YA Stars 2002 Overbooked: YA Stars 2002 Overbooked: a resource for readers

YA Stars 2002 - For Teens & Older Others (Young Adult Literature)

The list includes both fiction and nonfiction books. Titles are arranged alphabetically by author. Titles received starred reviews from Booklist, The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, School Library Journal, Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and Horn Book. The theme information is derived from cataloging information and is not comprehensive. Books are suggested for ages 12 and older. Age and grade designations are approximate, parental judgement should be used.

Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine or use the Library of Congress CIP description.

  • Before We Were Free
    Author: Alvarez, Julia
    Publisher: Knopf $ 15.95 ISBN: 0375815449
    starPW
    By 1960, most of 12-year-old Anita de la Torre's relatives have emigrated from the Dominican Republic to the United States. But her Tio Toni has disappeared, and the government's secret police terrorize her remaining family because of their suspected opposition of el Trujillo's dictatorship. Using the courage of her family, Anita must overcome her fears and fly to freedom, leaving behind all that she once knew.
    Grades: 8-12 Category: Fiction, Historical Fiction
    Updated 8.28.02
  • The Kindling
    Author: Armstrong, Jennifer
    Publisher: HarperCollins $ 15.95 ISBN: 0060080485
    starBooklist
    This is the first volume in a compelling trilogy about a group of children struggling to survive and uncover the truth behind the postapocalyptic world.
    Grades: 7-12 Category: Speculative Fiction
    Updated 7.17.02
  • Little Soldier
    Author: Ashley, Bernard
    Publisher: Scholastic $ 16.95 ISBN: 0439224241
    starSLJstarBulletin
    A nominee for the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Children's Fiction Award, this novel tells the story a young African boy caught in tribal warfare. When his family is killed, Kaninda is saved by the Red Cross and sent to London. Planning to return to his village to defend his people's honor, Kaninda reconsiders when a gang war and a car accident changes his ideas about revenge and loyalties.
    Grades: 8-12 Category: Fiction
    Updated 7.15.02
  • Up Molasses Mountain
    Author: Baker, Julie
    Publisher: Wendy Lamb $ 15.95 ISBN: 0385729081
    starBooklist
    In the spring of 1953, a strike divides the mining town of Clay, West Virginia, and causes a tragic accident that changes 15-year-old Elizabeth's life in an instant. The accident sends Elizabeth to the hills in search of comfort. There she befriends Clarence, a high school outcast who has a rare and special animal hidden in the woods.
    Grades: 8-12 Category: Fiction
    Updated 7.15.02
  • Hanging on to Max
    Author: Bechard, Margaret
    Publisher: Roaring Brook $ 22.90 ISBN: 0671325743
    starSLJ
    Grades: 8-12 Category: Fiction
    Updated 7.15.02
  • The Year of the Hangman
    Author: Blackwood, Gary L.
    Publisher: Dutton $ 16.99 ISBN: 0525469214
    starKirkus
    Acclaimed and award-winning author Blackwood's masterful blending of fiction with real characters and events results in a thought-provoking page-turner about a tumultuous time.
    Grades: 9-12 Category: Historical, Action & Adventure
    Updated 8.28.02
  • Evvy's Civil War
    Author: Brenaman, Miriam
    Publisher: Putnam $ 18.99 ISBN: 0399237135
    starBooklist
    On her fourteenth birthday in June 1861, spunky Evelyn Chambers is told she must wear hoopskirts and fancy hairdos. Time to be introduced into society, so no more climbing fences or playing by the stream. But Evelyn has an agenda of her own. Grades: 4-7 Category: Fiction - Historical
    Updated 7.15.02
  • Martyn Pig
    Author: Brooks, Kevin
    Publisher: Chicken House $ 15.95 ISBN: 0439295955
    starBookliststarPWstarSLJ
    Meet Martyn Pig, a boy with a terrible name, trapped in a terrible life. Just when he thinks things can't get any worse, his father is accidentally killed, setting off a horrific chain of events.
    Grades: 5-11 Category: Fiction
    Updated 7.15.02
  • Lady: My Life As a Bitch
    Author: Burgess, Melvin
    Publisher: Holt $ 16.95 ISBN: 0805071482
    starBookliststarKirkus
    Seventeen-year-old Sandra Francy is having way too much fun. Everyone wants to stop her, but the problem is she likes it too much. When she accidentally gets turned into a dog, she's horrified at first, but soon she starts to wonder if being human is worth the effort.
