Summer reading listed for teens

By Wally Bubelis

Summer is almost here, and with this year's recession, that may mean that the annual family road trip will be shortened or put on hold entirely. We can expect a lot more inexpensive activities for everyone, and teens will likely find themselves either working for some spending money or having a lot of time on their hands.

One cost-effective activity that delivers a huge bang for the buck is, of course, reading. A visit to your local library can bring you hours of adventure, romance, mystery, laughter and tears - sometimes all in the same book. Here are some of the best teen novels of the past year.

In S. A. Bodeen's debut novel, The Compound, teen Eli discovers that the underground shelter his father had built for the family in case of a nuclear attack is not what it seems, and that his dad is not quite who he seems.

In Unwind, by Neal Shusterman, the law in the future allows for people between 13 and 18 years of age to be "unwound" or used for spare parts, if their parents don't want them around. After a traffic accident, Connor, Risa and Lev find themselves forced to work together to stay alive, but Lev is a "tithe," a 10th child who was born to be unwound, and he can't understand why the others want to grow to be adults.

Mal Peet's novel Tamar follows the story of a girl whose beloved grandfather leaves her an inheritance that forces her into an investigation of his war-haunted past - and she may not like what she finds.

In Suckerpunch, David Hernandez's debut novel, two brothers decide to confront their abusive father a year after he's left the family home, and one of them has a gun.

For some lighter fare, turn to Into the Dark, by Peter Abrahams, and reacquaint yourself with Ingrid, the teen detective who now must help her grandfather prove his innocence when a conservation agent is found murdered on his land.

China Mi