

This September marked my third year doing a themed book club for 7th & 8th graders at a local K-8. We meet in their school library during their lunch period, and share the books we’ve read recently. This year, as we only have about 25 minutes together, we’ve adjusted our sharing style to title, author and six words to describe the book (a suggestion taken from Scholastic’s Booktalk! program.) This month, we shared horror titles (of course!). Here are some of the creepy books they read, as well as some of their descriptions!
Code Orange by Caroline B. Cooney. A teen, while researching smallpox for a school report, finds an envelope containing 100-year-old smallpox scabs and fears he may have been infected …and that he may be the only person able to prevent a smallpox outbreak in New York City. 8th grader Heather called this one “intense, scary, and suspenseful.”
Girl of Nightmares by Kendare Blake. 17-year-old ghost hunter Cas is determined to save ghost Anna from misery and torture in Hell as payback for saving his life, and according to Gillian, this sequel to the awesomely creepy and gross Anna, Dressed in Blood, is equally awesome. She very gleefully described it as “scary, bloody, and verygory.”
Outbreak: Plagues that Changed History by Bryn Barnard. 7th grader Annalise didn’t like the horror fiction options on her family’s bookcase, so she opted to read about the Black Death, the plague that in the 1300s killed millions — possibly a third of the European population. The rest of us agreed that by all the accounts we’ve read, the Black Death was a pretty horrific disease! Find out for yourself how it and other plagues, like yellow fever and cholera, altered history in Barnard’s Outbreak.
What are some of your favorite October reads? Discuss in the comment.
Burned out on vampire romances? Wish the creatures lurking in the dark were a little more bloodthirsty (or possessing more of a sense of humor)? Me, too! I spent the week rereading Justin Cronin’s The Passage, an epic, sprawling novel of the build-up to and the aftermath of a completely terrifying vampire-virus apocalypse. Cronin’s vamps are deadly and truly scary, but if you’re looking for a shorter read for older teens (The Passage is a door stop), why not hand over one of these titles featuring vamps that are more interested in more than finding his/her one true love.
Though storytelling comes in all forms, I tend to spend the majority of my reading life with fiction told from a 1st or 3rd person point of view, and a “first this happened, and then this, then this…” chronology.
Yes, these stories are often wonderful, but I find that sometimes it’s intriguing to mix things up a bit. The following books all tell their stories differently, whether by playing with style, point-of-view, or format, but they’re all guaranteed to catch the attention of older teens (and adults)!
The Year of Secret Assignments by Jaclyn Moriarty
There’s nothing quite so infuriating than a pen pal assignment from a teacher who clearly wishes to go back to the dark ages of letter writing (before the awesomeness that is text messaging). For Lydia, Cass and Emily, this assignment is also dangerous, as they’re meant to write kids at Brookfield HS, the student body of which is rumored to be full of scary criminals. But then Charlie, Seb, and Matthew write back. And through letters, emails, and even meeting transcripts, they experience friendship, grief, secret missions, love, and heartbreak, not to mention a trial about some not-so-harmless school vandalism…
You by Charles Benoit
“You’re surprised at all the blood.” So begins You, a suspense story with a twist: it’s told in 2nd person, meaning that you, the reader, feel as if you’re Kyle Chase, a 10th grader with an “aptitude” for math and a crush on Ashley. You hate your school, and wish you could go back to eighth grade, to work harder for the better grades needed to get into the school all your friends did. Instead, you’re stuck at Midlands High, where you end up hanging out with the kind of guys who sneak out at night to smoke, steal beer, and break into your old middle school. And then, one night, you’re covered in blood and someone is dying. But how, exactly, did you get there?
What about poetry? Do you have a group of teens obsessed with Ellen Hopkins’ dark verse novels? Why not give them family by Micol Ostow? Ostow took the true story of the Mason Family cult and murders, and told that story from the point of view of a person on the inside. Mel, a seventeen-year-old self-described “broken” girl, finds solace and companionship in the charismatic Henry. Through Mel’s eyes, we begin to see the ways in which Henry, as a collector of “broken” people, uses and manipulates his devotees, Mel included, to carry out horrific acts. This is an unsettling story, but powerful in the way it forces the reader to understand how a person looking for acceptance can be led down a very dark path.
Dead Inside: Do Not Enter (Notes from the Zombie Apocalypse)
Do you prefer stark images and notes to go with your zombie apocalypses? Dead Inside tells the story of a zombie outbreak and the breakdown of society through “items found in a backpack.” In reality, this was a huge Internet project, in which people from around the world created content for the book. You’ll forget soon, though, that this isn’t real as you get caught up in reading increasingly confused and desperate notes scribbled on torn pages, signs, and any available paper, including birthday cards, photos, maps and cardboard. (You, too, can participate in the project at www.lostzombies.com )
Chopsticks
This final book, Chopsticks by Jessica Anthony and Rodrigo Corral, has the least amount of text of all the books here…and it’s the most mind-blowing, in my opinion. Glory Fleming was a brilliant piano “prodigy,” destined for greatness and sold-out performances. So why has she gone missing? And what led to her Chopsticks-obsessed breakdown? Through photographs, drawings, and newspaper clippings, follow the story of a girl who fell in love, and then lost her mind. Then reread the story, in order to find out what *really* happened.
What are your favorite nontraditional format books? Share with us in the comments.
Is this the summer you’re going to fall in love? Wish you could have two equally appealing options, but would prefer to pass on sci-fi revolutions or supernaturals? Open up The Summer I Turned Prettyby Jenny Han and fall in love along with Belly, who, like every year since forever, is spending the summer at her mom’s best friend’s beach house. In years past, Belly played tag-along with her older brother Stephen and his friends, Conrad and Jeremiah, while crushing on Conrad from afar, but now that Belly is turning sixteen, things are a-changin’…
What are your favorite books about summer? Please share with us in the comments.
This quote has been circling the internet for a while, and as a life-long nerd and geek, I’ve worked to live up to the sentiment. This is not always easy, and it was especially difficult for me during high school, as I was torn between wanting to both appear “cool” AND to embrace that which I loved. In remembering that time, I always enjoy discovering books about teens that are able to embrace their inner geeks or nerds and find happiness at the same time!
March is a big month for picture books, as many elementary schools celebrate Dr. Seuss’ birthday with Cat in the Hat costumes, green food-coloring and Read Across America.
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