Fiction for Teen Guys at JPL M=Main Library, B=Black Road Branch
By Douglas Adams
[J ADA & Fiction Adams] The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
The Earth is going to be demolished to make way for a
galactic freeway any moment. Just before that happens, Arthur Dent
is plucked off the planet by a friend who is also a researcher. The
novel details their comic adventures as they hitch a ride to unknown
destinations, encountering strange creatures along the way. Gr. 9 -
Up. M / B
By Elaine Marie Alphin [
J ALP] Counterfeit Son When serial
killer Hank Miller is killed in a shoot-out with police, his abused
son Cameron adopts the identity of one of his father's victims in
order to find a better life. Gr. 8 - 10. M
By M. T. Anderson [J AND]
Burger Wuss Hoping to lose his loser
image, Anthony plans
revenge on a bully which results in a war between two competing
fast-food restaurants, Burger Queen and O'Dermott's. Gr. 8 - Up. M /
B
Feed This book is filled with identity
crises, consumerism, and
star-crossed teenage love in a futuristic society where people
connect to the Internet via feeds implanted in their brains. Gr. 8 -
Up. M / B
Thirsty From the moment he knows that
he is destined to be a vampire, Chris thirsts for the blood of
people around him while also struggling to remain human. Gr. 8 - up.
M / B
By Gary Blackwood [J BLA] The Year of the Hangman In this
adventurous novel, Blackwood imagines what would have happened if
the Americans lost the
Revolutionary War. Gr. 8 - Up. M / B
By Bruce Brooks [J BRO]
The Moves Make the Man A black
boy and an emotionally
troubled white boy in North Carolina form a precarious friendship.
Gr. 7– Up. M
By Melvin Burgess [J BUR] Doing It Three teenage friends,
Dino, Jonathon, and Ben, confront the confusions, fears, and joys of
adolescent male sexuality. Gr. 10 - Up. B
By Orson Scott Card [JP C and Fiction
Card] Ender’s Game Card has taken the sf concepts of a superman and an
interstellar war against aliens, and, with superb characterization,
pacing and language, combined them into a seamless story of
compelling power. Gr. 9 - Up. M / B
Ender’s Shadow In this parallel novel to "Ender's Game," Card tells
the story of another child in the Battle School--a boy named Bean,
whose past was a fight just to survive and whose mind was leagues
beyond anyone else's. Gr. 9 - Up. M / B
By Priscilla Cummings [J CUM] The Red Kayak Living near the water on Maryland's Eastern Shore,
thirteen-year-old Brady and his best friends J.T. and Digger become
entangled in a tragedy which tests their friendship and their ideas
about right and wrong. Gr. 7 - Up M / B
By Chris Crutcher [J CRU] Ironman While training for a triathlon, seventeen-year-old Bo
attends an anger management group at school which leads him to
examine his relationship with his father. Gr. 8 - Up. M / B
Whale Talk Intellectually and athletically gifted, TJ, a
multiracial, adopted teenager, shuns organized sports and the
gung-ho athletes at his high school until he agrees to form a
swimming team and recruits some of the school's less popular
students.
Gr. 8 - Up. M / B
By Christopher Paul Curtis [J CUR] Bucking the Sarge Deeply involved in his cold and manipulative
mother's shady business dealings in Flint, Michigan,
fourteen-year-old
Luther keeps a sense of humor while running the Happy Neighbor Group
Home For Men, all the while dreaming of going to college and
becoming a philosopher. Gr. 6 - 10. M
By Stephen Chbosky [J CHB] The Perks of Being a Wallflower Caught between trying to live his
life and trying to run from it, Charlie is navigating through the
strange worlds of love, drugs, "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", and
dealing with the loss of a good friend and his favorite aunt.