    Grades: 7-12 Category: Speculative Fiction
    Updated 7.15.02
  • All-American Girl
    Author: Cabot, Meg
    Publisher: HarperCollins $ 15.99 ISBN: 00600294698
    starPW
    Washington, D.C. sophomore Samantha Madison inadvertently stops an attempt on the life of the president. Before she can say "MTV2, " she's appointed Teen Ambassador to the United Nations and has caught the eye of the president's very cute son.
    Grades: 8-12 Category: Fiction
    Updated 7.15.02
  • Postcards from No Man's Land
    Author: Chambers, Aidan
    Publisher: Dutton $ 19.99 ISBN: 0525468633
    starBookliststarHorn BookstarKirkusstarPW
    By turns wrenching and playful, thrilling and meditative, this Carnegie Medal-winning novel, told in dual narratives, takes the reader on a memorable voyage of discovery in a foreign city in the midst of war.
    Grades: 8-12 Category: Historical Fiction, Coming of Age
    Updated 8.28.02
  • The Sight
    Author: Clement-Davies, David
    Publisher: Dutton $ 21.99 ISBN: 0525467238
    starBooklist
    In a work of great scope and imagination, the author of the highly acclaimed Fire Bringer takes readers to the dark forests of old Transylvania and into the minds of wolves.
    Grades: 8-12 Category: Speculative Fiction
    Updated 7.15.02
  • Things Not Seen
    Author: Clements, Andrew
    Publisher: Philomel $ 15.99 ISBN: 0399236260
    starBookliststarKirkusstarVOYA Best Speculative Fiction
    From the bestselling author of Frindle comes the story of a boy who wakes up one day to find that he is invisible.
    Grades: 4-7 Category: Speculative Fiction
    Updated 7.15.02
  • A Chapel of Thieves
    Author: Clements, Bruce
    Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux $ 16 ISBN: 0374377014
    starBulletinstarPW
    In this captivating sequel to I Tell a Lie Every So Often, it is 1849 and Henry Desant is on a mission from frontier St. Louis to Paris to rescue his brother, Clayton, from a gang of thieves. Told in a dream to preach to the sinners in Paris, Clayton is being hoodwinked into letting his church be used as a front. Henry can see what's going on, but has no idea of the events in store for him.
    Grades: 4-7 Category: Fiction - Historical
    Updated 7.15.02
  • St. Michael's Scales
    Author: Connelly, Neil O.
    Publisher: Levine $ 16.95 ISBN: 0439194458
    starPWstarBulletin
    Keegan Flannery was born a twin, though his brother Michael did not survive birth. Now, two weeks before his 16th birthday, Keegan dreams of his own death and realizes that Michael was the one who should have lived.
    Grades: 9-12 Category: Fiction
    Updated 7.15.02
  • Goddess of Yesterday
    Author: Cooney, Caroline B.
    Publisher: Delacorte $ 15.95 ISBN: 0385729456
    starKirkusstarPWstarBulletin
    A young girl, the sole survivor of a pirate raid of an island kingdom in ancient Greece, reinvents herself as the island's princess. When rescued, Anaxandra soon finds herself in the midst of events that plunge Sparta and Troy into war.
    Grades: 8-12 Category: Fiction - Historical
    Updated 7.15.02
  • Phoning a Dead Man
    Author: Cross, Gillian
    Publisher: Holiday $ 16.95 ISBN: 0823416852
    starBulletinstarPW
    Grades: 8-12 Category: Mystery
    Updated 7.15.02
  • This Lullaby
    Author: Dessen, Sarah
    Publisher: Viking $ 16.99 ISBN: 0670035300
    starPW
    Dessen's most captivating novel yet introduces readers to a girl who believes her heart is made of stone--and the boy who proves her wrong.
    Grades: 7-12 Category: Fiction
    Updated 7.15.02
  • The Divine Wind
    Author: Disher, Garry
    Publisher: Levine $ 15.95 ISBN: 0439369150
    starBooklist
    In 1946, Hart Penrose remembers his parents, his sister, the racial tensions, and the storm that tore his beloved life apart five years earlier in the quiet fishing village of Broome, Australia.
