ALAN Online

With summer break upon us, it’s time to think about long days, lots of sunshine, trips to the lake or beach, and of course, summer reading. We’re deviating a bit from the regular reviews to feature a list that has become something of a tradition in the world of YA literature— the late, great Ted Hipple’s list of the Best YA books. Every five or so years, Ted would survey the YA community, asking for the titles of novels that were the best of the best. What we’ve done is combine some of those lists to create a Best of the Best of YA literature. There are many, many more terrific YA books on the shelves, so this is by no means an inclusive list. Instead, it is a stepping-off point for newcomers to the genre, as well as a reminder of some the great books that have been on the shelves for a long time (card catalog descriptions are used, where available).

–David Gill, ALAN Director and Webmaster

A DAY NO PIGS WOULD DIE. Robert Newton Peck. To a thirteen-year-old Vermont farm boy whose father slaughters pigs for a living, maturity comes early as he…

learns "doing what's got to be done," especially regarding his pet pig who cannot produce a litter.

ALL TOGETHER NOW. Sue Ellen Bridgers. With her father serving in the Korean War and her mother working, Casey spends her 12th summer visiting her grandparents in their small town where she makes friends with a 33-year-old man with the mind of a 12-year-old

FREAK THE MIGHTY. Rodman Philbrick. At the beginning of eighth grade, learning disabled Max and his new friend Freak, whose birth defect has affected his body but not his brilliant mind, find that when they combine forces they make a powerful team.

HOLES. Louis Sachar. As further evidence of his family's bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnats is sent to a hellish correctional camp in the Texas desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure, and a new sense of himself.

HOME BEFORE DARK. Sue Ellen Bridgers. Returning with her migrant family to her father's childhood home, a fourteen-year-old struggles with her new stationary life.

IRONMAN. Chris Crutcher. 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.

JACOB HAVE I LOVED. Katherine Paterson. Sarah Louise, who lives with her family on a Chesapeake Bay island, grows up feeling less important than her twin sister, until she finally begins to find her own identity.

MAKE LEMONADE. Virginia Euwer Wolff. In order to earn money for college, fourteen-year-old LaVaughn babysits for a teenage mother.

OUT OF THE DUST. Karen Hesse. In a series of poems, fifteen-year-old Billie Jo relates the hardships of living on her family's wheat farm in Oklahoma during the dust bowl years of the Depression.

STAYING FAT FOR SARAH BYRNES. Chris Crutcher. The daily class discussions about the nature of man, the existence of God, abortion, organized religion, suicide and other contemporary issues serve as a backdrop for a high-school senior's attempt to answer a friend's dramatic cry for help.

THE CHOCOLATE WAR. Robert Cormier. A high school freshman discovers the devastating consequences of refusing to join in the school's annual fund raising drive and arousing the wrath of the school bullies.

THE GIVER. Lois Lowry. Given his lifetime assignment at the Ceremony of Twelve, Jonas becomes the receiver of memories shared by only one other in his community and discovers the terrible truth about the society in which he lives.

THE MOVES MAKE THE MAN. Bruce Brooks. A Black boy and an emotionally troubled White boy in North Carolina form a precarious friendship.

THE OUTSIDERS. SE Hinton. Three brothers struggle to stay together after their parents' death, as they search for an identity among the conflicting values of their adolescent society in which they find themselves "Outsiders."

THE PIGMAN. Paul Zindel.

THE WATSONS GO TO BIRMINGHAM - 1963. Christopher Paul Curtis. The ordinary interactions and everyday routines of the Watsons, an African American family living in Flint, Michigan, are drastically changed after they go to visit Grandma in Alabama in the summer of 1963.

WALK TWO MOONS. Sharon Creech. After her mother leaves home suddenly, thirteen-year-old Sal and her grandparents take a car trip retracing her mother's route. Along the way, Sal recounts the story of her friend Phoebe, whose mother also left.