Part II: YALSA names 2010 top books for teens

This past week, the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), named its 2010 list of Best Books for Young Adults.

This week, Novel Novice will be featuring the top 10, so be sure to check back all week and tell us if you’ve read them, and if you agree with the choices.

Yesterday, we featured Alligator Bayou, by Donna Jo Napoli and The Great Wide Sea, by M.H. Herlong.

Today we’re featuring When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead and Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork.

Synopsis:

Four mysterious letters change Miranda’s world forever.

By sixth grade, Miranda and her best friend, Sal, know how to navigate their New York City neighborhood. They know where it’s safe to go, like the local grocery store, and they know whom to avoid, like the crazy guy on the corner.

But things start to unravel. Sal gets punched by a new kid for what seems like no reason, and he shuts Miranda out of his life. The apartment key that Miranda’s mom keeps hidden for emergencies is stolen. And then Miranda finds a mysterious note scrawled on a tiny slip of paper:

I am coming to save your friend’s life, and my own.
I must ask two favors. First, you must write me a letter.

The notes keep coming, and Miranda slowly realizes that whoever is leaving them knows all about her, including things that have not even happened yet. Each message brings her closer to believing that only she can prevent a tragic death. Until the final note makes her think she’s too late.

Awards:

2010 Newbery Medal Winner
2009 Parents’ Choice Gold Award winner

Synopsis:

Seventeen-year-old Marcelo Sandoval hears music no one else can hear, part of the autism-like impairment no doctor has been able to identify.
Marcelo is tagged with a “developmental disorder” because of his pervasive interest in God and all things religious and because he does not relate to others as expected. He’s always attended a special school where his differences have been protected. But the summer after his junior year, his father demands that Marcelo work in his law firm’s mailroom in order to experience “the real world.” There Marcelo meets Jasmine, a beautiful and surprising coworker, and Wendell, the son of another partner in the firm. Marcelo learns about competition and jealousy, anger and desire. But it’s a picture he finds in a file — a picture of a girl with half a face — that truly connects him with the real world: its suffering, its injustice, and what he can do to fight.