During the past year, more than three dozen librarians working with teens in public, school, and college libraries have evaluated books published for the adult market with an eye toward identifying those that are worthy of teen reading as well. By examining more than 600 titles, we were able to select about 250 for review across the year. Of these adult books of interest and appropriate to the concerns of high school readers, the following are ones no teen collection should miss. Almost all of them are recommended for browsing as well as offering curriculum-enhancing possibilities. This year, many of the books that grabbed our attention and had us pushing titles at each other (and teens and friends!) speak to concerns about race, war, and the individual’s view of a changing world. We found the following fiction, nonfiction, and graphic novels are the best adult books for high school students, and believe many will work their way from one teen reader to the next.—Francisca Goldsmith, Chair

Fiction

BAKKER, Gerbrand. The Twin. Archipelago Books. tr. from Dutch by David Colmer. Tr $25. ISBN 978-0-9800330-2-1. Riet chooses to marry athletic, popular Henk over his identical twin, but he dies before the wedding. Stuck on the family farm for years and caring for his aging father, Helmer comes into his own and takes in widowed Riet’s teenaged son. Set in the Netherlands, this is a beautifully crafted story of love, loss, and ever-evolving family dynamics. KASAI, Kirsten Imani. Ice Song. Del Rey. pap. $15. ISBN 978-0-345-50881-2. The themes of identity, difference, and personal integration are woven into a fantasy recounted with the quiet, and sometimes disturbing, sense of the dream world. The future brings genetic mutations that a researcher wants to reverse, and he plans to perform vivisectionist experiments to find out how. MCCOY, Sarah. The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico: A Novel. Shaye Areheart. Tr $19.95. ISBN 978-0-307-46007-3. Living in politically charged 1960s Puerto Rico, adolescent Verdita must reconcile the physical love she sees between her parents and the changes in her own body, hobbled, to some real degree, by her still-childish perspective of the world. Fully evoked characters give readers the sense that they have met real people and understood what it’s like to be in their shoes. ROSOFF, Meg. The Bride’s Farewell: A Novel. Viking. Tr $24.95. ISBN 978-0-670-02099-7. Beautifully descriptive language and complex characters bring 19th-century England to life as a young woman flees her fiancé on her wedding day and eventually moves toward a future where there must be balance between responsibility and personal satisfaction. WILLINGHAM, Bill. Peter and Max: A Fables Novel. illus. by Steve Leialoha. Vertigo. Tr $22.99. ISBN 978-1-4012-1573-6. The Fables universe moves from graphic novel to prose with this stand-alone fantasy pitting good against evil in the traditional brother vs. brother structure of so many fables. Accessible and engaging for those new to Fabletown, the book also moves fans of graphic novels into a new way of entering Willingham’s imaginative world building. WILSON, Robert Charles. Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America. Tor. Tr $25.95. 978-0-7653-1971-5. Provocative science fiction meets astute political commentary in an adventure-filled futuristic tale of an America that’s abandoned technology and urban centers and looks to a centralized Protestant Church for leadership. Throughout the narrative runs an engaging philosophical examination of the nature of society, the individual, truth, power, idealism, and change, giving teens much to contemplate.