    Grades: 7-12 Category: Fiction - Historical
    Updated 7.15.02
  • Up on Cloud Nine
    Author: Fine, Anne
    Publisher: Delacorte $ 15.95 ISBN: 0385730098
    starBookliststarBulletinstarHorn BookstarKirkusstarSLJ
    Ian's best friend, Stolly, is in the hospital, unconscious and hooked up to machines. Stolly's always lived life by his own rules. His parents' careers have them constantly rushing around, so Ian's family has all but adopted Stolly. That's why it's up to Ian to figure out what happened to his best friend. But once the pieces start coming together, the answer doesn't seem to make any sense.
    Grades: 4-7 Category: Fiction
    Updated 7.15.02
  • My Heartbeat
    Author: Freymann-Weyr, Garret
    Publisher: Houghton Mifflin $ 15 ISBN: 0618141812
    starBookliststarBulletinstarHorn BookstarPWstarSLJ
    My Heartbeat is a fast, furious story in which a quirky personal triangle learns to change its shape and a girl learns the limits of what she can never know about whom she loves.
    Grades: 7-12 Category: Fiction
    Updated 7.15.02
  • Shattering Glass
    Author: Giles, Gail
    Publisher: Roaring Brook $ 15.95 ISBN: 0761315810
    starBookliststarBulletinstarKirkus
    Grades: 8-12 Category: Fiction
    Updated 7.15.02
  • Bronx Masquerade
    Author: Grimes, Nikki
    Publisher: Dial $ 16.99 ISBN:0803725698
    starBulletinstarKirkus
    Eighteen students in a high school English class open up and take the risky challenge of self-revelation in weekly poetry sessions. Through their poetry and narratives, they share their most intimate thoughts about themselves and one another, their lives, and what lies beneath the skin and beyond the masquerade.
    Grades: 8-12 Category: Fiction
    Updated 7.15.02
  • Dr. Franklin's Island
    Author: Halam, Ann
    Publisher: Wendy Lamb $ 14.9 ISBN: 038573008x
    starPW
    On their way to the rain forests of Ecuador with a group of 50 British Young Conservationists, Semi, Miranda, and Arnie survive a horrifying plane crash and are stranded together on a deserted tropical island. Or so they think. Semi, Miranda, and Arnie stumble into the hands of Dr. Franklin, a mad scientist eager to use them as specimens for his experiments in genetic engineering.
    Grades: 8-12 Category: Speculative Fiction
    Updated 7.15.02
  • Sonny's War
    Author: Hobbs, Valerie
    Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux $ 16 ISBN: 0374371369
    starKirkus
    After the death of their father, 14-year-old Corin needs her brother Sonny more than ever. But when Sonny tells Cory he's going to Vietnam, she's devastated. The only one who seems to understand is Lawrence, Cory's new substitute teacher. He's young, handsome, and passionately opposed to the war taking her brother away. As she turns to Lawrence for comfort, Cory finds herself wanting more.
    Grades: 8-12 Category: Fiction, Historical Fiction
    Updated 8.28.02
  • Wham! Its a Poetry Jam
    Author: Holbrook, Sara
    Publisher: Boyds Mill $ 9.95 ISBN: 1590780116
    starKirkus
    Grades: 4-7 Category: Nonficton - Poetry
    Updated 7.15.02
  • Journey to the River Sea
    Author: Ibbotson, Eva
    Publisher: Dutton $ 17.99 ISBN: 0525467394
    starBookliststarBulletinstarKirkusstarSLJ
    This hair-raising novel, set in turn-of-the-last-century Brazil, introduces Maia, an orphan, sent from England to live with unfamiliar cousins on a rubber plantation. As Maia and her kind governess arrive in their new home, they each have secret hopes of adventure--which are immediately quashed by the Carters, who hate their adopted land are obsessed with re-creating England in the forest, right down to the watery puddings.
    Grades: 4-7 Category: Fiction - Historical/Adventure
    Updated 7.15.02
  • The Xenocide Mission
    Author: Jeapes, Ben
    Publisher: David Fickling $ 15.95 ISBN: 0385750072
    starBulletinstarKirkus
    Lieutenant Joel Gilmore is part of a space observation team who find themselves attacked by the very aliens they are watching. It becomes a race against time for their fellow soldiers to rescue them, but in doing so, they unlock the shocking secrets of the solar system.
