10. Zusak, Markus. The Book Thief. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005.

If you haven’t read it yet, do so now.

Actually, that is my whole review. But if you want don’t like being commanded to buy a book and want some reasons, here they are: The voice of the storyteller is masterful; the story is utterly gripping; the entire book is moving. You and your students need to read it. There is enough here to make this a great book to study in a high school English class; it includes a lot of history as well.

I could tell you the plot, but there is no way I can do justice to the writing, and without that, the plot won’t mean much. In short, it is about Germany in World War II. It is about a little girl named Liesel. It is about family and sacrifice and justice. It may possibly have made me cry. Every book-loving friend you know has read it and loved it and recommended it to you. They are your friends. Listen to them. You won’t regret it.

9. Getz, Trevor R., and Liz Clarke. Abina and the Important Men. New York: Oxford, 2012.

In 1876, in the Gold Coast of West Africa, a young woman named Abina Mansah is sold by her husband to be a servant in the household of an influential and wealthy palm oil planter named Quamina Eddoo. Slavery was illegal in the Gold Coast, then a colony of Great Britain, but it was practiced widely and without fear of reprisal.

Abina escapes Eddoo’s household and seeks help from an African court translator named James Davis. With his help, she files court papers and is granted a trial. At that trial, she seeks to confront the colonial authorities with the injustice of having written law that was not enforced.

This is a fascinating and surprisingly gripping courtroom drama, and it is based on a real and recently discovered court transcript. Getz and Clarke have turned this story into a remarkably accessible graphic novel that will appeal to students in middle school and high school. The art is excellent, and they do a nice job of using the panels to tell the story, but that isn’t the only reason that I love this graphic novel. Although historical graphic novels are a great way to engage students in real human stories, they are sometimes criticized because the creators have to make interpretive choices (especially one like this when no photographs of the participants exist). And this, so the argument goes, means that the authentic history is diluted. But any book that describes history makes many interpretive choices, putting some information in the foreground and some in the background, using some photographs and not others, and including some facts and not others.

The wonderful thing about this book is that it responds to that argument by including both the sixty-five-page graphic novel version of the story, and also six essays that provide context for the story, describing geography, political context, sociological context, the influence of the church, the slave trade and the abolitionist movement, and what we know of Abina Mansah. It also contains a reading guide and some suggestions for using the book in the classroom.

If you teach middle school or high school history, get a class set of this book. If you don’t teach history, but teach high school or middle school, buy the book and put it in your classroom library. If you don’t teach but like reading about history, buy the book and read it, then lend it to your favorite history teacher.

8. Vanderpool, Clare. Navigating Early. New York: Delacorte Press, 2013.

Jack Baker does not want to go to boarding school, but his father is in the military, and since his mother’s death, it seems like a good solution. At school, he meets an odd kid named Early Auden; by befriending Early, Jack guarantees that he will never fit in. One of the things that makes Early strange is that he reads the number pi as a story, one in which he thinks he is living. (I know that sounds hard to imagine, but it makes total sense in the story.) When the holiday break begins and Jack’s dad does not show up, Jack decides to go with Early on a journey to find out the truth about the great Appalachian bear and the school’s legendary hero, The Fish.They set out by boat and soon find themselves dodging criminals, living in the wild, and discovering the answers to questions they didn’t even know they were asking.

This is a great book for fifth or sixth grade and up, especially for boys, although there is plenty here to keep any reader busy. The realistic detail makes this a good book to introduce nonfiction readers to fiction, especially those who claim they don’t like made-up stories. There are enough themes here to make this not only a good read-aloud book, but also a book worthy of study in language arts class. Your math classes would enjoy it as well.

7. Stead, Rebecca. Liar and Spy New York: Wendy Lamb, 2012.

I loved the first Rebecca Stead book I read, When You Reach Me, but in order to really enjoy that book, you should have read Madeleine L’Engle’s Wrinkle in Time. That made her first book hard to recommend universally. And then I read Liar and Spy.

