Digital Booktalk

The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Young Jody adopts an orphaned fawn he calls Flag and makes it a part of his family and his best friend. But life in the Florida backwoods is harsh, and so, as his family fights off wolves, bears, and even alligators, and faces failure in their tenuous subsistence farming, Jody must finally part with his dear animal friend.

Who Am I Without Him by Sharon G. Flake In the game of love, young men and women weigh what they need from the opposite sex against what they need to find in themselves. This popular short-story collection, including two never-before-published entries, gives teens a chance to witness the outcomes of twelve unique trysts. As relationships go either right or wrong, with surprising, often funny, always on-point results, mindful readers will appreciate the warning signs and perhaps save themselves from the same fate as these fictional protagonists. You’ll find yourself consumed by fast-paced, intelligent writing that “just gets it” in Who I Am Without Him — a question you might ultimately choose to examine before diving headlong into the dangerous waters of romance.

Unwind by Neal Shusterman Connor’s parents want to be rid of him because he’s a troublemaker. Risa has no parents and is being unwound to cut orphanage costs. Lev’s unwinding has been planned since his birth, as part of his family’s strict religion. Brought together by chance, and kept together by desperation, these three unlikely companions make a harrowing cross-country journey, knowing their lives hang in the balance. If they can survive until their eighteenth birthday, they can’t be harmed — but when every piece of them, from their hands to their hearts, are wanted by a world gone mad, eighteen seems far, far away.

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher When Clay Jensen finds a package on his front porch, he’s excited. A package, for him? With no return address? What could it possibly be? What Clay finds is a shoebox full of cassette tapes, each marked as “Cassette 1: Side A,” “Cassette 1: Side B,” etc. Of course he rushes to the old radio/cassette player in his dad’s garage to check out these mysterious tapes.And soon wishes, wholeheartedly, that he’d never picked up that stupid package from his front porch. What he hears when he inserts that first tape is the voice of Hannah Baker. Hannah, the girl he’d crushed on for longer than he could remember. The girl he went to school with. The girl he worked at the movie theater with. The girl who had changed, drastically, in the last several months. Hannah Baker, the girl who committed suicide. Clay soon realizes that these tapes aren’t just a suicide note, aren’t, really, even a clear-cut rendition of why she did what she did. Instead, these are thirteen reasons — thirteen people, to be exact — who created a snowball-effect of events that led Hannah to believe that suicide was her only…

The Truth About Alice by Jennifer Mathieu Everyone knows Alice slept with two guys at one party. When Healy High star quarterback Brandon Fitzsimmons dies in a car crash, it was because he was sexting with Alice. Ask anybody. Rumor has it Alice Franklin is a slut. It’s written all over the “slut stall” in the girls’ bathroom: “Alice had sex in exchange for math test answers” and “Alice got an abortion last semester.” After Brandon dies, the rumors start to spiral out of control. Four Healy High students tell all they “know” about Alice-and in doing so reveal their own secrets and motivations, painting a raw look at the realities of teen life. But exactly what is the truth about Alice? In the end, there’s only one person to ask – Alice herself.

Vesper: A Deviant’s Novel by Jeff Sampson Emily Webb, 16, is a geek very aware of the glamorous crowd at school, and even more conscious of her uncomfortably curvaceous body. When the class’ other Emily is murdered, Emily W.’s relatively quiet existence gets left behind. Those familiar with contemporary werewolf plotting will recognize Emily W.’s shape-shifting well before she does but will nevertheless enjoy the ride as she sleuths the other Emily’s death, gets on the literal scent track of an unidentified but highly attractive boy, and creates havoc at parties she once never considered attending.

Twilight by Stephanie Meyer Isabella Swan’s move to Forks, a small, perpetually rainy town in Washington, could have been the most boring move she ever made. But once she meets the mysterious and alluring Edward Cullen, Isabella’s life takes a thrilling and terrifying turn. Up until now, Edward has managed to keep his vampire identity a secret in the small community he lives in, but now nobody is safe, especially Isabella, the person Edward holds most dear. The lovers find themselves balanced precariously on the point of a knife–between desire and danger.

The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles by Julie Andrews Edwards What on earth is a Whangdoodle? A “fanciful creature of undefined nature,” it was also once the wisest, kindest, most fun-loving living thing in the world–until people stopped believing in it. When that lack of faith became widespread, the last of the really great Whangdoodles created a special land full of extraordinary creatures: furry Flukes, the sly High-Behind Splintercat, and the wonderful Whiffle Bird. But when an open-minded professor–the one adult who still believes in the Whangdoodle–joins forces with three children with active imaginations, they become an unstoppable team on a fantastic and sometimes terrifying journey to Whangdoodleland.

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson A classic tale of a treasure map, a perilous sea journey across the Spanish Main, a mutiny led by the infamous Long John Silver, and a lethal scramble for buried treasure as seen through the eyes of cabin boy Jim Hawkins.

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells At an English dinner party a group of gentlemen are discussing the device that one of them is making so he can explore the fourth dimension. No one is identified by name but when the men gather the following week, the device’s inventor, referred to as Time Traveler, is strangely absent. When he arrives later, he recounts his amazing sojourn into the future. After narrowly escaping from a forest fire and hostile creatures, Time Traveler uses his invention to investigate other time periods before returning to share his story with his friends. Despite the fact that he has returned with never-before-seen flowers, most of his companions do not believe him. When one of the dinner guests stops by Time Traveler’s home a few days later, he is the last one to see the inventor before he and his Time Machine disappear.