"The Night Dance" - Suzanne Weyn

Found a library with the last two books of the series! This and The Rose Bride by Nancy Holder finish off the "Once Upon a Time" YA novels.

With a mixture of "Twelve Dancing Princesses" and the Arthurian legends, Rowena and her 11 sisters go in search of their mother, the Lady of the Lake. What they find is enchantment meant to distract them, provided by Morgan Le Fey. Only the power of Excaliber and the love of a soldier bent on solving the mystery of worn out shoes can save everyone.

Read Also:

Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George.

Diane Zahler's The Thirteenth Princess.

Check out the "Faerie Tale Theatre" by Shelley Duvall (it's very 80's, don't get your expectations up) but they're fun retellings of fairy tales.

"The Truth about Sacajawea" - Kenneth Thomasma

I learned so many things that I never knew about Sacajawea. I appreciated the detail, clarity, and use of primary sources by the author. He used Lewis and Clark's journals, added his own comments, and then filled in details known about the time and the expedition.

Sacajawea (the Shoshoni spelling of her name) was one of two wives of a Frenchman, a teenager herself. She was skilled at food gathering, cool under fire, and a hard worker. The admiration of Lewis and Clark for Sacajawea comes through in their journal writings.

Read Also:

Apache Agent by Woodworth Clum about his father, John Philip Clum, is a hopeful and respectful account of White and Native American interactions.



A novel about the time period, The Holy Warrior by Gilbert Morris.

"Denton Little's Deathdate" - Lance Rubin

Morbid. Always said I was.

Okay, so this was an extremely irreverent book about death. I'm ashamed to say I laughed out loud! It had more bad language and crude situations than I needed, but the author played this one well. No soon-to-be-classic, but sometimes, a little light reading is what you need.

In a world where one's deathdate is known right after birth, Denton Little knows he will die on the day of senior prom. The catch: no one knows what time. So Denton spends his last day making mistakes, learning about himself and others, breaking up with his girlfriend, getting back together, [repeat], almost dying (multiple times) and being a nice guy. How packed can one day be when every second could be your last?

Read Also:

Stacey Kade's The Ghost and the Goth was awkwardly funny and cute.

Penelope by Marilyn Kaye (book of the movie) has a humorous twist on causing death.

"Nimona" - Noelle Stevenson

Oh good golly! Such a subtle study of how someone becomes a "hero" or "villain." But not Nimona, she's the sidekick to the villain. Shapeshifter, hip, loyal, she's great! Also, a fascinating mix of medieval and technological societies.

Nimona is a sidekick, assigning herself to Ballister Blackheart, the villain in town. Sir Goldenloin is his archnemesis, a hero. However, determining who the real villain is may take the three combining efforts and trust.

Read Also:

Firefly TV series by Joss Whedon.

"Bone" graphic novel series by Jeff Smith.

I just found out about The Rise of Aurora West by Paul Pope and it looks good!

"Emma" - Kaoru Mori

Cursed serials!!! Yeah, I don't do manga much. But this sounded good...

...It was good. Detail was amazing, story was cute, the side-characters were intriguing. Of course, having said that, I've only read 3 of the 10 volumes!! I'm committed.

A 10-volume set, over 4,000 pages of Manga Victorian England. So well done.

A Japanese woman authored these books. They were serialized in Japan and, 10 years later, are being translated into English. She tells stories in the afterwords about her fanmail, interviews, and editor. She's never been to England, is alive now so never lived through the time period, her fanaticism with details. It's quite fascinating.

Read Also:

Try some Graphic Shakespeare, Shakespeare plays turned into graphic novels! by Vincent Goodwin.

Check out BBC America and PBS. "Downton Abbey," "Upstairs, Downstairs," or any other British class-system show. 

"Independent Study" - Joelle Charbonneau

Okay. So... This author knows how to write! Engaging. Plausible (to a certain extent). Proper cliffhangers at the end of every chapter. Honest! I had to stop mid-chapter because I knew I wouldn't stop at the end. A real study in government, societies, people, communication, and all through the eyes of young adult girl, Malencia.

It's like a Civics lesson cleverly disguised as a novel for teens.

Also, Charbonneau manages to avoid the problem of first-person novels -the reader remaining ignorant- by having the character actually go out in search of answers. Malencia is rather superhuman in her memory and reasoning skills; but you forgive that in order to know what is going on.

Book 2 in "The Testing" trilogy, this book escapes the pitfalls of many trilogies. It is not book 1 again. It is not a filler book, situations progress and you can't skip it.

