TeenSpace

"Who is Jenna Fox?

Seventeen-year -old Jenna has been told that is her name.  She has just awoken from a year-long coma, and she's still recovering from the terrible accident that caused it.  Her parents show her home movies of her life, her memories, but she has no recollection.  Is she really the same girl she sees on the screen?

Little by little, Jenna begins to remember.  Along with the memories come questions-- questions no one wants to answer for her.  What really happened after the accident?"  To learn more, check out The Adoration of Jenna Fox, by Mary E. Pearson. 

"Bridget Flannery and Maureen O'Malley have been BFFs since forever.  Then a brief moment of inattention on an icy road leaves one girl dead and the other in a coma, battered beyond recognition.  Family and friends mourn one friends loss and pray for the other's recovery.  But then the doctors discover they have made a horrible mistake.  The girl who lived is the one who everyone thought had died. 

Based on a true case of mistaken identity, All We Know of Heaven is a drama of ordinary people caught up in an unimaginable tragedy and the healing power of hope and love.  All We Know of Heaven, by Jacqueline Mitchard.

Myx Amens has died twice and hasn't slept in over three years.  He fills his endless hours snooping in others' lives, mostly collecting truths and untruths they hide even from themselves.  With a synesthetic mind and an eidetic memory, fourteen year-old Myx is unusually well-equipped to solve a series of grisly murders that rock his hometown of Miracle, Massachusetts.

Stare through Myx's eyes for an unblinking 42 hours as he squeezes through the cracks of Miracle's peaceful facade to find the answer to a 250-year old puzzle--and the motive for the murders.  Miracle Myx, by Dave Diotalevi.

Welcome to the realm of very scary faeries! Sixteen-year-old Kaye is a modern nomad.  Fierce and independent, she travels from city to city with her mother's rock band until an ominous attack forces Kaye back to her childhood home.  There, amid the industrial, blue-collar New Jersey backdrop, Kaye soon finds herself an unwilling pawn in an ancient power struggle between two rival faerie kingdoms -- a struggle that could very well mean her death.  Tithe, by Holly Black.

Sixteen-year old Jayson Porter wants to believe things will get better.  But the harsh realities of his life never seem to change.  Living in the inland Florida projects with his abusive mother, he tries unsuccessfully to fit in at his school while struggling to maintain even a thread of a relationship with his drug-addicted father.  As the pressure mounts, there's only one thing Jayson feels he has control over--the choice whether to live or die.  To explore more of the harsh reality of Jayson's life, check out The Death of Jayson Porter, by Jaime Adoff.

Want more fiction?  Stop by the reference desk for more reviews and recommendations for great new books!

With big, black rimmed-glasses, ten extra teeth, water on the brain, and a physique like a toothpick, Arnold Spirit gets no respect from anyone.  His parents, who “came from poor people who came from poor people who came from poor people, all the way back to the very first poor people” have little hope of ever changing anything.  That's the way it is on the rez in Wellpinit, Washington.

Fed up with it all, Arnold throws a book in class and accidentally hits a teacher.  The teacher tells him that the only way he’ll ever get out of this hopelessness is to leave.

When Arnold goes, He chooses  to go to an all-white, rich person school 20 miles away. In the eyes of all his friends at the rez, he becomes a traitor. He tries to survive at his new school, and everything changes—but Arnold must decide if its for the better.

Check out "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian," by Sherman Alexie, or stop by the Reference Desk for more great book suggestions!

Do you know anybody who has autism? Maybe you know someone at your school or in your family who has it.  Autism is a fairly common brain disorder (1 out of 500 people have it) that usually appears in early childhood. It is more common among boys than among girls.  Autism can be mild to severe, and not all autistic people have the same symptoms. Doctors don't know exactly what causes autism, and currently there is no cure, although there are some therapies that help autistic people reach out to others more and improve their language skills.

Here are some fiction titles from the library about autism.  If you want more information or need suggestions of other things to read, please don't hesitate to ask a librarian!

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon.  Despite his overwhelming fear of interacting with people, Christopher, a mathematically-gifted, autistic fifteen-year-old boy, decides to investigate the murder of a neighbor's dog and uncovers secret information about his mother.

Al Capone Does My Shirts, by Gennifer CholdenkoA twelve-year-old boy named Moose moves to Alcatraz Island in 1935 when guards' families were housed there, and has to contend with his extraordinary new environment in addition to life with his autistic sister.The Speed of Dark, by Elizabeth Moon.  Journeys inside the mind of Lou Arrendale, an autistic man, who is asked to undergo a new, experimental treatment designed to cure autism, as he decides whether or not he should risk a medical procedure that could make him "normal."