I could tell you that this book is a cross between Holes (for the surprise twists), Harriet the Spy (for the humor and the idea of kids spying on adults), and Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie (for the sequence in the science lab). I could tell you it is about a seventh-grade boy named George who moves into a new apartment building with his family and meets an odd twelve-year-old named Safer, who enlists his help to spy on a mysterious stranger who lives in their building. And I could explain the three other subplots that are woven around that story, especially the one where the nerds band together and defeat the bullies (at least for a little while), but that really wouldn’t give you the flavor of the book. I could tell you there are some excellent themes about fear and courage, truth and untruth, friendship, independence, and nonconformity subtly woven into this book.

But none of that would get across how much fun this book is, how delightful its characterizations and twists and turns are, and how, when I finally figured out the final revelation, it made me a little sniffly for a second. This book would be great fun to read aloud to fifth graders and up, it would be a great book to give as a gift or to add to your upper elementary, middle school, or even high school classroom.

The only way I am going to get all that across is if you read it. Can you do that for me? Then we’ll talk.

6. DiCamillo, Kate. Flora and Ulysses. Somerville, MA: Candlewick, 2013.

It starts like this: Flora Belle Buckman was in her room at her desk. She was doing two things at once: ignoring her mother and reading a comic book titled The Illuminated Adventures of the Amazing Incandesto.

“Flora,” her mother shouted, “what are you doing up there?”

”I’m reading!” Flora shouted back.

“Remember the contract!” her mother shouted. “Do not forget the contract!”

At the beginning of summer, in a moment of weakness, Flora had made the mistake of signing a contract that said she would “work to turn her face away from the idiotic high jinks of comics and toward the bright light of true literature.”

These were the exact words of the contract. They were her mother’s words.

Flora’s mother was a writer. She was divorced and she wrote romance novels.

Talk about idiotic high jinks.

Flora hated romance novels.

In fact, she hated romance.

“I hate romance,” said Flora out loud to herself.

So Flora, the comic-book-loving girl cynic saves the life of a squirrel that had been sucked into her neighbor’s vacuum cleaner and emerged with super powers. Soon Flora is off on an adventure in which she discovers that her dad has a capacious heart, that young William Spiver is perhaps not as evil as she thought, that he is certainly not blind, and that even cynics can feel the love of a community, even if that community is rather quirky.

I think a good fourth grade reader would catch most of the humor in this book. My daughter did when she was in fourth grade, but if you want to read this to your third graders with explanations for some parts, give it a try. For students older than fourth grade—this is definitely an option. I am forty-eight-years old. I loved it.

5. Yang, Gene Luen, and Sonny Liew. The Shadow Hero. New York: First Second, 2014.

Usually I don’t review superhero graphic novels because kids seem to find them just fine on their own. Gene Yang’s The Shadow Hero, however, is not just a superhero story.

The Shadow Hero tells the story of Hank, the young son of Chinese immigrants who run a grocery store in a city that looks a lot like San Francisco. Hank is content to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a grocer. When his mother is rescued from a carjacking by a superhero, she decides her son will become a superhero. She makes him a costume, tries to get him in contact with toxic spills, occult herbs, and rabid dogs. All that results is that his skin turns bright pink. She tries to get his uncle to teach Hank martial arts, but this, too, is a failure. It is not until his father is killed by a gangster that Hank discovers the spirit of the Turtle, which had bonded with his father and now joins with him, granting Hank a kind of limited invincibility. Then Hank sets out to bring his father’s killer to justice.

It is a great story, with beautiful art that frequently tips its hat toward the golden age of comics. The story is engaging and suspenseful; we often worry that Hank will be hurt, but the violence is not excessive, the language is not objectionable, and the Green Turtle is an old-school hero who helps others and fights for justice.

This book is a lot of fun, and will leave young readers with something to think about, too. Strong fourth-grade readers could handle this, and it would interest readers through high school or, in my case, through twenty-fifth grade. Check it out.

