Librarian Picks for the Best Teen Books of 2007:

THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN
by Sherman Alexie
Budding cartoonist Junior leaves his troubled school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white farm town school where the only other Indian is the school mascot.

DOES MY HEAD LOOK BIG IN THIS?
by Randa Abdel-Fattah
Year Eleven at an exclusive prep school in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, would be tough enough, but it is further complicated for Amal when she decides to wear the hijab, the Muslim head scarf, full-time as a badge of her faith–without losing her identity or sense of style.

TASTING THE SKY: A PALESTINIAN CHILDHOOD
by Ibtisam Barakat
In this groundbreaking memoir set in Ramallah during the aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War, Ibtisam Barakat captures what it is like to be a child whose world is shattered by war.

THE PRINCESS AND THE PEABODYS
by Betty G. Birney
When a medieval princess appears out of a rusty box bought at a yard sale, fourteen-year-old tomboy Casey Peabody and her family are stuck with her royal snobbiness until the young wizard who had trapped her there figures out the spell to send her home.

TAKEN
by Edward Bloor
In 2035 kidnapping rich children has become an industry, but when thirteen-year-old Charity Meyers is taken and held for ransom, she soon discovers that this particular kidnapping is not what it seems.

BEING
by Kevin Brooks
It was just supposed to be a routine exam, but when the doctors snake the fiber-optic tube down Robert Smith's throat, what they discover doesn't make medical sense. Armed with a stolen automatic and the videotape of his strange organs, Robert embarks on a violent odyssey to find out exactly who–and what–he is.

LEAP OF FAITH
by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
Forced to attend a Catholic middle school because of her conduct, Abigail discovers a talent for theater and develops a true religious faith.

EVOLUTION, ME, & OTHER FREAKS OF NATURE
by Robin Brande
Following her conscience leads high school freshman Mena to clash with her parents and former friends from their conservative Christian church, but might result in better things when she stands up for a teacher who refuses to include "Intelligent Design" in lessons on evolution.

THE NATURE OF JADE
by Deb Caletti
Seattle high school senior Jade's life is defined by her anxiety disorder and dysfunctional family, until she spies a mysterious boy with a baby who seems to share her fascination with the elephants at a nearby zoo.

RE-GIFTERS
by Mike Carey
Jen Dik Seong, a.k.a. "Dixie," is dirt poor and living on the ragged edge of LA's Koreatown. Her only outlet is the ancient martial art of hapkido, and she's on the verge of winning a championship–until she falls for surfer boy Adam.

CROSS MY HEART AND HOPE TO SPY
by Ally Carter
Cammie Morgan is a CIA legacy and attends the premier school in the world...for spies. The school hosts some mysterious guests with the code name Blackthorne. When Cammie is blamed for a security breach that threatens to expose the school's top secret status, she and her friends face danger to clear Cammie's name and learn the truth about Blackthorne.

REVOLUTION IS NOT A DINNER PARTY: A NOVEL
by Ying Chang Compestine
Starting in 1972 when she is nine years old, Ling, the daughter of two doctors, struggles to make sense of the communists' Cultural Revolution, which empties stores of food, homes of appliances deemed "bourgeois," and people of laughter.

BILLIE STANDISH WAS HERE
by Nancy Crocker
When the river jeopardizes the levee and most of the town leaves, Miss Lydia, an elderly neighbor, and Billie form a friendship that withstands tragedy and time.

DERBY GIRL
by Shauna Cross
When sixteen-year-old rebel Bliss Cavendar, who is miserable living in a small Texas town with her beauty pageant-obsessed mother, secretly joins a roller derby team under the name "Babe Ruthless," her life gets better, although infinitely more confusing.

DEADLINE
by Chris Crutcher
Given the medical diagnosis of one year to live, high school senior Ben Wolf decides to fulfill his greatest fantasies, ponders his life's purpose and legacy, and converses through dreams with a spiritual guide known as "Hey-Soos."

