Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden

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Citation

Garden, Nancy. Annie on My Mind. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1982. Print.

Awards

•         1982 Booklist Reviewers' choice
•      1982 ALA Best Books
•         Best Books of the 1980s
•         ALA Best Books for YAs for past 25 Years, 1994
•         One of the Best of the Best Books for YAs of the last 4 decades of the 20th Century, ALA, 2000
•         Won Mock Printz Award for 1982 in contest held at ALA Midwinter in 2002

Annotation

Two high school girls in New York City, Annie Kenyon and Liza Winthrop, find that their friendship is blossoming into a new, sweet love.

Booktalk

Liza Winthrop found Annie Kenyon in the middle of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, singing a song to herself. They find themselves in a spirited jousting battle, dueling their way through the knights in the Hall of Arms and Armor. After that, they are inseparable friends. Soon they realize their friendship has become something more.

“Annie turned around and looked at me and the sadness in her eyes made me want to put my arms around her. “I’ll go, Liza,” she said, standing up. “I – I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t think you want this, so I have hurt you and, oh, God, Liza,” she said, touching my face, “I don’t want to, I – like you so much. I told you, you make me feel – real, more real than I’ve ever though I could fee, more alive, you – you’re better than a hundred Californias, but it’s not only that, it’s…”

“Better than all those white birds?” I said around the ache that was in my throat again. “Because you’re better than anything or anyone for me, too, Annie, better than – oh, I don’t know better than what – better than everything – but that’s not what I want to be saying – you – you’re – Annie, I think I love you.”

I heard myself say it as if I were someone else, but the moment the words were out, I knew more than I’d ever known anything that they were true.” (94)

As their relationship blossoms and their love grows, Annie and Liza deal with becoming intimate, whether or not to come out to their families, and their plans for college and beyond. 

Teen Perspective

“[It’s a]well written, sweet love story about realizing who you are.” – Melissa, 17.

Upstate by Kalisha Buckhanon

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Citation

Buckhanon, Kalisha. Upstate. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005. Print.

Awards

•          2006, ALA Alex Awards Winner
•          2006, ALA Top Ten Books for Young Adults

Annotation

While one serves time in prison, a teen couple communicates their lives and keeps their relationship alive through letters.

Booktalk

How long can a relationship last when you know you will be apart for a long time?

Antonio is in jail for killing his father. Sometimes it feels like his girlfriend, Natasha, is all he can count on. They write letters back and forth, but things change so fast when you are only 17. Antonio is trying hard to make himself the man he wants to be for himself and Natasha, working on his GED, and trying to stay out of trouble in prison. Natasha wants to figure out how to do something for Natasha for once, studying more so she can go to college and live a different life. Can their relationship survive while Antonio is Upstate?

Gossip Girl by Cecily von Ziegesar

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Citation

Von Ziegesar, Cecily. Gossip Girl. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2002. Print.

Annotation

An anonymous blogger narrates the exploits of New York City’s young society elite in Gossip Girl, the first book in the series of the same name.

Booktalk

The legendary Serena van der Woodsen got kicked out of boarding school, and she is back in NYC. The rumors are swirling about why, just the way we like it. Blair Waldorf, her former BFF, has to spend some of her valuable party-planning time to keep Serena away from her charming boyfriend, Nate. These Upper East Side prep school seniors are young, rich, and beautiful – and they know it. Everyone wants to know what’s going on at their parties and in their bedrooms, and I’ve got all the juicy details.

You know you love me,

Gossip Girl.

Monster by Walter Dean Myers

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Citation

Myers, Walter Dean. Monster. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 1999. Print.

Awards

•      1999 nominee, National Book Award for Young People's Literature
•          2000 Michael L. Printz Award
•          2000 Coretta Scott King Honor (Author)
•          ALA Best Book for Young Adults
•          ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers
•          Kentucky Bluegrass Award

Annotation

Sixteen year old Steve Harmon sits on trial as an accomplice to murder. Monster follows his story, narrated in a mix of diary entries and screenplays from his perspective.

Booktalk

Is Steve Harmon a monster? The State of New York thinks so. Steve sits on trial for his role in a neighborhood robbery gone bad. At the age of sixteen, he is faced with at least twenty years in prison, if not the death penalty, for acting as the lookout in a drugstore holdup that ended in the owner’s murder. As he thinks about the trial and his future, the only way Steve can make things clear for himself is to imagine how his life would look as a movie. Combined with his journal entries written during his nights in jail, Monster shows the internal struggle of a young man in dire circumstances. Steve is forced to confront the truth of who he really is. Will the jury agree with the prosecution that Steve is a Monster?