Welcome to my Book Blog for LIBR 265

I am an avid reader, and when I first saw this project I was thrilled. I envisioned perusing my bookshelves, finding some of my teen favorites to start out with, and then heading to the library for more. Unfortunately, at least for this assignment, I've always been an avid reader, and I routinely read books well above my age level. By the start of high school I had left the YA section behind, unless I needed a quick read to tide me over for just an hour or two. Because of my advanced reading skills, I developed a rather skewed impression of just what most 15-18 year olds were reading. I was reading Mercedes Lackey, Piers Anthony, Tamora Pierce, Anne McCaffrey, and others. I was reading about love, loss, and magic, and I preferred my books good and long. In the absence of good and long, I would settle for part of a large series, such as the Animorphs, Seventh Tower, Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, and Everworld. While I liked a happy ending, I also loved a book that made me cry as the heroes tried to pick themselves up after their whole world collapsed around them. I particularly liked books where there was some sort of hidden magic that gave the main character some kind of freedom, a moment of beauty they could hold in their heart, something that could keep a spark of bittersweet joy alive inside of themselves, even as they grew up. I think I grew up too quickly, at least as far as my reading choices went. Many YA books do have this spark, this little bit of magic, and most have some sort of happy ending.

To start my project, I took a quick look at my bookshelf, and realized that I had no real idea just what a YA book actually was. From there I went to the Sacramento Public Library and asked the children's librarian for help. After a quick redirect to the YA specialist I spent the next hour finding thirty YA books in a variety of topics. I would have taken out more, but my card had a limit of thirty books. As a general rule, I was advised to look for books with a main character within my age range. In general, people like to read about people like themselves, and so a book will be written with main characters about the same age as the target audience. Of course, there are many exceptions, but this gives me a starting point. While I recognized some of the books, and even found a few I wanted to read but hadn't gotten around to, most of these books were strangers to me. I started my reading with City, a Smallville "could have been an episode" story, and ended with Magic's Pawn, a book that I read when I was a teen and that I still consider my favorite.

I have decided to include both brief non-spoiler teasers, as well as summaries that have extensive spoilers. Challenge issues are not things I found objectionable, or necessarily things I felt were grounds for a challenge. Rather, they are issues that might possibly offend some parents, and they are intended to be looked at more like rating warnings given for movies. Age recommendation is based on the youngest I'd feel comfortable recommending the book, not necessarily the age the book is aimed at. Just because there is nothing that would be too mature for a 12 year old does not mean the book was written for a 12 year old, or that a 12 year old would enjoy the book. A book I'd recommend for a 15 year old might be something that an advanced 13 year old could read and enjoy, but without talking to the 13 year old first to see where their reading interests were, I would not suggest that book first. In many cases, I have chosen to recommend books to an age where I think teens can handle them, not at the age parents would want their teens to read them.