Books & Authors

Do you know a teenager who needs to be dragged away from his Twitter feed and dragged into a local library? Are you a teen yourself who needs to figure out something new to read now that Bella and Edward’s adventures are through? Well, this is the PERFECT time of the year to re-introduce an adolescent to the joys of reading – it’s TEEN READ WEEK, a seven-day celebration of the best in young adult literature and the delicate art of getting the Rock Band-obsessed to crack a book once in a while.

If you want to know more about Teen Read Week and what kinds of events are happening across America to support it, check out the official website for the event, hosted by the week’s sponsor, the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA).

The Books & Authors blog will be bringing you Teen Read Week-related content all week, starting with this great look at some of the best monster titles available for teen readers – just in time for Halloween - written by former YALSA president (and B&A subject matter expert) Pam Spencer Holley.

Keep checking back all week for more Teen Read Week news - Enjoy!

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Monsters Come in Many Different Varieties, by Pam Spencer Holley

It’s that time of year when monsters we’ve pushed to the back of our minds come creeping around the corner, ready to scare us at any and all opportunities. In recent years, vampires and werewolves have taken center stage, with zombies coming on strong, but monsters have always come in many different varieties, as these titles for teens reveal.

When she was in her late teens, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley wrote Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, which is a classic in the horror field. Published anonymously in 1818, as many from that era would not believe a woman capable of those thoughts, it tells of Dr. Victor Frankenstein who tries, but fails, to reanimate the dead, and instead creates a golem-like creature that later seeks vengeance against his maker.

Others have tried to reanimate the dead. In The Death Collector by Justin Richards, teen George Archer, aided by a street thief and a clergyman’s daughter, tracks down a missing diary that tells how to summon the dead. The diary is in the hands of Augustus Lorimore who is building an army of the dead to take over the world.

British scientists create a monster that resembles Tyrannosaurus Rex, though it’s made of many different animal parts, in TIM, Defender of the Earth by Sam Enthoven. The scientists must now prove Tim’s usefulness, as everyone in England is afraid of this creature, but an invasion of humongous “nanobots” may give Tim the chance to prove his worth.

Orphans have an uncanny knack for dealing with monsters, as Will Henry, Rossamund and Devon March show in the next titles.

One unusual, and repulsive, monster terrorizes New England in the late 1800s. Orphan Will Henry apprentices to the monstrumologist Pellinore Warthrop, in Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey, and records an influx of Anthropophagi who, though headless, have mouths on their chests and live on human flesh. Pellinore’s task is to find and eradicate these monsters before they feed too freely.

In an alternate England, another orphan contends with monsters in the series Monster Blood Tattoo [Foundling (2006) and Lamplighter (2008)] by D.M. Cornish. Traveling from the orphanage to his new job as a lamplighter in High Vesting, Rossamund meets the monster hunter Europe who teaches him much about hunting and dispatching monsters on his journey.

Devon March knows that monsters are real in Sorcerers of the Nightwing by Geoffrey Huntington. As his father is dying, he confesses that Devon is adopted and sends him to Ravenscliff where he learns to use his sorcerer ability to guard the Hellholes and prevent evil spirits from entering the human world.

More contemporary monsters are also found in books for teens. Danny meets a mysterious monster in the frozen north of Canada in Bonechiller by Graham McNamee. His discovery that the local legend of a monster called a Windigo is real explains the disappearance of other teens from Harvest Cove.

A chupacabra appears in Rosemary Clement-Moore’s Highway to Hell as Maggie Quinn once again puts her psychic ability to use to help a small town plagued by something which is killing livestock.

A monster inside a well in Maine keeps Cooper busy in A.J. Whitten’s The Well. Tossed into the well by his mother, Cooper discovers he’s sharing space with a slimy monster and immediately tries to climb out of and away from the horror.

Horror and humor co-exist in Too Many Curses by A. Lee Martinez. Nessy, a prim housekeeper, works hard to keep the wizard Margle’s castle neat and tidy even though he fills it with his enemies, victims he curses and transforms through decapitation, disassembling of body parts, or invisibility. When Margle accidentally kills himself, Nessy’s left with the task of restoring the victims.

Having mentioned those vampires, werewolves and zombies, here’s a quick peek at titles that fit those categories. Though it seems everyone knows about the Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer, those titles fit into several categories so if you haven’t yet read any of them, now’s a good time to start [Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn].

If you’re into vampires, try one of these: The Eternal Kiss, edited by Trisha Telep, or Stargazer by Claudia Gray. Or check out these series: Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare; Vampirates by Justin Somper and Vampire Kisses by Ellen Schreiber.

For werewolves, you might like Unleashed by Kristopher Reisz; Blood Beast by Darren Shan; Tantalize by Cynthia Leitich Smith; Henry Garfield’s My Father the Werewolf or Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause.

And in the zombie world, there’s The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan; the Generation Dead series by Daniel Waters; Zombie Blondes by Brian James; Never Slow Dance with a Zombie by Ehrich Van Lowe or Amanda Ashby’s Zombie Queen of Newbury High.

- Pam Spencer Holley, coordinator and author of What Do Young Adults Read Next?, vol. 1-6 and retired coordinator of library services for the Fairfax County Public schools in Virginia, is a recognized expert in young adult literature. Elected to the Margaret A. Edwards Award Committee by the Young Adult Library Services Association of the American Library Association, she also served on their Alex Award Task Force, a committee that annually selects the top adult books for young adults. She chaired the 2004 Michael L. Printz Award Committee which selects the finest book for young adults, based solely on literary quality. She recently completed a 3-year term as President-Elect, President and Immediate Past-President of the Young Adult Library Services Association, a division of the American Library Association, and remains active in that division. Holley is a member of the Advisory Committee for the H.W. Wilson Senior High School Library Catalog. Locally she served as the Vice-President for the Friends Board of the Virginia Beach Public Library. She served as a past chair of the column “Adult Books for Young Adults” for School Library, authored the audiobooks column “Audiobooks, It Is!” for Voice of Youth Advocates, better known as VOYA, and currently reviews audiobooks for Booklist magazine. She’s listed in the Who’s Who in America as well as Who’s Who Among American Women.

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Tags: Teen Read Week, young adult

This entry was posted by thomas_b on Monday, October 19th, 2009 at 10:31 am and is filed under young adult fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.