A SWIFT PURE CRY
by Siobhan Dowd
Coolbar, Ireland, is a village of secrets and Shell, caretaker to her younger brother and sister after the death of their mother and with the absence of their father, is not about to reveal hers until suspicion falls on the wrong person.

BEFORE I DIE
by Jenny Downham
A terminally ill teenaged girl makes and carries out a list of things to do before she dies.

SACRED LEAF
by Deborah Ellis
After he manages to escape from virtual enslavement in an illegal cocaine operation, Diego is taken in by the Ricardo family. These poor coca farmers give Diego a safe haven where he recovers from his ordeal in the jungle. But the army soon moves in and destroys the family's coca crop — their livelihood.

RIGHT BEHIND YOU
by Gail Giles
After spending over four years in a mental institution for murdering a friend in Alaska, fourteen-year-old Kip begins a completely new life in Indiana with his father and stepmother under a different name, but he not only has trouble fitting in, he also finds there are still problems to deal with from his childhood.

WAR, WOMEN, AND THE NEWS
by Catherine Gourley
Filled with stirring period photographs and news clippings, this volume explores the conflicts and challenges such female news journalists as Margaret Bourke White, Lee Miller and Marguerite Higgins faced before, during and after the Second World War.

BOOK OF A THOUSAND DAYS
by Shannon Hale
Fifteen-year-old Dashti, sworn to obey her sixteen-year-old mistress, the Lady Saren, shares Saren's years of punishment locked in a tower, then brings her safely to the lands of her true love, where both must hide who they are as they work as kitchen maids.

THE SECRET LIFE OF SPARROW DELANEY
by Suzanne Harper
In Lily Dale, New York, a community dedicated to the religion of Spiritualism, tenth-grader Sparrow Delaney, the youngest daughter in an eccentric family of psychics, agonizes over whether or not to reveal her special abilities in order to help a friend.

THE PRINCESS AND THE HOUND
by Mette Ivie Harrison
George has always felt burdened by his princely duties, and even more by the need to hide the magic through which he speaks with animals, but when he is betrothed to the strange princess of a neighboring kingdom, his secret, and the persecution of people like himself, must come to an end.

IMPULSE
by Ellen Hopkins
Three teens who meet at Reno, Nevada's Aspen Springs mental hospital after each has attempted suicide connect with each other in a way they never have with their parents or anyone else in their lives.

SLAM
by Nick Hornby
At the age of fifteen, Sam Jones's girlfriend gets pregnant and Sam's life of skateboarding and daydreaming about Tony Hawk changes drastically.

TIME OF THE EAGLE
by Sherryl Jordan
Avala, the daughter of Gabriel Eshban Vala, dreams of becoming a healer like her mother, but she is instead destined to bring about the Time of the Eagle, in which tribes hunted by the Navoran director will unite and win their freedom.

GOOD AS LILY
by Derek Kirk Kim
Following a strange mishap on her 18th birthday, Grace Kwon is confronted with herself at three different periods in her life. The timing couldn't be worse as Grace and her friends desperately try to save a crumbling school play. Will her other selves wreak havoc on her present life or illuminate her uncertain future?

KISSING THE BEE
by Kathe Koja
While working on a bee project for her advanced biology class, quiet high school senior Dana reflects on her relationship with gorgeous best friend Avra and Avra's boyfriend Emil, whom Dana secretly loves.

EPIC
by Conor Kostick
On New Earth, a world based on a video role-playing game, fourteen-year-old Erik persuades his friends to aid him in some unusual gambits in order to save Erik's father from exile and safeguard the futures of each of their families.

THE DECLARATION
by Gemma Malley
In 2140 England, where drugs enable people to live forever and children are illegal, teenaged Anna, an obedient "Surplus" training to become a house servant, discovers that her birth parents are trying to find her.

WICKED LOVELY
by Melissa Marr
Seventeen-year-old Aislinn, who has the rare ability to see faeries, is drawn against her will into a centuries-old battle between the Summer King and the Winter Queen, and the survival of her life, her love and summer all hang in the balance.