4. Rex, Adam. The True Meaning of Smekday. New York: Hyperion, 2007.

I am not going to compare this book to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

It certainly made me laugh—out loud and more than once. And sure, like Douglas Adam’s books, it doesn’t so much make fun of the science fiction genre as run with it. In its own wacky way, this author is as likely to be a classic as Asimov, Niven, and Heinlein. Who is to say that if aliens invaded they would be hyper intelligent? In this book, the invaders (the Boov) do not look anything like humans, but they have technical problems like we do; they attempt simplistic solutions to complicated problems like we do; and they refigure their morality to suit their own ends when they take over the USA and tell all humans they get to live in Florida. Then, when the Boov find out they like the climate of Florida, they ship everyone to Arizona. Sound familiar?

Like The Hitchhiker’s Guide, this book catches you by surprise with its cleverness. The storyline concerns a twelve-year-old African-American-Italian girl named Gratuity who ends up joining forces with a disenfranchised Boov who has given himself the earth name J.Lo. When they first meet, they ransack an abandoned convenience store. Gratuity loads up on candy and junk food, and J.Lo eats shaving cream and urinal freshener cakes.

Adam Rex takes you on a ride in the novel. As when you are reading the Hitchhiker books, you will be happiest if you don’t waste time trying to fit the plot into a traditional Freytag Pyramid of rising action/climax/falling action/denouement.

I am not going to compare the two books, because if I did, you would be expecting Smekday to be like Hitchhiker’s Guide. It isn’t. It is a completely different kind of chaotic, hilarious insanity. But if you like Douglas Adam’s work, and you expect Adam Rex’s work to be different, you may find yourself liking it a great deal.

I think this book would be ideal for strong readers from fifth grade and up. One other note: I actually heard this book in a wonderful audio version voiced by Bahni Turpin. She really helped the novel come alive.

3. Hatke, Ben. The Return of Zita the Spacegirl. New York: First Second, 2014.

Maybe this isn’t technically an adolescent or young adult novel; it is a middle grades book that students in older grades will enjoy as well.

Zita the Spacegirl is back, and this third book in the series may be the best yet. This one has all the excitement, surprise, humor, and thoughtfulness of the original Zita the Spacegirl; once again, author/illustrator Ben Hatke shows his mastery of panel plotting.

But you really want to know if it is a good story and if your third graders or sixth graders or middle school students will like it. The answer to all of the above is yes.

In this book, Zita has been apprehended and is being tried on trumped-up charges in a prison world. Her old friends, Mouse, Piper, One, Strong-Strong, and the rest are far away, though they have heard her distress call. She must rely on help from her cellmates Ragpile and Femur, and from the mysterious Ghost. Escaping her cell is relatively easy, but escaping the planet and freeing all those trapped with her is a bit more daunting. The story is funny, exuberant, filled with tension and surprising turns, and has a completely satisfying and triumphant ending.

You’ll be swept up in the story and so you won’t notice, but Hatke’s sense of timing and choices in moving from panel to panel are masterful. This is why you can get lost in the story.

The other thing I love about this book is that there is a lot to talk about with students. There are some really interesting themes here, including what it means to be morally responsible for your own actions, when civil disobedience is appropriate, what freedom means, and the values of friendship and cooperation. There is also a nice little romantic subplot to boot.

If you like graphic novels or good stories for middle grades and middle school kids, if you like to laugh or get caught up in a book, or if you like Zita’s previous adventures, get this book. It is excellent.

2. Fforde, Jasper. The Song of the Quarkbeast. Boston: Harcourt Mifflin, 2011.

How did I not know about this book for so many years? Maybe because publishers aren’t sure if it is a young adult book or a fantasy book? I am glad I found it, though, because this book is a riot. It is about a sixteen-year-old girl named Jennifer Strange, who is the acting manager of Kazam Inc. because the real manager (and owner) disappeared some years ago. Jennifer has no magical powers, but she manages an oddball collection of wizards and magicians. Since the events of the first book in the series (The Last Dragonslayer), the magic has been coming back into the land—but it is coming slowly, and if Kazam is going to survive, they need to win a challenge put forth by their evil corporate rivals, iMagic. Fortunately, Jennifer is resourceful, persuasive, plucky, and given to harebrained schemes that work out in the end.

