WILDWOOD DANCING, by Juliet Marillier

Combining several familiar fairy tales, author Marillier crafts a romantic fantasy rich in detail, magical creatures and strong female characters. Marillier is one of literature's finest storytellers, and this book continues her tradition of telling tales with a striking sense of place, beautifully portrayed characters, and an emotional core that touches the heart.

THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET, by Brian Selznick

Hugo lives in the walls of a busy Paris train station, where his survival depends on secrets and anonymity. But when his world suddenly interlocks with those of a bookish girl and an old man who runs a toy booth in the station, Hugo's undercover life is in jeopardy. A cryptic drawing, a treasured notebook, a stolen key, a mechanical man, and a hidden message from Hugo's dead father form the backbone of this intricate, tender, and spellbinding mystery. The unique format blends elements of picture book, novel, graphic novel, and film.

RASH,  by Pete Hautman

The author explores the modern day tension between safety and freedom in this intelligent and darkly comic satire set 70 years in the future. In Bo's society, even minor infractions result in prison terms, because their labor "makes this country run." As a result, he finds himself sentenced to work in the Canadian tundra, at a pizza factory that's surrounded by hungry polar bears. Bo finds prison life to be both boring and dangerous, but it's nothing compared to what happens when he starts playing on the factory's highly illegal football team.

AN ABUNDANCE OF KATHERINES, by John Green

When it comes to relationships, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact. Love, friendship, and a dead Austro-Hungarian archduke add up to a surprising and heart-changing conclusion in this ingeniously layered comic novel.

THE ASTONISHING LIFE OF OCTAVIAN NOTHING: Volume One: The Pox Party, by M.T. Anderson

Equal parts gothic fairy tale and historical magnum opus, in which a young African prince in Revolutionary War Boston is betrayed by his benefactors.  The 2007 National Book Award winner, as well as a 2007 Michael L. Printz Award for Distinguished Young Adult Literature Honor Book.

BLACK DUCK, by Janet Taylor Lisle

It's 1929, along the coast of Rhode Island, site of rum-running during the Prohibition era. Bootleggers, modern-day pirates, locals cheering on the bad guys-- it's the stuff of fine storytelling.

BLOOD ON THE RIVER: James Town, 1607, by Elisa Carbone

Lucky to escape the gallows, but doomed to servitude in the New World, young Samuel Collier instead finds adventure in the Jamestown settlement.

BORN TO ROCK, by Gordon Korman

Leo Caraway-- president of the Young Republicans club, 4.0 GPA, future Harvard student-- is horrified to find out that his real father is punk rock's most notorious bad boy.

DARKHENGE, by Catherine Fisher

The storytelling is delicate and poetic, the journey to the Underworld frightening, with suspense that builds as young, bitter Chloe decides whether or not to return to life.

THE DEATH COLLECTOR, by Justin Richards

A sinister factory owner is bent on reanimating the dead, both humans and dinosaurs— and one of each is already terrorizing the streets of London.

A DROWNED MAIDEN’S HAIR: A Melodrama, by Laura Amy Schlitz

A trouble-making orphan is adopted by a family of phony Spiritualists.  Filled with tantalizing details of turn-of-the-century spiritualism, page-turning suspense and a feisty heroine.

THE GREEN GLASS SEA, by Ellen Klages

Recreates life at Los Alamos Camp, where scientists and mathematicians converge with their families to construct and test the first nuclear bomb. Poetic and real, this one will keep you reading and leave you thinking. Winner of the 2007 Scott O’Dell Award for Distinguished Historical Fiction.
 

KETURAH AND LORD DEATH, by Martine Leavitt

After Keturah is lost for days in the forest, the powerful and handsome Lord Death comes for her, but like Scheherazade, with her gift for storytelling, she beguiles him into allowing her a day's reprieve, then another, and another. . .  A darkly gorgeous medieval fairy tale that is deftly spun.

LIFE AS WE KNEW IT, by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Disbelief turns to fear in a split second, as the entire world witnesses a lunar impact that knocks the moon closer in orbit, catastrophically altering the earth's climate. Told in Miranda's diary entries, this is a heart-pounding account of her struggle to hold on to the most important resource of all-- hope-- in an increasingly desperate time.

NOTES FROM THE MIDNIGHT DRIVER, by Jordan Sonnenblick

Having seriously messed himself up by getting drunk and decapitating a garden gnome with his mom's car, sixteen-year-old Alex is assigned to a nursing home for his community service sentence: one hundred hours with Sol Lewis, the crankiest member of the old folks' community.

THE RULES OF SURVIVAL, by Nancy Werlin

Narrated by 17-year-old Matt as a letter to his youngest sister, Emmy, the story is his effort to come to terms with the vicious treatment he and his two sisters suffered at the hands of Nikki, their beautiful and unpredictable mother. Deliciously harrowing.

TAMAR: A Novel of Espionage, Passion, and Betrayal, by Mal Peet

When her grandfather dies, Tamar inherits a box containing a series of clues and coded messages. Two stories-- Tamar's and her grandfather's-- separated by half a century, dovetail in Peet's thrilling tale of love, jealousy, betrayal, and the terrifying world of WWII Resistance fighters. The 2007 Carnegie Medal Winner.

THE TRAP, by John Smelcer

Readers will be clinging to the pages of this graceful, haunting story about a 17-year-old Alaskan Indian searching for his lost grandfather, while the grandfather struggles to survive in the freezing wilderness. A small masterpiece. One of YALSA's Top Ten Books for Young Adults.