6. The Vampire Diaries: The Awakening

Smith, J. L. The Vampire Diaries: The Awakening (book #1) and The Struggle (book #2). New York: Harperteen, 1991.

Annotation:

Determination to get what she wants turns into true love when 17 year-old Elena Gilbert meets a mysterious and handsome tall, dark, and fanged stranger.

Justification for Nomination:

The Awakening is a cross between Romeo and Juliet and Interview with the Vampire. It is romantic and captivating. With so many YA books based on vampires, many people might think that "the forbidden vampire love" theme has been used to many times, but I think its interesting to read different vampire themed books to compare them to what other authors have done. Compared to other authors, Smith has used the vampire theme on a whole new level. She has made her human character Elena emotionally stronger than her vampire character Stefan. To make her work more realistic, Smith has given her vampire characters real human emotions (for example when they're sad they cry). She also uses realistic teenage situations (like going to the prom) to show the human part of the story. I really enjoyed the love triangle between the two vampire brothers (Stefan and Damon) and Elena. I especially love the danger that Damon, Stefan's older brother, brings to the plot. Damon's hate for his brother and his desire to have Elena to himself gives the plot a much more evil edge making The Awakening a cross between romance and horror.

Smith shows great talent in using beautifully detailed vocabulary. Her words helped me to visualize the places and the characters. She uses flashbacks to show Stefan's past life with his brother and his past love which I thought was very helpful because I could truly understand who he was and the pain that he was going through. This amazing use of flashbacks brings the characters and plot to life while keeping the book interesting and wildly exciting. Smith's ideas of using fantasy to coexist with reality is brilliant and magnificent. Lastly, I loved the idea of putting two books in one. This saves everyone money and when someone reads an exciting book they will want to run out and get the next book in the series, but with The Vampire Diaries you don't have to.

Genre Category: Vampire, Horror, Science Fiction, Fantasy

5. Secret Keeper

Perkins, Mitali. Secret Keeper. New York: Delacorte Press, 2009.

Annotation:
Asha is a teenage Indian girl from Bangladesh whose father leaves to find a good job and a better life for her and her family in America. She wants to play tennis, cricket, and basically be one of the boys. Follow her story through heartache and happiness as she goes against how she should act according to her family and culture.
Justification for Nomination:
Secret Keeper is a magnificent piece of realistic and multicultural literature. One reason that I enjoyed this novel was because the plot is based in India which is a beautiful country with very interesting and wonderful traditions. I also liked that the Mitali Perkins, as stated at the end of her novel, looked into her own past and used her life as a base for her characters and storyline. Perkins using her life to write this novel means that she can relate to her characters. Almost everyone in her novel was based on someone in her life. It is a tremendous accomplishment when an author can relate to her audience. Perkins can relate to real young Indian girls (and girls from other backgrounds) who may be going through the same situations as she herself has gone through as well as what her characters are going through. Before reading Secret Keeper I did know a little about Indian traditions and culture, but only from movies. I enjoyed reading and learning about Indian traditions through Secret Keeper. Another one of my favorite reasons for nominating Secret Keeper was because the author instead of having the plot be based in 2009 (which was when the book was published), she did something totally different and had the plot be based in the mid-1970s which was when she was a teenage girl living in India. I find it utterly amazing the way an author can write a novel that is based on her past life and some fiction, put it all together and then turn it into something brilliant. Not many fiction books are based on the Indian people and their culture, but I think that Secret Keeper was beautifully written and it very well deserves a nomination. It doesn't matter if you're reading this novel for pleasure or not, I think that many people will enjoy Secret Keeper.
Genre Category: Multicultural Fiction, Family Life (India), Individuality, India (history)

4. Out Law: What LGBT Youth Should Know about Their Legal Rights

Keen, Lisa. Out Law: What LGBT Youth Should Know about Their Legal Rights. Boston: Beacon Press, 2007.

Annotation:

Out with the old: "All men are created equal." In with the new: All LGBTS (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Straight) men and women are created equal.

Justification for Nomination:

" Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Everyone deserves all three and Keen's use of the Constitution to help explain the rights of LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) youth was pure gold. Everyone knows that when it said "all men were created equal", it didn't mean all men. In Keen's book she emphasizes this statement with powerful experiences from real LGBT youth and through the Constitution she explains how laws didn't use to include the LGBT community and how much they are growing. The wonderful thing about Lisa Keen is that she doesn't tell LGBT youth about their rights, but it explains their rights in a text that they can understand. Out Law written like a textbook (glossary, notes, appendix, and index), but it doesn't disappoint readers and it is not boring. The chapters are spread out in a variety of topics that are well organized and well thought out. Keen knew which topics she was going to use and which subjects she was going to talk about which shows that not only is she well organized, but she is intelligent and educated about society and laws. This also means that the book is neither preachy nor does it blame anyone. Out Law is stalk full of useful information that LGBT (and straight) youth (and adults) should know. The fact that it is not used in schools as a textbook confuses me. I think that a book such as this one should be allowed in schools because ALL teens need to know about the negative experiences that LGBT youth go to. They need to know what the laws are that are protecting LGBTs and they need to know the degradation and outrageous hatred/prejudice that the LGBT community goes through. I knew there were laws protecting the LGBT community, but I never knew what they were. After reading Out Law I have learned of real court cases won after an LGBT youth's constitutional rights being violated and I have learned that society, although very slowly, is opening up to excepting the LGBT community. I enjoyed learning from this piece of brilliant nonfiction because of its facts, history, but most importantly because I believe that the LGBT community deserve the same rights as everyone else.

