Best adult books 4 teens.(Recommended readings)

The "Adult Books 4 Teens" blog is designed to replace the "Adult Books for High School Students" print column. It launched on the School Library Journal website in October 2010, and has offered four or five book reviews each week ever since. The purpose of AB4T is to help librarians learn about the best books published for the adult market that also have appeal to teen readers, including books in all genres and formats. Books are chosen for review through attendance at publisher previews, trade shows, and conferences; reading advanced reviews and catalogs; and by keeping one eye on twitter and the other on well-known authors whose works have exhibited crossover appeal in the past.

Currently, nearly 20 librarians review for the blog. All work with teens in either public or school libraries, in a variety of settings across the country, and participated in the selection of the Best list. The year of 2011 has been a particularly strong one for adult books with appeal to young adult readers. It was a challenge to narrow down our list to the titles displayed here. Genre fiction is well-represented, as are debut authors and literary fiction, likely to appeal to the most ambitious of teen readers. Full reviews can be found on SL]'s website at http://blog.schoollibraryjournal.com/adult4teen. -Angela Carstensen, Editor, "Adult Books 4 Teens"

Fiction

BIRCH, Carol. Jamrach's Menagerie. Doubleday'. Tr $26.95. ISBN 978-0-385-53440-6.

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Jaffy leaves behind his life on the streets of 19th-century London for an adventure to the Pacific Islands aboard a whaling ship in search of a mythical-yet far too real-dragon in this enormously satisfying novel of friendship, …