    Grades: 8-12 Category: Speculative Fiction
    Updated 7.15.02
  • The Hunting of the Last Dragon
    Author: Jordan, Sherryl
    Publisher: HarperCollins $ 15.95 ISBN: 0060289023
    starBooklist
    Jude is no hero, but when his family falls victim to the dragon, he sets out to destroy it. Joined by a strange, beautiful young woman from a country far beyond the sea, Jude tells his tale of the hunting of the last dragon.
    Grades: 8-12 Category: Speculative Fiction
    Updated 8.28.02
  • The Kite Rider
    Author: McCaughrean, Geraldine
    Publisher: HarperCollins $ 15.95 ISBN: 006238749
    starBookliststarBulletinstarKirkusstarSLJ
    In the colorful, dangerous world of 13th-century China, the Great Miao, master of the Jade Circus, offers 12-year-old Haoyou the chance to change his life--to escape from his family's poverty and the pain of his father's recent death--by becoming a kite rider.
    Grades: 4-7 Category: Historical Fiction, Action & Adventure
    Updated 8.28.02
  • It's Love We Don't Understand
    Author: Moeyaert, Bart
    Publisher: Front St $ 15.95 ISBN: 1886910715
    starPW
    Built around three simple but emotionally charged scenes, "It's Love We Don't Understand" looks at a broken family through the eyes of a 15-year-old girl. Moeyaert skillfully traces the subtle thread of love as it winds through a young girl's life, shaping her character and her destiny.
    Grades: 7+ Category: Fiction
    Updated 7.15.02
  • The Lost Childhood: A World War II Memoir
    Author: Nir, Yehuda
    Publisher: Scholastic $ 16.95 ISBN: 0439163897
    starBulletinstarPW
    This memoir recounts the harrowing experiences of a Jewish boy and his family who evaded the death camps of the Holocaust by spending four years disguised as Catholics.
    Grades: 7-12 Category: Nonfiction - Memoir
    Updated 7.15.02
  • Big Mouth & Ugly Girl
    Author: Oates, Joyce Carol
    Publisher: HarperCollins $ 16.99 ISBN: 0066237564
    starBookliststarBulletinstarPWstarSLJ
    Matt Donaghy has always had a big mouth, but it has never gotten him in trouble until the day he is accused of threatening to blow up Rocky River High High School. Ursula Riggs--a.k.a. Ugly Girl--is the only one who knows what Matt said that day, and she is the only one who can help him.
    Grades: 7-12 Category: Fiction
    Updated 7.15.02
  • When My Name Was Keoko
    Author: Parks, Linda Sue
    Publisher: Clarion $ 16 ISBN: 0618133356
    starBulletinstarKirkusstarPWstarSLJ
    Linda Sue Park seamlessly interweaves parallel stories, narrated by two unique adolescent voices, into a taut, compelling novel that illuminates a significant but little-know part of history--the Korean Resistance.
    Grades: 4-7 Category: Fiction - Historical
    Updated 7.15.02
  • Horse Thief
    Author: Peck, Robert Newton
    Publisher: HarperCollins $ 16.95 ISBN: 0066237912
    starBookliststarSLJ
    Tullis Yoder's only family consists of the horses in the small-town rodeo he works for. When he learns the horses are to be sold and slaughtered, he enlists the help of a local woman doctor and her father, a 77-year-old professional horse thief, to lead them to safety.
    Grades: 8-12 Category: Fiction
    Updated 7.15.02
  • Fresh Girl
    Author: Placide, Jaira
    Publisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell $ 15.95 ISBN: 0385327536
    starBulletinstarSLJ
    Although Mardi was born in New York, her parents sent her to Haiti to be raised in her grandmother's house while they worked. When a coup d'etat means 12-year-old Mardi and her sister must flee, they suddenly arrive in Brooklyn to live with parents they hardly know. Two years later Mardi has adapted to her new life, while savoring sweet memories of her home in Haiti. But she is also haunted by tormenting secret.
