Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
October 2006
On Sale: October 3, 2006
416 pages ISBN: 0618612963 EAN: 9780618612963 Kindle: B003WUYPP6 Hardcover / e-Book Add to Wish List
If you are looking for a book to give to a teenage reader,
here's the reference you've been waiting for. Until now,
there's been no accepted guide to what's good, bad, or
indifferent in the flood of books coming off the presses in
the hot new category of young-adult publishing. If it's true
that you can't judge a book by its cover, it is especially
true for teen books, as publishers take aim at a new class
of readers. The books land on shelves without a history, and
so there is no standard by which to judge them.
Anita
Silvey, one of the country's leading authorities on books
for young people, has interviewed teenage readers all over
the country and immersed herself in young-adult books, with
an emphasis on books published in the last five years. The
result is this invaluable and very readable guide for
parents, teachers, librarians, booksellers, reading groups,
and of course teens themselves.
With its extended
essays describing 500 selections, parents will quickly see
what their teenagers are actually reading -- and will be
able to find good books to introduce them to. Teachers can
spot excellent additions to summer reading lists.
Booksellers can move customers from one favorite to a host
of others in the same genre. Librarians can round out
collections. Book groups -- for adults, teens, or both --
will have hundreds of new titles to consider.
500
Great Books for Teens is divided into twenty-one sections,
including adventure and survival, politics and social
history, horror, romance, war and conflict, fantasy, plays,
graphic novels, poetry, memoir, and spirituality. Every
section offers up classics, but the majority of titles are
new. In "Beyond the 500," Silvey compiles a number of useful
lists, including books organized by geographic location and
historical period, as well as recommended audio books.