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Hotlists 2008
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Seeing Stars
Lists of (mostly) hardcover books which received at least one starred review (indicating a work of unusual merit) from the following review sources: Booklist , Publisher's Weekly (PW), Kirkus and Library Journal (LJ).
The review journal assigns the star.
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Stellar All Stars
The Fault Tree by Louise Ure
Judas Horse by April Smith
The Importance of Music to Girls by Lavinia Greenlaw
Bonk by Mary Roach
A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam
Overbooked specializes in providing timely information about fiction (all genres) and readable nonfiction. Overbooked has been online since 1994. Overbooked is a work in progress . . .
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Starred Reviews
YA Stars 2002
August 19, 2008
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
PW
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: 0060080485Booklist
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: 0439224241SLJBulletin
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: 0385729081Booklist
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: 0671325743SLJ
Grades: 8-12 Category: Fiction
Updated 7.15.02 - The Year of the Hangman
Author: Blackwood, Gary L.
Publisher: Dutton $ 16.99 ISBN: 0525469214Kirkus
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: 0399237135Booklist
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: 0439295955BooklistPWSLJ
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: 0805071482BooklistKirkus
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: 00600294698PW
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: 0525468633BooklistHorn BookKirkusPW
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: 0525467238Booklist
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: 0399236260BooklistKirkusVOYA 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: 0374377014BulletinPW
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: 0439194458PWBulletin
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: 0385729456KirkusPWBulletin
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: 0823416852BulletinPW
Grades: 8-12 Category: Mystery
Updated 7.15.02 - This Lullaby
Author: Dessen, Sarah
Publisher: Viking $ 16.99 ISBN: 0670035300PW
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: 0439369150Booklist
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: 0385730098BooklistBulletinHorn BookKirkusSLJ
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: 0618141812BooklistBulletinHorn BookPWSLJ
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: 0761315810BooklistBulletinKirkus
Grades: 8-12 Category: Fiction
Updated 7.15.02 - Bronx Masquerade
Author: Grimes, Nikki
Publisher: Dial $ 16.99 ISBN:0803725698BulletinKirkus
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: 038573008xPW
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: 0374371369Kirkus
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: 1590780116Kirkus
Grades: 4-7 Category: Nonficton - Poetry
Updated 7.15.02 - Journey to the River Sea
Author: Ibbotson, Eva
Publisher: Dutton $ 17.99 ISBN: 0525467394BooklistBulletinKirkusSLJ
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: 0385750072BulletinKirkus
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: 0060289023Booklist
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: 006238749BooklistBulletinKirkusSLJ
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: 1886910715PW
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: 0439163897BulletinPW
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: 0066237564BooklistBulletinPWSLJ
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: 0618133356BulletinKirkusPWSLJ
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: 0066237912BooklistSLJ
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: 0385327536BulletinSLJ
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: 0066236568PW
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: 0786805331BulletinKirkus
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: 0385729804BulletinPW
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: 0385729405BulletinHorn 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: 0375811753Kirkus
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: 0805070796BulletinPW
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: 038572974xPW
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: 0375806121Bulletin
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: 0399236279Kirkus
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 - Young Adult/Teen Stars Lists
More Overbooked Best Books Reading Lists:
Hotlists
African American Fiction | Christian Fiction
2008 Excel Files: (download - print, sort, etc.)
Crime Fiction | Fiction | African American Fiction | Christian Fiction | Nonfiction Notables
Stars
Fiction: Jan-June | July-Dec Crime Fiction: Jan-June | July-Dec
Speculative Fiction Romance Historical Nonfiction | YA
2009 Hotlists
Fiction - excel file more coming soon...
Crime Fiction - excel file more coming soon...
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