    Grades: 7-12 Category: Fiction
    Updated 7.15.02
  • Knocked Out by My Nunga-Nungas: Further, Further Confessions of Georgia Nicolson
    Author: Rennison, Louise
    Publisher: Avon $ 15.99 ISBN: 0066236568
    starPW
    The irrepressible heroine of the Michael L. Printz Honor Book Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging is back, and funnier than ever. In this third installment of her hilarious confessions, Georgia's "red bottomosity" is out of control. Whatever will happen next?
    Grades: 7-12 Category: Fiction
    Updated 7.15.02
  • Numbering All the Bones
    Author: Rinaldi, Ann
    Publisher: Hyperion $ 15.99 ISBN: 0786805331
    starBulletinstarKirkus
    With her trademark attention to detail and historical accuracy, award-winning author Ann Rinaldi weaves a gripping tale of a young girl caught between two worlds.
    Grades: 4-7 Category: Fiction - Historical
    Updated 7.15.02
  • Feather Boy
    Author: Singer, Nicky
    Publisher: Delacorte $ 15.95 ISBN: 0385729804
    starBulletinstarPW
    In this magical debut novel, the life of timid young Robert Nobel is transformed when, as part of a class project, he befriends an elderly woman with a mysterious past. Robert first thinks Edith Sorrell is crazy when she tells him he can go to Chance House and fly. When Robert finds out about the secret Edith is hiding, his search for the truth begins.
    Grades: 7-12 Category: Fiction
    Updated 7.15.02
  • Lucy the Giant
    Author: Smith, Sherri L.
    Publisher: Delacorte $ 15.95 ISBN: 0385729405
    starBulletinstarHorn Book
    This coming-of-age story centers on 15-year-old Lucy Otswego, a big girl who towers over just about everyone in her small Alaskan town. Lucy runs away from her cruel classmates, who see her only as "the Giant, " and from her abusive father. When the crew of a crabbing boat heading to the Bering Sea assumes she's much older than she is and invites her to join them for the season, she thrills at the possibility of escaping her teenaged life.
    Grades: 7-12 Category: Fiction
    Updated 7.15.02
  • Sammy Keyes and the Search for Snake Eyes
    Author: Van Draanen, Wendelin
    Publisher: Knopf $ 15.95 ISBN: 0375811753
    starKirkus
    When a frantic girl begs Sammy to watch her bag, she dashes off before Sammy realizes that the bag contains a baby. When the girl doesn't return for her baby, Sammy decides to find her.
    Grades: 4-7 Category: Mystery
    Updated 7.15.02
  • The Truth or Something
    Author: Willis, Jeanne
    Publisher: Henry Holt $ 16.95 ISBN: 0805070796
    starBulletinstarPW
    World War II is over, but in the trenches of working-class England, Mick is fighting a losing battle. Against all odds, victory is in sight--until Mick discovers the sickening truth about his father. This stunning first novel from acclaimed picture-book author Jeanne Willis is raw, powerful, and achingly funny.
    Grades: 9-12 Category: Fiction
    Updated 7.15.02
  • Girls in Love
    Author: Wilson, Jacqueline
    Publisher: Delacorte $ 9.95 ISBN: 038572974x
    starPW
    The first book in an exciting new trilogy! Ellie's starting ninth grade and she's got some very definite goals. She'll stay best friends with Magda and Nadine. She'll go on a diet and stick to it. She'll get a glamorous hairstyle. And she'll get a boyfriend. Even if she has to settle for one who likes her more than she likes him. Any guy will do, right?
    Grades: 7-12 Category: Fiction
    Updated 7.15.02
  • The Hero
    Author: Woods, Ron
    Publisher: Knopf $ 15.95 ISBN: 0375806121
    starBulletin
    Three boys' lives are drastically altered after a deadly river accident in this riveting debut novel.
    Grades: 7-12 Category: Action & Adventure
    Updated 8.28.02
  • Girl in the Cage
    Author: Yolen, Jane & Robert Harris
    Publisher: Philomel $ 18.99 ISBN: 0399236279
    starKirkus
    From the authors of Queen's Own Fool comes another historical young adult novel from a thrilling period in Scottish history--featuring an indomitable young heroine, the daughter of Robert the Bruce, king of Scotland.
    Grades: 5-9 Category: Historical
    Updated 8.28.02

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