Gr. 9
- Up. B
By Alex Flinn [J FLI] Breaking Point Fifteen-year-old Paul enters an exclusive private
school and falls under the spell of a charismatic boy who may be
using him. Gr. 7 - Up. M / B
Nothing to Lose A year after running away with a traveling carnival
to escape his unbearable home life, sixteen-year-old Michael returns
to
Miami, Florida, to find that his mother is going on trial for the
murder of his
abusive stepfather. Gr. 9 - Up. M / B
By Gail Giles [J GIL] Shattering Glass When Rob, the charismatic leader of the senior
class, turns the school nerd into Prince Charming, his actions lead
to
unexpected violence. Gr. 9 - Up. M / B
By K. L. Going [J GOI] Fat Kid Rules the World Seventeen-year-old Troy, depressed,
suicidal, and weighing nearly 300 pounds, gets a new perspective on
life when a homeless teenager who is a genius on guitar wants Troy
to be the drummer in his rock band.
Gr. 8 - Up. M / B
By Christopher Golden [J GOL or Fiction
Golden] The Boys Are Back in Town Will isn't looking forward to his tenth
high school reunion. As much as he's hesitant to face his peers,
Will's memories of high school are fresh and he's eager to catch up
on old times. But what Will finds at the reunion is a sort of
alternative universe in which realities fade and "new" memories
begin to block them out. In this changed world, a friend who Will
remembers hanging out with at graduation was instead killed their
Junior year. Terrified, Will realizes that he is trapped in a web of
ever-shifting certainties that threatens to remake the whole of the
world--unless he can find a way to stop it.
Gr. 9 - Up. M / B
By Mark Haddon [Fiction Haddon and J HAD] The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Despite his
overwhelming fear of interacting with people, Christopher, a
mathematically-gifted, autistic fifteen-year-old boy, decides to
investigate the murder of a neighbor's dog and uncovers secret
information about his mother. Gr. 9 - Up. M / B
By Pete Hautman [J HAU] Godless When sixteen-year-old Jason Bock and his friends create
their own religion to worship the town's water tower, what started
out as a joke begins to take on a power of its own. Grades 7- Up. M
/ B
Stone Cold Sixteen-year-old Denn finds himself alienating both
friends and family when he becomes obsessed with playing high-stakes
poker with adult gamblers. Gr. 7 - Up. M
By Alex Horowitz [J HOR] Stormbreaker After the death of the uncle who had been his guardian,
fourteen-year-old Alex Rider is coerced to continue his uncle's
dangerous work for Britain's intelligence agency, MI6. The first of
the series.
Gr. 6 - Up. M / B
By A. M. Jenkins [J JEN] Out of Order Colt Trammel, popular baseball player and
sophomore-class wise guy, knows in his gut that he's a dumb jock,
much dumber than most of his classmates and his sexy girlfriend,
Grace. But he is
determined to cover up his inadequacies with his good looks,
athleticism, and clever comments and stunts. Gr. 7 - Up. M / B
By David Klass [J KLA] Danger Zone When he joins a predominantly black "Teen Dream Team"
that will be representing the United States in an international
basketball tournament in Rome, Jimmy Doyle makes some unexpected
discoveries about prejudice, racism, and politics. Gr. 7 - Up. M / B
You Don’t Know Me Fourteen-year-old John creates alternative
realities in his mind as he tries to deal with his mother's abusive
boyfriend, his crush on a beautiful, but shallow classmate and other
problems at school. Gr. 7– Up. M / B
By Ron Koertge [J KOE] Shakespeare Bats Cleanup The story of a straight-talking 14-year old
first baseman who's benched by mono and decides to take a swing at
writing poetry.
Gr. 6 - 10. M
Stoner & Spaz A troubled youth with cerebral palsy struggles
toward self-acceptance with the help of a drug-addicted young woman.
