Age: High School

Deals with tough issues like rape, war, and brutal murder. Based on a true story. After their cage is bombed due to the Iraq War, a pride of lions flees from the wreckage. While one lioness yearns for the wild, the eldest lioness likes the comfort of the surroundings she has grown accustomed to. The cub wants to discover this horizon that he keeps hearing about. The dialogue between the lions reflects the concern of human destruction, survival, being held against one's will, and death of the innocent.

Art is mostly in a yellow scale to reflect the setting. Gorgeous capture of lions' emotions. Gory at times.

Age: 4th grade-high school
Style: Left-to-right manga

Relatively unique storyline about Nicole, a business major who takes her dreams and turns them into fantasy stories. She runs into Josh, her ex-neighbor, and his crush is immediately renewed. While he gets plenty of attention from other, random girls, he wants the one who continually brushes him off. Nicole finally gives in to a "get-together," where Josh reads her dream journal and vows to encourage her to finish it for a contest.

A delightful blend of Nicole's fantasy and her real life, this two volume story gives life to both Nicole and Josh on separate levels and within their interactions. Exaggerated humor with perfectly complimentary artwork achieves a perfect blend.

Age: 5th-7th grade

An excellent and thorough description of the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S. written chronologically from 1954-1968 starting with a brief history before Brown v. Board of Education until the emergence of the Black Panthers and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination. Larger font with several photographs of prominent figures.

Age: 9-12; short length, simple vocabulary

Plot: Dwight is already a weird kid. He digs holes and sits in them, he dances like a maniac, punches holes through his hamburger with a straw, etc. So when he makes an origami Yoda, nobody pays particular interest--until Origami Yoda starts providing insight into typical 6th grade life. Soon the class is lining up to get their questions answered. But the narrator, Tommy, wants to know how Origami Yoda can be so smart when Dwight himself is so clueless.

The book ends and doesn't really provide an actual answer to the truth behind Origami Yoda, which is the question that appears throughout the book. It seems that Dwight was using the puppet to attract attention and that he truly is smart and insightful (like Yoda) but no one can really see past his oddities. But, this book is a quick read and not meant for incredible insight. It uses suspense and humor which make it a good free-reading book for kids.

Age: 6th grade-12th grade

One of the first novels portraying a positive intimate relationship between two people of the same sex, Annie and Liza discover their sexuality through each other and the tight bond they form around a simple yet powerful love. Not necessarily considered “hip” or “sexy,” this novel exposes the normality of love between two people.

The majority of the novel focuses on the growing love as opposed to the adversity that emerges within the last quarter of the book. While the latter ties the story together as a suspenseful and intriguing novel, the former helps the reader develop a strong empathy with the characters being attacked and the reader sees their love as the center point, not the negative response from their surroundings.

Age: 11-15

Plot: Seventh-grader Maleeka finds another reason to hate school when a new teacher enters the scene. Miss Saunders immediately grabs the attention of her students and her fellow faculty at this inner-city school as a former rich businesswoman with a white birthmark across her face. We soon find out that Maleeka is book smart but she is falling into a bad crowd due to the increasing self-consciousness of her midnight black skin and her mother's oddly sewn clothes. Miss Saunders sees Maleeka's potential to excel and, eventually, the two discover how similar they really are. Maleeka finds solace in writing which Miss Saunders encourages Maleeka to pursue.

Maleeka's character is interesting and truly intriguing as you find out that she has a wonderful heart but a hampered spirit. She also knows the importance of loving oneself, she just can't apply it to herself. We then find out that Maleeka and Miss Saunders are more alike than not as they both instill thoughts of self-love into each other.

Basic introduction to wetlands, but seems almost too simplistic for early readers. I would imagine the reader already knows all of what the book is trying to inform her.

Paul lives in a gay utopia or rather a gay anomaly where people are judged on their personal choices rather than their biological determination. As a sophomore in high school, Paul mixes in with a diverse crowd. His good friend is a drag queen and also the football quarterback. Lesbians and gay guys are scattered throughout the school so there really is no feeling of being the "odd one out." The Boy Scouts changed their name to the Joy Scouts upon realization that gays were not allowed. Not necessarily fantasy, but the setting of this book definitely does not exist anywhere--but may in the future. This utopia seems to upset most readers because it paints a perfect world that simply doesn't exist and it may make the reader for worse in the reality he or she lives. But, I believe every book serves its purpose and this book allows a release, an escape, a hope for the future.

Besides the setting, the humor is phenomenal. This has been the first YA book I've read for Youth Materials that actually is funny without having to derive its humor for making fun of others.