Books for the Teen Age 2003

Born Confused
Tanuja Desai Hidier | Scholastic, ©2002 | FIC D
It's not a simple matter for Indian-American, New Jersey-born, Dimple Lala to fit comfortably in her suburban community. Now her parents want her to settle down with a "suitable boy" of their selection. He just happens to be an NYU student, a DJ, incredibly handsome, and possibly attracted to Dimple's best friend, Gwyn.

Boy v. Girl?
George Abrahams, PhD. and Sheila Ahlbrand | Free Spirit, ©2002
Why is there is one set of rules for boys and another for girls? Why don't boys cry? Why does she throw like a girl? This book talks about those gender expectations, the truth and the myth.

Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest
B. H. Fairchild | Norton, ©2002 | 811 F
An award winning book of poetry which tells of teen adventures while fighting off boredom.

Enemy Women
Paulette Jiles | Morrow, ©2002 | FIC J
Adair, 18, is falsely accused of being an informer during the Civil War and is thrown in to a dreadful women's prison in St Louis. There she and the Yankee prison director fall in love despite the surroundings.

Feed
M. T. Anderson | Candlewick, ©2002 | FIC A
Think the Internet is cool? Would it still be cool if you didn't need a computer to access it, if an implant sent the Internet directly into your brain? Titus has always taken the feed for granted; it's a crucial part of his life. How else would he know what music was hot, what clothes to buy and where to party? But then he meets Violet, a girl who actually thinks for herself. Violet's feed is damaged by a hacker and Titus begins to see the darker side to technology.

Hush
Jacqueline Woodson | Putnam, ©2002 | FIC W
Toswiah's life is totally disrupted when her father, a policeman, testifies against two fellow officers. To escape retaliation, the family enters the witness protection program and Toswiah becomes Evie.

Meltdown
Wilborn Hampton | Candlewick, ©2001 | 363.17 H
The year was 1979. The place was Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania. There had been an accident at the nuclear power plant. Wilborn Hampton was a reporter for United Press International who covered foreign news but two days after the first alarm went off he was on his way to cover one of the scariest stories of his career: the danger of meltdown at Three Mile Island.

My Heartbeat
Garret Freymann-Weyr | Houghton Mifflin, ©2002 | FIC W
Ellen loves to hang out with her older brother Link and his best friend James. She adores Link and she has a huge crush on James. They are the perfect threesome, until love and sex get in the way of their friendship.

Parasite Pig
William Sleator | Dutton, ©2002 | FIC S
Barney enjoyed playing Interstellar Pig. He'd bested a group of vicious aliens and saved the Earth the first time he'd played, but now he plays just for fun with friends. But the fun ends quickly when Barney and his friend are kidnapped and taken to a planet where humans are considered a delicacy. Barney has to find a way to escape the aliens who want to eat him so he can defeat the aliens who want the strange object called the Piggy.

This Lullaby
Sarah Dessen | Viking, ©2002 | FIC D
Remi's musician father left behind a song including the line "I will let you down". That's basically how she feels about boys until she meets Dexter: messy, vulnerable, and guess what?--a musician.

We're Not Monsters
Sabrina Solin Weill | Harper Tempest, ©2002 | 364.3609 W
They are on the news. They give teens a bad rap. They are the teens in trouble, gunning down classmates, cutting themselves, committing suicide, or sexually abusing others. Teens tell the stories of their lives and problems and how they are improving their situations.

With Their Eyes: September 11th
Annie Thoms, ed. | HarperCollins, ©2002 | 812.042 W
The students of Stuyvesant High School were eyewitnesses to the tragedy at the World Trade Center. Following their return to school, the students interviewed members of the school community and created a theatrical event of unforgettable monologues.

A preview of new titles. These titles have been selected from Books for the Teen Age 2003, prepared every year by The New York Public Library, Office of Young Adult Services.

2003