Gr. 9 - Up. M / B
By Kathe Koja [J KOJ] Buddha Boy Justin spends time with Jinsen, the unusual and artistic
new student whom the school bullies torment and call Buddha Boy, and
ends up making choices that impact Jinsen, himself, and the entire
school. Gr. 7 - Up. M / B
By Gordon Korman [J KOR] Jake, Reinvented Korman reinvents "The Great Gatsby" for teens in
this story about Jake Garret, the mysterious new student at
Fitzgerald High. Told through the eyes of Jake's friend, readers get
to know Jake and, eventually, his secret. Gr. 9 - Up. M
Son of the Mob Seventeen-year-old Vince's life is constantly
complicated by the fact that he is the son of a powerful Mafia boss,
a
relationship that threatens to destroy his romance with the daughter
of an FBI agent.
Gr. 8 - Up. M / B
Lawrence, Iain [J LAW] B For Buster In the spring of 1943, sixteen-year-old Kak, desperate
to escape his abusive parents, lies about his age to enlist in the
Canadian Air Force and soon finds himself based in England as part
of a crew flying bombing raids over Germany. Gr. 7 - Up. M / B
By Benjamin Lebert [Fiction Lebert] Crazy A coming-of-age novel by a 16-year-old is about a teenager
learning about what friends are, what girls are, how you make the
best of the hand you've been dealt, and how you find your way in a
crazy world by just being your crazy self.
Gr. 9 - Up. M / B
By Martine Leavitt [J LEA ] Heck, Superhero A teenage boy discovers how bad living on the
streets can be. Gr. 7 - Up. M / B
By Chris Lynch [J LYN] Freewill A teenager trying to recover from the tragic death of his
father and stepmother believes himself to be responsible for the
rash of teen
suicides occurring in his town. Gr. 9 - Up. M / B
By Graham McNamee [J MCN] Acceleration Stuck working in the Lost and Found of the Toronto
Transit Authority for the summer, seventeen-year-old Duncan finds
the
diary of a serial killer and sets out to stop him. Gr. 8 - Up. B
By Ben Mickaelsen [J MIK] Touching Spirit Bear After his anger erupts into violence, Cole, in
order to avoid going to prison, agrees to participate in a
sentencing
alternative based on the native American Circle Justice, and he is
sent to a remote Alaskan island where an encounter with a huge
Spirit Bear changes his life. Gr. 7 - Up. M / B
By Christopher Moore [Fiction Moore] Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal
An angel
has resurrected Levi bar Alpheus, known as Biff, to tell this story
of his life with Joshua, better known to the modern world as Jesus
Christ.
Gr. 10 - Up. M / B
By Kate Morgenroth [J MOR] Jude Still reeling from his drug-dealing father's murder, moving in
with the wealthy mother he never knew, and transferring to a private
school, fifteen-year-old Jude is tricked into pleading guilty to a
crime he did not commit.
Gr. 8 - Up. M / B
By Walter Dean Myers [J MYE / JP M] Fallen Angels Seventeen-year-old Richie Perry, just out of his
Harlem high school, enlists in the Army in the summer of 1967 and
spends a
devastating year on active duty in Vietnam. Gr. 10 - Up. M / B
Slam! Sixteen-year-old "Slam" Harris is counting on his noteworthy
basketball talents to get him out of the inner city and give him a
chance to succeed in life, but his coach sees things differently.