Nonfiction

BISS, Eula. Notes from No Man’s Land: American Essays. Graywolf Pr. pap. $15. ISBN 978-1-55597-518-0. A baker’s dozen of finely crafted essays on issues of race in America combines present-day experiences with historical research. Both for its content and its craft, this volume serves as a masterful guide. CULBERSON, Sarah & Tracy Trivas. A Princess Found: An American Family, an African Chiefdom, and the Daughter Who Connected Them All. St. Martin’s. Tr $25.95. ISBN 978-0-312-37879-0. This memoir reveals the author’s isolation as an adopted child of color in a predominantly white world, her journey to Sierra Leone as an older teen in search of her biological roots, and the story of her biological father’s life in an impoverished village. An evocative examination of roots and experiences. ECHIKSON, William. Shooting for Tiger: How Golf’s Obsessed New Generation Is Transforming a Country Club Sport. PublicAffairs. Tr $24.95. ISBN 978-1-58648-578-8. In an attempt to answer the question, “Who will be the next Tiger Woods?” the author profiles promising teenage golfers, and delivers an eye-opening, behind-the-scenes look at dedicated instructors, overzealous (and often over-mortgaged) parents, and elite sporting academies. MONE, Gregory. The Truth About Santa: Wormholes, Robots, and What Really Happens on Christmas Eve. Bloomsbury. Tr $16.95. ISBN 978-1-59691-618-0. Referencing the latest scientific breakthroughs, Mone presents the case for a Santa that makes use of such mind-boggling concepts as wormholes, teleporting, drug-induced hibernation, self-assembling molecules, and surveillance technology. A painless introduction to academic topics, accompanied by clever illustrations and abundant doses of humor. NEWKIRK, Pamela, ed. Letters from Black America. Farrar. Tr. $30. ISBN 978-0-374-10109-1. Ranging in time, subject matter, and language, these 200 letters form a cohesive story of a people, expressing in the most intimate terms the hopes, fears, struggles, tragedies, and triumphs of blacks in America. These are the honest missives of both publicly known and more private people who tell how they came to be who they are. WOLFF, Mishna. I’m Down: A Memoir. St. Martin’s. Tr $23.95. ISBN 978-0-312-37855-4. This memoir lays bare issues of cultural, racial, and personal identity as the author tells what it was like to be raised white in a black neighborhood by parents who were unclear about the emotional needs of their children. Wolff uses accessible humor as well as honesty to convey the facts of her difficult childhood, allowing readers to appreciate both the obstacles and ways she overcame them.

GRAPHIC NOVELS

BERRY, Hannah. Britten and Brülightly. illus. by author. Metropolitan. pap. $20. ISBN 978-0-8050-8927-1. Muted colors and a finely honed sense of humor imbue this tale of murder, detection, and absurdity with funny gags and fine examples of genre detective fiction. FOLMAN, Ari. Waltz with Bashir: A Lebanon War Story. illus. by David Polonsky. Metropolitan. pap. $18. ISBN 978-0-8050-8892-2. Adapting his Oscar-nominated animated film of the same name, journalist Folman pries open the hidden memories of his life as an Israeli soldier during the violent Sabra and Shatila Massacre in 1982 Lebanon. The artist uses film as well as drawing to create the imagery that tell aspects of the experience. GUIBERT, Emmanuel. The Photographer: Into War-torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders. photos by Didier Lefèvre. tr. from French by Alexis Siegel. illus. by author & Frédéric Lemercier. Roaring Brook/First Second. pap. $29.95. 978-1-59643-375-5. Traveling with the French organization into Afghanistan during the 1980s, photographer Lefèvre took roll upon roll of film. Those black-and-white images are combined here with Guibert’s beautifully colored cartoon work, painting a picture of one man’s political awakening and understanding of how complex international relations and humanitarian efforts play out in a lawless landscape. PEKAR, Harvey, et al. The Beats: A Graphic History. ed. by Paul Buhle. illus. by Ed Piskor, et al. Hill & Wang. Tr $22. ISBN 978-0-8090-9496-7. Nearly a dozen cartoonists and comics writers contributed to this biography of Beat-era poets, fiction writers, and artists. The black-and-white art, as well as the variety of important figures explored, offers both diversity and coherence in a single volume. POWELL, Nate. Swallow Me Whole. illus. by author. Top Shelf. Tr $19.95. ISBN 978-1-60309-033-9. A teen with obsessive compulsive disorder and her stepbrother are convincingly depicted in a narrative that relies on pen-and-ink artwork and well-developed dialogue. Imaginative but realistic fiction. SMALL, David. Stitches: A Memoir. illus. by author. Norton. Tr $23.95. ISBN 978-0-393-06857-3. Caldecott-winning artist Small reveals the sad truths of his own childhood and the salvation that art provided amid an abusive home life. Treatment for throat cancer, at age 14, marred his ability to speak for years. Ink washes portray his fears and traumas as a child, his long-suffering silent youth, and his creative exploration as an adult. TATSUMI, Yoshihiro. A Drifting Life. tr. from Japanese by Tara Nettleton. illus. by author. Drawn & Quarterly. pap. $29.95. ISBN 978-1-897299-74-6. This autobiography of the manga artist as a young man traces Tatsumi’s life from his postwar boyhood through his early 20s. In addition to tracking his personal growth and struggles, it also reveals the development of the manga industry and social changes in Japan during this period.