Sometimes a Fantasy: Top Sci-Fi of 2005

LOCUS is the ‘Magazine of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Field.’ These are some of its recommended Young Adult titles. Click on the titles below to look up the book in the online catalog.

Valiant by Holly Black
Seventeen-year-old Valerie runs away, and when she is talked into tracking down the lair of the dangerous creature, she is bound into service by a troll. Val finds herself torn between her affection for an honorable monster and her fear of what her new friends are becoming.

The Sledding Hill by Chris Crutcher
Billy, recently deceased, keeps an eye on his best friend, fourteen-year-old Eddie, who has added to his home and school problems by becoming mute, and helps him stand up to a minister and teacher who is orchestrating a censorship challenge.

Inkspell by Cornelia Funke
When Dustfinger finds a crooked storyteller who can read him back to Inkscape, he leaves his apprentice Farid behind. Farid seeks out Meggie and the two follow him back into the enchanted book

Skybreaker by Kenneth Oppel ( Fairfield Woods Branch Library)
Matt Cruse, a student at the Airship Academy, and Kate de Vries, a young heiress, team up with a gypsy and a daring captain, to find a long-lost airship, rumored to carry a treasure beyond imagination.

The Amulet of Samarkand Book 3: Ptolemy’s Gate by Jonathan Stroud
Dangerous adventures continue for the djinni Bartimaeus and his master, seventeen-year-old Nathaniel, a powerful magician who is serving as England's minister of information.

Midnighters Vol. 2: Touching Darkness by Scott Westerfeld
As they continue to battle evil creatures living in an hour hidden at midnight, Jessica and her new friends learn about Bixby, Oklahoma's shadowy past and uncover a deadly conspiracy that reaches beyond the secret hour.

Peeps by Scott Westerfeld
Cal Thompson is a carrier of a parasite that causes vampirism, and must hunt down all of the girlfriends he has unknowingly infected.

Pay the Piper: A Rock and Roll Fairy Tale by Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple
( Teens at Main Library; Juvenile Fiction at the Fairfield Woods Branch)
When Callie interviews the band, Brass Rat, for her school newspaper, her feelings are ambivalent, but when all the children of Northampton begin to disappear on Halloween, she knows where the dangerous search must begin.

November 21, 2006