Year's Best YA Speculative Fiction 2015


Book Description

Fans of Kaleidoscope will find more tales of wonder, adventure, diversity, and variety in this collection devoted to stories with teen protagonists. Our goal is to uncover the best young adult short fiction of the year published in the anthologies dedicated to the form, the occasional special edition of a magazine, and individual pieces appearing in otherwise “adult” anthologies and magazines, and bring them together in one accessible collection. Table of Contents Songs in the Key of You - Sarah Pinsker Blood, Ash, Braids - Genevieve Valentine Mosquito Boy - Felix Gilman The Rainbow Flame - Shveta Thakrar The Sixth Day - Sylvia Anna Hivén For Sale: Fantasy Coffin (Ababuo Need Not Apply) - Chesya Burke Kia and Gio - Daniel José Older Bucket List Found in the Locker of Maddie Price, Age 14, Written Two Weeks Before the Great Uplifting of ll Mankind - Erica L. Satifka Function A.save (target.Dawn) - Rivqa Rafael Noah No-one and the Infinity Machine - Sean Williams Forgiveness - Leah Cypess Probably Definitely - Heather Morris I'm Only Going Over - Cat Hellisen The Ways of Walls and Words - Sabrina Vourvoulias Reflections - Tamlyn Dreaver Entangled Web - E C Myers Blue Ribbon - Marissa Lingen Bodies are the Strongest Conductors - James Robert Herndon Pineapple Head - Joel Enos Grass Girl - Caroline M. Yoachim The Birds of Azalea Street - Nova Ren Suma




Year’s Best Young Adult Speculative Fiction 2013


Book Description

Our goal is to uncover the best young adult short fiction of the year published in the anthologies dedicated to the form, the occasional special edition of a magazine, and individual pieces appearing in otherwise “adult” anthologies and magazines, and bring them together in one accessible collection. Fans of Kaleidoscope will find more tales of wonder, adventure, diversity, and variety in this collection devoted to stories with teen protagonists. Table of Contents Selkie Stories Are For Losers - Sofia Samatar By Bone-Light - Juliet Marillier The Myriad Dangers - Lavie Tidhar Carpet - Nnedi Okorafor I Gave You My Love by the Light of the Moon - Sarah Rees Brennan 57 Reasons for the Slate Quarry Suicides - Sam J. Miller The Minotaur Girls - Tansy Rayner Roberts Not With You, But With You - Miri Kim Ghost Town - Malinda Lo December - Neil Gaiman An Echo in the Shell - Beth Cato Dan's Dreams - Eliza Victoria As Large As Alone - Alena McNamara Random Play All and the League of Awesome - Shane Halbach Mah Song - Joanne Anderton What We Ourselves Are Not - Leah Cypess The City of Chrysanthemum - Ken Liu Megumi's Quest - Joyce Chng Persimmon, Teeth, and Boys - Steve Berman Flight - Angela Slatter We Have Always Lived on Mars - Cecil Castellucci




Year’s Best Young Adult Speculative Fiction 2014


Book Description

Fans of Kaleidoscope will find more tales of wonder, adventure, diversity, and variety in this collection devoted to stories with teen protagonists. Table of Contents Left Foot, Right - Nalo Hopkinson Selfies - Lavie Tidhar The Vitruvian Farmer - Marcelina Vizcarra The Lady and the Fox - Kelly Link Cat Calls - Margo Lanagan Walkdog - Sofia Samatar No Lonely Seafarer - Sarah Pinsker The Endless Sink - Damien Ober No Mercy for the Executioner - Deborah Biancotti The Ancestors - Laurie Tom Jelly and the D-Machine - Suzanne Church Kneaded - S. G. Larner Resurrection Points - Usman T. Malik Memory Lace - Payal Dhar Collected Likenesses - Jamey Hatley Scout - Will McIntosh Selfie - Sandra McDonald The Boy Who Grew Up - Christopher Barzak Cookie Cutter Superhero - Tansy Rayner Roberts The Stuff We Don't Do - Marissa Lingen Figment - Jeri Smith-Ready




Best Books for Young Adults


Book Description

This is a classic, standard resource for collection building and on-the-spot readers advisory absolutely indispensable for school and public libraries.




Academy 7


Book Description

With a past too terrible to speak of, and a bleak, lonely future ahead of her, Aerin Renning is shocked to find she has earned a place at the most exclusive school in the universe. Aerin excels at Academy 7 in all but debate, where Dane Madousin?son of one of the most powerful men in the Alliance? consistently outtalks her. Fortunately Aerin consistently outwits him at sparring. They are at the top of their class until Dane jeopardizes everything and Aerin is unintentionally dragged down with him. When the pair is given a joint punishment, an unexpected friendship?and romance?begins to form. But Dane and Aerin both harbor dangerous secrets, and the two are linked in ways neither of them could ever have imagined. . . .