UN LUN DUN
by China Miéville
When twelve-year-old Zanna and her friend Deeba find a secret entrance leading out of London and into a strange city, it seems that an ancient prophecy is coming true at last. But then things begin to go shockingly wrong.

THE OFF SEASON
by Catherine Gilbert Murdock
High school junior D.J. staggers under the weight of caring for her badly injured brother, her responsibilities on the dairy farm, a changing relationship with her friend Brian, and her own athletic aspirations.

GRL2GRL
by Julie Anne Peters
In this honest and emotional short story collection, a renowned author and National Book Award finalist offers a stunning portrayal of young women as they navigate the hurdles of relationships and sexual identity.

RED GLASS
by Laura Resau
Sixteen-year-old Sophie has been frail and delicate since her premature birth, but discovers her true strength during a journey through Mexico, where the six-year-old orphan her family hopes to adopt was born, and to Guatemala, where her would-be boyfriend hopes to find his mother and plans to remain.

BEN AND THE SUDDEN TOO-BIG FAMILY
by Colby Rodowsky
Until now, ten-year-old Ben has believed that life is made up of "all right" and "not all right" stuff, but when his father remarries and the couple adopts a Chinese baby, he wonders which kind of stuff will prevail.

THE WEDNESDAY WARS
by Gary D. Schmidt
During the 1967 school year, on Wednesday afternoons when all his classmates go to either Catechism or Hebrew school, seventh-grader Holling Hoodhood stays in Mrs. Baker's classroom where they read the plays of William Shakespeare and Holling learns much of value about the world he lives in.

MY SWORDHAND IS SINGING
by Marcus Sedgwick
In the dangerous dark of winter in an Eastern European village during the early seventeenth century, Peter learns from a gypsy girl that the Shadow Queen is behind the recent murders and reanimations, and his father's secret past may hold the key to stopping her.

MY MOTHER THE CHEERLEADER: A NOVEL
by Rob Sharenow
Thirteen-year-old Louise uncovers secrets about her family and her neighborhood during the violent protests over school desegregation in 1960 New Orleans.

PEAK
by Roland Smith
The emotional, tension-filled story of a fourteen-year-old boy's attempt to be the youngest person to reach the top of Mount Everest is an action-packed adventure about friendship, sacrifice, family and the drive to take on Everest, despite the incredible risk.

RUCKER PARK SETUP
by Paul Volponi
While playing in a crucial basketball game on the very court where his best friend was murdered, Mackey tries to come to terms with his own part in that murder and decide whether to maintain his silence or tell J.R.'s father and the police what really happened.

CLUBBING
by Andi Watson
When she's caught with a fake I.D. at a posh London nightclub, Charlotte Lottie Brook's punishment is spending the summer at her grandparents' stuffy country club. But Lottie will end up doing more than just serving time in country boot camp. She will narrowly escape romance and end up solving a murder mystery.

RED MOON AT SHARPSBURG: A NOVEL
by Rosemary Wells
As the Civil War breaks out, India, a young Southern girl, summons her sharp intelligence and the courage she didn't know she had to survive the war that threatens to destroy her family, her Virginia home, and the only life she has ever known.

PARROTFISH
by Ellen Wittlinger
Grady, a transgendered high school student, yearns for acceptance by his classmates and family as he struggles to adjust to his new identity as a male.

STORY OF A GIRL: A NOVEL
by Sara Zarr
In the three years since her father caught her in the back seat of a car with an older boy, sixteen-year-old Deanna's life at home and school has been a nightmare, but while dreaming of escaping with her brother and his family, she discovers the power of forgiveness.

CLICK
by various authors
Stories within a story, written as separate chapters by ten authors including Linda Sue Park, Eoin Colfer and Tim Wynne-Jones, reveal the adventurous life and legacy of George "Gee" Keane, a photojournalist and world traveler.

Want more recommendations? Try our Staff Picks Reviews!