to telling funny stories about boys, no one surpasses Paulsen, and here he is in top form.

Billy Creekmore
Tracey Porter

Ten-year-old Billy's story begins in a Dickensian orphanage, where being pawned off to a local glass factory is one of the few routes out. Billy looks forward to working, until his pal runs away after being disfigured at the factory and discloses its real conditions. Billy is saved from the same fate by the appearance of a long-lost uncle, who takes him to a West Virginia coal mining town; soon the lad is going down in the mines himself. Then a mine caves in, and Billy's involvement with the union forces him to leave town--and join the circus. All of this might have become simply a string of eye-raising events if it wasn't for Porter's shrewd choice to frame this as a picaresque journey, similar in style, and in some ways substance, to that taken by Huck Finn. Porter's writing is strong, and the story, told in Billy's steadfast yet child-true voice, makes the shocking history about the lives of children at the turn of the last century come alive for today's readers. But this is no polemic; Billy's personal relationships, and his sensitivity to both the living and the dead, make this child very real as he searches for home.

Lost Time
Susan Maupin Schmid

One of the remaining humans on planet Lindos, 12-year-old Violynne Vivant is determined to find her archaeologist parents, who mysteriously vanished a year earlier while researching the ancient Croon civilization. Her quest leads her through a maze of dangerous settings where she encounters diverse allies and enemies, conflicting factions, and contentious, long-hidden history. This first novel features an engaging, animated protagonist, both vulnerable and courageous, who must use intelligence, self-reliance, and strength to find her parents. Lively, descriptive prose incorporates mystery, action-adventure, and sci-fi elements, including exotic beings, landscapes, and devices. Though the supporting characters, who are mostly adults, aren’t always well drawn, Violynne’s aunt Madelyn, a spunky rebel, and Einhart, a butler and spy, are appealingly multidimensional. A happy reunion highlights the somewhat rushed conclusion, which leaves an opening for a sequel to this enjoyable, suspenseful read.

The Mailbox
Audrey Shafer

Complex and believably imperfect characters emerge from the first page to the last in this debut novel. Gabe, 12, had been shuffled around the foster-care system for years, until, as a 9-year-old, he was taken to Virginia to an uncle he had never met. Now, two years later, he comes home after the first day of sixth grade to find Uncle Vernon dead. Numb with fear and grief, he tells no one, but the body disappears and mysterious cards begin to appear in his mailbox. As he mourns for his uncle and struggles to honor his memory, readers get to know the strong and caring people surrounding him, and to see the enormous impact made by one scarred and cantankerous, but loving, old man. Uncle Vernon's colloquial voice; the details of successive school days and vignettes of what it means to have a best friend; horrifying glimpses of the Vietnam War, in which Vernon had served, and its aftermath; and sketches of compassionate adults make up some of the bits and pieces of the story. The book is much more than the sum of these parts, however. Warm and moving, it is an evocative picture of the weblike nature of human existence and the interconnectedness of seemingly disparate experiences.

Changeling
Delia Sherman 

Sherman's tongue is firmly and delightfully in cheek in this contemporary fantasy that blends children's literature and pop culture in an effervescent witch's brew with a strong scent of edgy attitude. Neef, the mortal changeling first introduced in the author's short story, CATNYP (The Faery Reel, Viking, 2004), lives in New York Between, a parallel Manhattan of elves, fairies, demons, vampires, and other spirits. Stolen by fairies who replaced her with one of their own, she is protected by her fairy godmother, Astris, a white rat. With a nod to Cinderella, Neef sneaks out to the annual Solstice Dance in Central Park, breaking a rule and losing the protection of the Green Lady, the Genius of Central Park. Neef, as hip as any contemporary 12-year-old New Yorker, bargains with the Green Lady. If the changeling successfully accomplishes three tasks, she won't be thrown out of the park or have the dangerous spirits of the Wild Hunt after her. At the annual Eloise Awards for the Most Spoiled Child, Neef runs into her fairy changeling counterpart, who helps with the quest. The novel is delightfully full of allusions to children's books (the Water Rat and Stuart Little live in Central Park), fairy-tale motifs, and contemporary culture (the Green Lady talks as tough as a character on The Sopranos). Readers will love the feisty, irrepressibly optimistic Neef, delight in the sheer cleverness of the story, and never look at New York in the same way again.

I.Q.: Independence Hall
Roland Smith

Thirteen-year-old Quest (Q) isn't sure he's ready for a new family. For a long time it's just been him and his mom, Blaze. But everything changes when Blaze falls in love with Roger and they start a new rock band called Match. Now they're married, have a hit record, and Match is going out on a year-long driving tour across the country.

Q, along with new stepsister Angela, will take a year off from school and travel with the band. For now, home will be a luxury motor coach and homework will be a Web site diary of their travels. Perfect-Q can practice his magic tricks and Angela can read her spy novels. What can go wrong?

As Q and Angela settle into their new life and new relationship as siblings, they start to notice that certain coincidences don't seem coincidental. For example, how does a band roadie named Boone find them in the middle of a desert where their coach just happens to break down? Why does a man from their parents' wedding keep showing up in the same cities they stop at? When they reach Philadelphia, Q and Angela realize this tour is definitely not the trip their parents had planned and that the "City of Brotherly Love" is full of mysteries and secrets that could threaten their new life together.

Mercy on These Teenage Chimps
Gary Soto

Ever since 13-year-old Ronnie and his best friend, Joey, hit puberty, they have felt particularly chimplike, with their "peachy fuzz" and "splayed ears." But when Coach Puddlefield angrily calls Joey a "monkey" after he shimmies up a rafter to show off for pretty Jessica, Joey takes offense and secludes himself in his tree house. Then Ronnie embarks on a humorous mission to find Jessica and convince her of Joey's love. While tracking her down, he converses with several of the neighborhood's colorful characters and brokers a truce with a playground bully. Peace is fully restored when Coach apologizes, Jessica joins Joey in the tree, and Ronnie realizes that you're only a monkey if you think you are. Like much of Soto's work, this novel hangs more on the quirky characterizations than on the plot, which sometimes seems meandering and aimless. But those middle-school students who can identify with the boys' goofy, self-conscious ways will eagerly embrace the affable Ronnie and Joey.

Smiles to Go
Jerry Spinelli

Will Tuppence is a sensible kid, good at science, with an average social life and a loud-mouthed little sister, Tabby, whom he does his very best to avoid. But when he learns that scientists have recorded the first instance of proton decay, his logical mind goes into free fall contemplating the implications. When, soon after, he catches his friends Mi-Su and BT kissing, his confusion skyrockets. Does he like Mi-Su himself? Would Mi-Su kiss him? Does it even matter now that all protons in the universe are impermanent? But the point of the story is not proton decay; nor is it the uncertainty that the phenomenon represents—as manifested in Will's life via the love triangle. The story ultimately hinges on Tabby, and Will's relationship with her. Events transpire to remind him of its centrality, around which his daily life and his very identity orbit. With narrative that is fast moving and often laugh-out-loud funny, this book would make an excellent addition to any collection. Short sentences and brief chapters make it a good pick for even reluctant readers. Spinelli lives up to his well-established precedent of stories full of warmth, humor, and memorable characters. Tabby, though at times slightly unbelievable in her precociousness, is a comical and endearing creation. Will's teenage insecurities, overanalyzing, and mood swings are entirely believable, and readers empathize fully with him while willing him to step outside himself and look around at what he has.