Malencia has now entered the University in her respective field of study. She meets her classmates, her country's leaders, and learns of a rebellion. There's another boy-interest (it is a YA novel).

Read Also:

The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins of course. All these "test" trilogies came out after its success.

The Legend series by Marie Lu. (Have not read but is on the "To Read" list).

Eh, any dystopian Young Adult trilogy out there.

And because I haven't said enough about this book, Thomas Paine's Common Sense.

"How I Live Now" -Meg Rosoff

Let me just say, this is not my type of book; would never have pulled it off the shelf; would never have read a review and thought I would enjoy it. BUT, I think highly of the teen librarian who recommended it (and it's a fairly short book) so I took it to expand my Young Adult reading.

...Not a horrible book.

Actually, it's an interesting book that deals with an alternate/future(?) war and how the current generation might face it. Daisy is sent to live with cousins in England when a war breaks out. There, she lives a very different lifestyle to the one she's known in New York. However, this war arrives in England, and her now-family gets separated. Through starvation, abandonment, terror, and other symptoms of war, Daisy manages to get back to them, her now-home.

I liked the writing style, 1st person, where the reader is inside Daisy's teenage head. However, I was so fixated on which war was going on, that I probably missed a lot of points which flushed out the story. Regardless, the end is still ... poignant. (I hesitate to use that word but it kinda fits).

Read Also:

Margaret Rotkowski's After the Dancing Days is an emotional and physical look at war and how it affects the young, though not exactly the same type of book.

Because I don't read this type of book, Stephan Crane's The Red Badge of Courage was comparable in emotional trauma.

Funny enough, it's a depressing version of When Irish Eyes are Smiling by Suzanne Supplee.

"While Irish Eyes are Smiling" -Suzanne Supplee

Young Adult romances can be simpler love stories; this one fits the bill. It takes place in Ireland during a Study Abroad program.

Delk Sinclair decides to go to Ireland instead of hanging around Nashville, TN. She's running away from her debutante ball, step-mother, and memories of her mother's death from illness. While in Ireland, Delk makes friends, meets Pather, a boy who's also lost his mother, and confronts herself and her relationships at home, all while traveling among the beauty that is Ireland.

I was slightly impressed by this book. It's still a "cheap" paperback but Delk's character development was surprising. She is presented as shallow but not mean or dumb. Her growth is believeable, especially since the "terribleness" she attributes to her life is the normal exaggerations of a teenager. All in all, cute!

Read Also:

It turns out I don't read a lot of contemporary YA fiction but an oldie (and I mean the 80's) Tough-Luck Karen by Johanna Hurtwitz is about a girl who has a lot of things going wrong in her life. She'd go crazy if it weren't for her love of cooking.

Linda Crew's Children of the River is about a girl from Cambodia making her way in America.

The Grand Plan to Fix Everything by Uma Krishnaswami.

"Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant" -Tony Cliff

I came across this book twice before I finally read it. It was a fun, funny, easy read.

Delilah Dirk is an adventurer with skills ranging from sword fighting to dancing to piloting in situations ranging from polite society to the jungle to tough cities. She takes up with Selim, a Turkish Lieutenant with a taste (and nose) for tea, accidentally in Constantinople. They face a lot together, come to understand each other, and even sacrifice for each other until they stumble upon a friendship they built. It's a happy story considering all the bloodshed...

Read Also:

Shannon Hale's Rapunzel's Revenge and its sequel Calamity Jack are very similar in attitude, writing style, and even artwork. Very funny and exciting!

The "Asterix" series by Iscenko & Goscinny.

Stewart Ross wrote a set of 4 Beginner Reader graphic novels set during Ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, and China. Although, they are not funny.

"Wild Magic" -Tamora Pierce

I am not a big fantasy reader. I almost didn't read this book. But for various reasons, mostly because it's a quick read, I did...and I am glad for it.

Wild Magic is book 1 in the series "The Immortals" by Tamora Pierce and it was good! Daine has the gift of speaking to and understanding animals. While she travels, this skill helps her and her companions (friends, soldiers, sorcerer, & king) avoid danger and death. When foreign kingdoms attack, Daine helps protect her kingdom and discovers her place in the world.

Pierce uses good imagery and exciting battle sequences to tell her story. Daine is a good character who grows throughout the story but suffers her share of fear and failure, which only helps the story's depth.

Read Also:

(I've been waiting to tout this series) Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan sci/fi series is about a Europe with animals playing a much bigger role.

Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain fantasy series