Genre Category: Non-fiction, Gay youth, legal status, laws

3. After Tupac & D Foster

Woodson, Jaqueline. After Tupac & D Foster. New York: The Penguin Group, 2008.

Annotation:
Three friends form a tight bond through their passion for the rapper Tupac Shakur and his music.

Justification for Nomination:
The love of Tupac Shakur's fans came alive in this novel. It really shows people that Tupac was not a thug and that he had people behind him no matter what the media was saying about him. This Newberry honor novel lured me in through marketing with its cover and title. Tupac was a huge artist and his music is legendary. I thought it was going to be somewhat of an autobiography (talking mostly about Tupac), but it wasn't and I was happy about that because I knew then that it wasn't going to be boring. I enjoyed Woodson's use of first person narration throughout the whole novel. Although you don't get to know the narrator's name, you get a sense of who she is through the character's detailed words of what she thinks of herself and the other characters in the novel. I believe that the sentence structure and vocabulary are very smooth. It is as if an African-American teenager would say the author's words in reality. In my head, I could see the actual conversations that the characters were having and it made the storyline and characters come to life. I thought it was brilliant the way the novel could relate to what many teenagers are going through. I also thought it was cool that I could relate to this novel as well. From the time I was four until I was eighteen, I was in foster homes. Like the character D in the novel, I knew what it was like growing up in foster homes while my friends had the love of one or both of their parents. I cried because of how much of myself I saw in D. I truly felt as if the author could relate to teens going through the same situations as all of her characters in the novel. I also feel like I know that Jaqueline Woodson defiantly deserved the Newberry honor award and for a novel that is so realistic and entertaining, there is no doubt in my mind why I chose her to be up for nomination.
Genre Category: Fiction, Coming of Age, 2009 Newberry Honor

2. Deogratias: A Tale Of Rwanda

Stassen, Jean-Philippe. Deogratias: A Tale of Rwanda. New York: First Second, 2006.

Annotation:

Deogratias and Benina are in love, but he is a Hutu and she is a Tutsi in Rwanda where genocide threatens the very existence of the Tutsi people.

Nomination for Rejection:

First off I want to start out by saying that although I may have had a prejudice against comic books (graphic novels) before reading this book, in no way did that affect my judgement or have anything to do with my nomination of rejection for this particular novel. I liked that Stassen started out with an introduction about the genocide that happened in Rwanda in 1994. Not many people knew the whole story so informing readers about what happened in Rwanda before they read the novel was brilliant. The second thing that I enjoyed about the novel, was the use of color and details in the illustrations. The author knew how to use light and contrast in order for the illustrations to look realistic. I also like that the author went back and fourth (past and present). Although I enjoyed the author's introduction and his illustrations, I did not enjoy the language. Sure it was clear and fit with the novel itself, but I didn't enjoy some of the derogatory words used. I think that you can write a novel about true events without using derogatory names and language (mostly geared towards women, which also upset me). What I also didn't like was that it didn't talk about the 1994 genocide in Rwanda until pretty much close to the end of the novel. I think that if an author is going to write about a certain topic, he/she needs to be consistent with that topic throughout the whole book. With the introduction at the beginning of the novel, I thought that there was going to be a set topic. The author doesn't need to talk about it on every page, but returning to the topic once in a while is always a good idea. I didn't think that this novel was completely horrible and a waist of time, but it still gets my nomination for rejection.

Genre Category: Graphic Novel

1. Stuck in Neutral

Trueman, Terry. Stuck in Neural. New York: HarperCollins Children's Books. 2000.

Annotation:

Fourteen year old Shawn McDaniel has cerebral palsy. He can't talk or move. His family thinks of him as a baby who doesn't understand anything (what they say or what they do). What his family doesn't know is that he understands everything they do and say and what he understands is that his father might be planning to kill him.

Justification for nomination:

Terry Trueman breathes reality into his main fiction character. Shawn McDaniel's cerebral palsy allows readers to truly understand what the character is going through. The reality of Shawn's situation also gives readers an idea of what is going on in his mind. Although he may be physically disabled, his mind still works really well. Readers can understand Shawn's story through his mind. By reading the words (Shawn's thoughts) in the novel we can understand how he is feeling and what he thinks about everything that is going on around him. Trueman's use of brilliant and descriptive words makes Shawn an intelligent character despite his physical disability. A positive lesson that this novel teaches its readers (which every novel that centers around a realistic problem should have) is that although someone's body may not physically work, it doesn't mean that their mind doesn't work either. The main character's isability and his belief that his father is planning to kill him shows me that Trueman knows how to use realistic emotions and situations to bring his characters and plot to life. Powerful and intriguing, this novel is unforgettable.

Genre Category: Realistic Fiction, 2001 Michael L. Printz Honor