Age: Kindergarten - 8th grade

This would be an excellent walk-through book for all ages in order to discuss immigration, leaving your loved ones, and being in an unknown land. Taking place in a fake culture, the only symbols present in the story are indecipherable, evoking empathy with the alienated protagonist.

Age: 6th grade to 10th grade

A short read, Dirk is uncertain to whom to reveal his true sexuality so he masks his homosexuality in a new punk wardrobe. Towards the end of his despondent silence, he is put in a coma after being beat up by hate-filled bigots. Although the reader doesn't know he is in a coma, we suspect he is in an in-between world where he is visited by dead family members and people that will become important in his life. Dirk comes to accept his full identity after he hears the complex, multidimensional, and striving stories of his family.

Age: 8th-adult

Katniss (the coolest name in the world) must fight to the death in the Hunger Games against 24 other children ages 12-18 in the distopian world of Panem. After the world is torn apart by disease, famine, and other really sad things, an oppressive government rises up. A rebellion is quashed by the regime and the Treaty of Treason is established to remind the citizens that they have no power against the tyrannical government. In this treaty all children ages 12-18 are called to submit their names into a lottery where 24 children must fight to the death in a controlled natural environment, all while being televised across the nation.

Quick, engaging, believable, and disturbing, I was enraptured from beginning to end, oftentimes having to stop right in the middle of a chapter because the chapter endings were always cliff hangers. I believe that Katniss was a very well flushed out and believable character, agreeing with her decisions even if I didn't want to.

Age: 7-10 years
Part of a series
Similar to Bone (humor) and Wizard of Oz (meeting friends along the way)

While exploring a meteoroid crater, daring Zita discovers a red button and can't resist the temptation to push it. Her cautious friend Joseph is instantly abducted by an alien and Zita quickly follows to save her friend. She enters a planet unknown to humans only to find that the world's end is nigh as a meteor plummets into the atmosphere. Determined to save her friend, Zita sets out on a quest meeting outcasts who join her on her quest to save the planet and her friend.

Age: 8-12 years
part of a series
Read-alike: Ella Enchanted

Following along the fairy tale, Rapunzel has been raised by Gothel, a woman with what appear to be magical powers. When Rapunzel finds out that a dismal and strife-ridden world exists just beyond the wall of her sheltered life, she meets her birth mother who is now part of Gothel's indentured labor. Upon refusal to follow in Gothel's footsteps, Rapunzel is locked in a tower until she submits. Rapunzel finally escapes and journey's across the land with her partner Jack to defeat Gothel.

With a touch of realism (Gothel has harnessed a growth-inducing plant which causes Rapunzel's hair to grow), this classic retelling adds a new dimension that is not contrite and overstrung. Sure she's a fairytale-girl-turned-tomboy, but she's also a cowgirl. Pretty sweet.

Age: 7th-12th grade

Seven-year-old Alyss is torn from her life of luxury after her evil Aunt Redd brutally kills Alyss' parents and steals the thrown. Hatter Madigan escapes Wonderland with Alyss to Victorian England where they are separated along the way. Now spelt Alice, she attempts to convince her friends and newly acquired family of her magical past. Nobody believes her until Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) asks Alice to turn her story into a book. What she doesn't realize is that he turns it into the fictional fantasy world we know as Alice in Wonderland. Exhausted by the age of 16, Alice begins to believe her former life was a made-up fantasy and devotes herself entirely to the life she's led since she was 7. As she is about to wed, Hatter Madigan finally finds her and takes her back to Wonderland where she sees the moral and physical destruction of her homeland by Aunt Redd. But can she take back the queendom when she's rejected her past for so long?

While this may not be for devout fans of Alice in Wonderland, this is an excellent rendition of a famous storyline. While characters and some famous phrases remain the same, everything else is turned on its head. While the timeline is hard to follow, the action and interesting plot captivate you through the book until the very end, unfortunately creating a rushed ending.

Depictions of the death of parents brings this book to a young adult audience.

Age: 4th grade (advanced reader)-7th grade
Series: #1

"Arthur (Art) Mumsby and his irritating sister Myrtle live with their father in a huge and rambling house called Larklight…that just happens to be traveling through outer space. When a visitor called Mr. Webster arrives for a visit, it is far from an innocent social call" (featured Goodreads review).

Combining steampunk, pirates, adventure, and science fiction, Reeve adds another spin to the steampunk genre. While most students in my Youth Literature class enjoyed the cool drawings, they confused the workings of my imagination. While some students liked the British humor and Reeve's ability to mock the cockiness of the British empire, it was hard for me to laugh at it and not cringe at the horror of conquest. However, I did appreciate the cool contraptions!

This is a good book for people familiar with science fiction or steampunk but not a good introductory to the two, as it was for me.