Gr. 8 - Up. M / B
By Kenneth Oppel [J OPP] Airborn Matt, a young cabin boy aboard an airship, and Kate, a
wealthy young girl traveling with her chaperone, team up to search
for the
existence of mysterious winged creatures reportedly living hundreds
of feet above the Earth's surface. Gr. 7 - Up. M / B
By Randy Powell [J POW] Thee Clams and an Oyster During their humorous search to find a
fourth player for their flag football team, three high school
juniors are forced to examine their long friendship, their
individual flaws, and their
inability to try new experiences. Gr. 7 - Up. M / B
Tribute to Another Dead Rock Star
For a tribute to his mother, a
dead rock star, fifteen-year-old Grady returns to Seattle, where he
faces his mixed feelings for his retarded younger half-brother Louie
while
pondering his own future. Gr. 8 - Up. M
By Adam Rapp [J RAP] Under the Wolf, Under the Dog Sixteen-year-old Steve struggles to
make sense of his mother's terminal breast cancer and his brother's
suicide. M / B
By Douglas Rees [J REE] Vampire High A boy learns how tough it is to be the new kid at
school when your classmates are vampires. Gr. 7 - Up. M / B
By Neal Shusterman [J SHU] Full Tilt When sixteen-year-old Blake goes to a mysterious,
by-invitation-only carnival he somehow knows that it could save his
comatose brother, but soon learns that much more is at stake if he
fails to meet the challenge presented there by the beautiful
Cassandra. Gr. 7 - Up. M
The Schwa Was Here A Brooklyn eighth-grader nicknamed Antsy
befriends the Schwa, an "invisible-ish" boy who is tired of blending
into his surroundings and going unnoticed by nearly
everyone. Gr. 6 - Up. M / B
By William Sleator [J SLE] The Boy Who Couldn’t Die When his best friend dies in a plane crash,
sixteen-year-old Ken has a ritual performed that will make him
invulnerable, but soon learns that he had good reason to be
suspicious of the woman he paid to lock his soul away.
Gr. 7 - Up. M / B
By Gary Soto [J SOT] The Afterlife 17-year-old narrator Chuy is murdered on page two, for
no good reason, in the restroom of a nightclub. Chuy's ghost roams
his
native Fresno, visiting Angel ("mi carnal, the guy I hung with") his
would-be novia (girlfriend), his family, his school friends. Gr. 7 -
Up. M / B
Buried Onions When nineteen-year-old Eddie drops out of college, he
struggles to find a place for himself as a Mexican American living
in a
violence-infested neighborhood of Fresno, California. Gr. 9 - Up. M
/ B
By Janet Tashjian [J TAS] The Gospel According to Larry Seventeen-year-old Josh, a
loner-philosopher who wants to make a difference in the world, tries
to maintain his secret identity as the author of a web site that is
receiving
national attention. Vote for Larry is the sequel. Gr. 8 - Up.
M / B
By Rob Thomas [J THO] Rats Saw God In hopes of graduating, Steve York agrees to
complete a hundred-page writing assignment which helps him to sort
out his relationship with his famous astronaut father and the events
that changed him from promising student to troubled teen.
Gr. 9 - Up. M / B
By Terry Trueman Stuck in Neutral Fourteen-year-old Shawn McDaniel, who suffers from
severe cerebral palsy and cannot function, relates his perceptions
of his life, his family, and his condition, especially as he
believes his father is planning to kill him. Gr. 6 - Up. M / B
By Rich Wallace Losing is Not an Option Eleven episodes in the life of a young man,
from sneaking into his tenth football game in a row with his best
friend in sixth grade to running his last high school race, the
Pennsylvania state
championships. Gr. 7 - Up. M
Restless: A Ghost’s Story Frank, a teenaged ghost who has not been
able to move on to a higher realm in the afterlife, tries to connect
with his younger brother Herbie, a high school senior who was eight
years old when Frank died. Gr. 9 - Up. M / B
By Nancy Werlin [J WER] Double Helix Eighteen-year-old Eli discovers a shocking secret about
his life and his family while working for a Nobel Prize-winning
scientist whose
specialty is genetic engineering.
Gr. 8 - Up. M / B
By Paul Zindel [J ZIN and JP Z] Rats When mutant rats threaten to take over Staten Island, which has
become a huge landfill, fourteen-year-old Sarah and her younger
brother Mike try to figure out how to stop them.
Gr. 6 - Up. M / B
By Markus Zuzak [J Zus] Fighting Ruben Wolfe Partly because of their family's poor
finances and partly to prove themselves, brothers Ruben and Cameron
take jobs as fighters and find themselves reacting very differently
in the boxing ring. Gr. 7 - Up. M / B
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