In a literary world filled with books that seem to be just a shade or two removed from Harry Potter and his friends at Hogwarts, this book is different. Magic here is sometimes weak, sometimes given to power surges, and always unpredictable. Spells are written with a system that resembles computer code. Evil magicians are sneaky and tricky in ways that the somewhat predictable Voldemort could never imagine. I am not saying it is better than Harry Potter, but it is an entirely different world. Harry and his friends take the Hogwarts Express to get to school. Jennifer travels in a beat-up orange VW bug and sometimes a threadbare magic carpet. Harry can turn to Dumbledore and McGonagall for advice. Jennifer’s mentor is lost in time and space, and the two wisest magicians are frozen in the beginning of the book, so she has to rely on an intern and her second string of wizards. Harry moves through a castle filled with interesting ghosts from the past. Jennifer has a ghostly moose.

This is a delightfully fun, action-packed book. Strong fifth-grade readers and up would enjoy it. The book has a quarkbeast on the cover, not a picture of the heroine, so boys as well as girls can read it without being embarrassed. There is nothing significantly objectionable or challenge-able, other than the perennially problematic fact that there is magic in the book—but it resembles nothing even remotely connected to the occult. You’d like it. So would your students.

1. Vansant, Wayne. Bombing Nazi Germany: The Graphic History of the Allied Air Campaign that Defeated Hitler in World War II. Minneapolis: Zenith, 2013.

It was a strange war. And a violent one.

They fought as part of an awesome battle force thirty miles long and five miles above the surface of the earth. Their machines were made of aluminum, plexiglass, and steel. They shivered in their cockpits in subzero temperatures, fastened to life with only facemasks of oxygen. They died in horrible ways. In flashes of black smoke. In explosions of ragged steel, or falling all the way down, screaming, to the hard earth. They fought each other and also killed thousands of innocent civilians.

They were led by a small group of innovators and revolutionaries. Radical, innovative men who conceived of winning the war in a way that hadn’t been seen before. Their theories and beliefs were played out in hundreds of violent, freezing encounters in the sky high above the ground.

These were the men who took part in World War II’s air war.

This is how Bombing Nazi Germany begins, with these words in front of an image of German fighters attacking allied bombers, smoke from anti-aircraft flak, and two bombers on fire and going down. That single page gives you some insight into the way this graphic novel works. It is exciting, historically accurate, and balanced.

I remember that my best friend’s little brother loved to read about World War II. He would devour everything he could get his hands on, whether it was his reading level or not. He was willing to plow through some pretty dense historical books because of his interest in the war. And there is a lot there to be interested in. World War II was a war of desperation. The actions of pilots, navigators, bombardiers, and gunners become riveting when you realize the incredible odds they faced. Bombers were unreliable, prone to fatal breakdowns in the air. They often had to manage with little or no fighter escort. And the only reason most of the crewmen were willing to risk their lives was that the air war seemed to be a good way to stop Hitler.

The images in this graphic novel will pull kids in. The drama of individual stories will keep them interested. But along the way, they will earn about Allied and German strategies, about the ways the air war was effective and the ways it was not. They also will learn that the Nazis were not the only one committing atrocities in the war. The book deals honestly with moments like the firebombing of Dresden.

I do not mean to suggest that this is a perfect historical study. It doesn’t use primary sources or corroborating sources, and it does not make historical arguments explicitly. But this book will be an excellent start in getting students excited about history.

I think it could appeal to kids as early as fourth grade, but middle school and high school readers would not think this book beneath them. It would, admittedly, probably be more enticing to boys than girls, but I think there is enough to appeal to both. This book should be added to your classroom library.