Our teen book spotlight this week is all about books that have been chosen for the Virginia Reader’s Choice (VRC) award over the past years!! The VRC award was started back in the 1980s with the goal being that students across the state choosing what they thought the best book of the year is instead of adults. Every year, there are 10 YA books nominated for the award by a committee; readers then have a few months to read as many of the 10 as they can and then they will cast their vote for which one they think is the best. The book with the most votes wins the award!! Every teen, as long as you live in Virginia, qualifies to participate in this amazing experience and you can vote right here at your local Handley Regional Library System library (if you are interested just stop by and see someone in Youth Services!). The books we are featuring today have been ones that have won the title in their respective year and they are worthy of the title! These books and more can be found by searching the catalog using the search tag #vrchighwinner as well as on Libby and Hoopla. Check back next week for a new teen book spotlight and if you have any book suggestions, please let us know!!
Learning to Swear In America by Katie Kennedy--An asteroid is streaking towards Earth. Though not as large as the one that took the dinosaurs, it could potentially destroy Japan, California and the cities along the Pacific Ocean's coasts. Seventeen-year-old Yuri, a physicist prodigy, is brought to NASA from Russia to help find a way to avoid mass disaster. The key to stopping the impact might be found in Yuri's antimatter research, but none of the senior scientists want to listen to a teenager. Exasperated and ready to give up, Yuri meets pretty, unpredictable Dovie, who is oblivious to the impending disaster. Being with Dovie on her fun adventures shows Yuri how to create a life worth living and gives him a renewed desire to stop the asteroid no matter the cost.
One of Us Is Lying by Karen McManus--Five students are sent to after-school detention at Bayview High: Bronwyn, the brain; Addy, the beauty; Nate, the criminal; Cooper, the athlete; and Simon, the outcast. You might think this sounds like a familiar '80s movie about a club and breakfast—but in this case, Simon doesn't make it out alive. Simon, the creator of Bayview High's infamous gossip app, had promised to release juicy details about all four of his popular co-detention attendees the next day, which means all four are suspects in his murder—unless, of course, a sixth figure is using them as patsies …
Fake ID by Lamar Giles--What is Whispertown? This question drives Nick Pearson when his newest friend, Eli Cruz, is found dead. Nick has been in the Witness Protection Program long enough to recognize when a murder is made to look like a suicide. Eli was a reporter for the school newspaper, and was investigating Whispertown for a story. Nick knows he should not draw attention to himself—his father is still in trouble with the mob—but when Eli's hot sister Reya asks him to help her find out who killed her brother, he can hardly say no.
Uglies by Scott Westerfeld--Fifteen-year-old Tally's postapocalyptic society gives extreme makeovers to teens on their sixteenth birthdays. When a top-secret agency threatens to leave Tally ugly forever unless she spies on runaway teens, she agrees to infiltrate the Smoke, a colony of refugees from the "tyranny of physical perfection." At first baffled and revolted by the rebels' choices, Tally eventually bonds with one of their leaders and begins to question the "validity of institutionalized mutilation - especially as it becomes clear that the government's surgeons may be doing more than cosmetic nipping and tucking".
Unwind by Neal Shusterman--In a future world where those between the ages of thirteen and eighteen can have their lives "unwound" and their body parts harvested for use by others, three teens go to extreme lengths to uphold their beliefs--and, perhaps, save their own lives.
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls--Walls, who spent years trying to hide her childhood experiences, now shares the poverty, hunger, jokes, and bullying she and her siblings endured. She also takes a look back on her parents: her flighty, self-indulgent mother, a Pollyanna unwilling to assume the responsibilities of parenting, and her father, brilliant and troubled, whose ability to turn his family's downward-spiraling circumstances into adventures allowed his children to excuse his imperfections until they were older. This gracefully written account speaks candidly, yet with surprising affection, about parents and the strength of family ties - for both good and ill.