Denver Public Library: Teens: Find a Good Book, Book Lists - 2010 Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award

The Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award recognizes the most popular books among middle and high school students in the State of Colorado. Teens nominate their favorite titles and select the winner–adults do not vote.

DIARY OF A WIMPY KID: THE LAST STRAW
by Jeff Kinney
Middle-schooler Greg Heffley nimbly sidesteps his father's attempts to change Greg's wimpy ways until his father threatens to send him to military school.

THE MAZE RUNNER
by James Dashner
Sixteen-year-old Thomas wakes up with no memory in the middle of a maze and realizes he must work with the community in which he finds himself if he is to escape.

MAXIMUM RIDE: FANG
by James Patterson
When Max and the Flock discover an unscrupulous scientist who is experimenting on humans in an effort to "improve" the human race, they decide that they must try to stop him, in spite of Angel's prediction about Fang dying.

FIRE
by Kristin Cashore
In a kingdom called the Dells, Fire is the last human-shaped monster, with unimaginable beauty and the ability to control the minds of those around her, but even with these gifts she cannot escape the strife that overcomes her world.

FROZEN FIRE
by Tim Bowler
Fifteen-year-old Dusty gets a mysterious call from a boy who says he is going to kill himself, and while he claims to have called her randomly, he seems to know her intimately.

THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PAJAMAS: A FABLE
by John Boyne
Bored and lonely after his family moves from Berlin to a place called "Out-With" in 1942, Bruno, the son of a Nazi officer, befriends a boy in striped pajamas who lives behind a wire fence.

MORTAL INSTRUMENTS BOOK FOUR: CITY OF FALLEN ANGELS
by Cassandra Clare
As mysterious murders threaten the new peace between Shadowhunters and Downworlders, only Simon, the Daylighter vampire, can help bring both groups together.

MATCHED
by Allyson Condie
All her life, Cassia has never had a choice. The Society dictates everything: When and how to play, where to work, where to live, what to eat and wear, when to die, and most importantly to Cassia as she turns 17, who to marry. When she is Matched with her best friend Xander, things couldn't be more perfect. But why did her neighbor Ky's face show up on her match disk as well?

MAZE RUNNER BOOK TWO: THE SCORCH TRIALS
by James Dashner
After surviving horrific conditions in the Maze, Thomas is entrapped, along with nineteen other boys, in a scientific experiment designed to observe their responses and gather data believed to be essential for the survival of the human race.

WHAT HAPPENED TO GOODBYE
by Sarah Dessen
Following her parents' bitter divorce as she and her father move from town to town, seventeen-year-old Mclean reinvents herself at each school she attends until she is no longer sure she knows who she is or where she belongs.

CRESCENDO
by Becca Fitzpatrick
Sixteen-year-old Nora Grey struggles to face the truth while coping with having a fallen angel boyfriend named Patch and unraveling the mystery surrounding her father's death.

TOMORROW GIRLS BOOK ONE: BEHIND THE GATES
by Eva Gray
Disaster and destruction are all thirteen-year-old Louisa has ever known. But now she and her best friend Maddie, are among the lucky few being sent to boarding school, far from home. Finally, a taste of freedom! Country Manor School isn't perfect: The girls' roommates are tough to get along with, and the school is hard work. Still, Louisa loves CMS – the survival skills classes, the fresh air. She doesn't even miss not having TV, or the Internet, or any contact with home. It's for their own safety, after all. Or is it?

THE GENIUS FILES BOOK ONE: MISSION UNSTOPPABLE
by Dan Gutman
On a cross-country vacation with their parents, twins Coke and Pepsi, soon to be thirteen, fend off strange assassins as they try to come to terms with their being part of a top-secret government organization known as The Genius Files.

FALLEN
by Lauren Kate
Suspected in the death of her boyfriend, seventeen-year-old Luce is sent to a Savannah, Georgia, reform school where she meets two intriguing boys and learns the truth about the strange shadows that have always haunted her.

WITCH & WIZARD
by James Patterson
A sister and brother, along with thousands of young people, have been kidnapped and either thrown in prison or turned up missing after accusations of witchcraft were made against them, and the ruling regime will do anything in order to suppress life and liberty, music and books.

HEROES OF OLYMPUS BOOK ONE: THE LOST HERO
by Rick Riordan
Jason, Piper, and Leo, three students from a school for "bad kids," find themselves at Camp Half-Blood, where they learn that they are demigods and begin a quest to free Hera, who has been imprisoned by Mother Earth herself.

DORK DIARIES BOOK ONE: TALES FROM A NOT-SO-FABULOUS LIFE
by Rachel Renée Russell
Fourteen-year-old Nikki Maxwell writes in her diary of her struggle to be popular at her exclusive new private school, then of finding her place after she gives up on being part of the elite group.

CHASING BROOKLYN
by Lisa Schroeder
As teenagers Brooklyn and Nico work to help each other recover from the deaths of Brooklyn's boyfriend – Nico's brother Lucca – and their friend Gabe, the two begin to rediscover their passion for life, and a newly blossoming passion for one another.

THE SCORPIO RACES
by Maggie Stiefvater
It happens at the start of every November: the Scorpio Races. Riders attempt to keep hold of their water horses long enough to make it to the finish line. Some riders live. Others die. At age nineteen, Sean Kendrick is the returning champion. He is a young man of few words, and if he has any fears, he keeps them buried deep, where no one else can see them. Puck Connolly is different. She never meant to ride in the Scorpio Races. But fate hasn't given her much of a choice. So she enters the competition – the first girl ever to do so. She is in no way prepared for what is going to happen.

THROUGH MY EYES
by Tim Tebow
One of the best quarterbacks in the history of college football traces his path to success, discussing his childhood as the son of Christian missionaries and how his faith combined with his drive to succeed have made him the person he is today.

GALAHAD 1: THE COMET'S CURSE
by Dom Testa
251 teenagers, locked inside the ship known as Galahad, on their own, with no help from Earth... from anyone. And now someone is threatening to destroy the ship and everyone on board.

THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF CHARLIE SMALL (400), NOTEBOOK 5: CHARLIE AND THE UNDERWORLD
by Nick Ward
A continuation of the purported journal of an eight-year-old adventurer, as he faces myriad strange creatures in the underground world of Subterranea.

DUSTLANDS BOOK ONE: BLOOD RED ROAD
by Moira Young
In a distant future, eighteen-year-old Lugh is kidnapped, and while his twin sister Saba and nine-year-old Emmi are trailing him across bleak Sandsea they are captured, too, and taken to brutal Hopetown, where Saba is forced to be a cage fighter until new friends help plan an escape.