Zeroboxer


Book Description

Carr Luka is a rising star in the weightless combat sport called zeroboxing. But Carr gets involved with a far-reaching criminal scheme, threatening his budding relationship with his marketing strategist.




A Heart So White


Book Description

​​WINNER OF THE IMPAC DUBLIN AWARD • Widely considered a masterpiece, a breathtaking novel about family secrets that chronicles the relentless power of the past—from the award-winning author of The Infatuations and "Spain's best writer" (Roberto Bolaño, national bestselling author of The Savage Detectives). Juan knows little of the interior life of his father Ranz; but when Juan marries, he begins to consider the past anew, and begins to ponder what he doesn't really want to know. Secrecy—its possible convenience, its price, and even its civility—hovers throughout the novel. A Heart So White becomes a sort of anti-detective story of human nature. Intrigue; the sins of the father; the fraudulent and the genuine; marriage and strange repetitions of violence: Marías elegantly sends shafts of inquisitory light into shadows and onto the costs of ambivalence.




More Happy Than Not (Deluxe Edition)


Book Description

In his twisty, gritty, profoundly moving New York Times bestselling-debut—also called “mandatory reading” and selected as an Editors' Choice by the New York Times—Adam Silvera brings to life a charged, dangerous near-future summer in the Bronx. In the months after his father's suicide, it's been tough for sixteen-year-old Aaron Soto to find happiness again—but he's still gunning for it. With the support of his girlfriend Genevieve and his overworked mom, he's slowly remembering what that might feel like. But grief and the smile-shaped scar on his wrist prevent him from forgetting completely. When Genevieve leaves for a couple of weeks, Aaron spends all his time hanging out with this new guy, Thomas. Aaron's crew notices, and they're not exactly thrilled. But Aaron can't deny the happiness Thomas brings or how Thomas makes him feel safe from himself, despite the tensions their friendship is stirring with his girlfriend and friends. Since Aaron can't stay away from Thomas or turn off his newfound feelings for him, he considers turning to the Leteo Institute's revolutionary memory-alteration procedure to straighten himself out, even if it means forgetting who he truly is. Why does happiness have to be so hard? “Silvera managed to leave me smiling after totally breaking my heart. Unforgettable.” —Becky Albertalli, author of Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda "Adam Silvera explores the inner workings of a painful world and he delivers this with heartfelt honesty and a courageous, confident hand . . . A mesmerizing, unforgettable tour de force." —John Corey Whaley, National Book Award finalist and author of Where Things Come Back and Noggin




Beyond the Blockbusters


Book Description

Contributions by Megan Brown, Jill Coste, Sara K. Day, Rachel Dean-Ruzicka, Rebekah Fitzsimmons, Amber Gray, Roxanne Harde, Tom Jesse, Heidi Jones, Kaylee Jangula Mootz, Leah Phillips, Rachel L. Rickard Rebellino, S. R. Toliver, Jason Vanfosson, Sarah E. Whitney, and Casey Alane Wilson While critical and popular attention afforded to twenty-first-century young adult literature has exponentially increased in recent years, classroom materials and scholarship have remained static in focus and slight in scope. Twilight, The Hunger Games, The Fault in Our Stars, and The Hate U Give overwhelm conversations among scholars and critics—but these are far from the only texts in need of analysis. Beyond the Blockbusters: Themes and Trends in Contemporary Young Adult Fiction offers a necessary remedy to this limiting perspective, bringing together essays about the many subgenres, themes, and character types that have until now been overlooked. The collection tackles a diverse range of topics—modern updates to the marriage plot; fairy tale retellings in dystopian settings; stories of extrajudicial police killings and racial justice. The approaches are united, though, by a commitment to exploring the large-scale generic and theoretical structures at work in each set of texts. As a collection, Beyond the Blockbusters is an exciting entryway into a field that continues to grow and change even as its works captivate massive audiences. It will prove a crucial addition to the library of any scholar or instructor of young adult literature.




The Water Knife


Book Description

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A "fresh, genre-bending thriller” (Los Angeles Times) set in the near future when water is scarce and a spy, a hardened journalist and a young Texas migrant find themselves pawns in a corrupt game. "Think Chinatown meets Mad Max." NPR, All Things Considered In the near future, the Colorado River has dwindled to a trickle. Detective, assassin, and spy, Angel Velasquez “cuts” water for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, ensuring that its lush arcology developments can bloom in Las Vegas. When rumors of a game-changing water source surface in Phoenix, Angel is sent south, hunting for answers that seem to evaporate as the heat index soars and the landscape becomes more and more oppressive. There, he encounters Lucy Monroe, a hardened journalist with her own agenda, and Maria Villarosa, a young Texas migrant, who dreams of escaping north. As bodies begin to pile up, the three find themselves pawns in a game far bigger and more corrupt than they could have imagined, and when water is more valuable than gold, alliances shift like sand, and the only truth in the desert is that someone will have to bleed if anyone hopes to drink.