Lots of Best Books lists come out at this time of the year, thanks to the American Library Association and the year-end lists from the trade journals. Here are a few selections from Best Books For Young Adults 2009 — all of them are available in the Academy Library collection:

Mexican Whiteboy by Matt de la Peña — Sixteen-year-old Danny searches for his identity amidst the confusion of being half-Mexican and half-white while spending a summer with his cousin and new friends on the baseball fields and back alleys of San Diego County, California.

Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd — In 1981, the height of Ireland’s “Troubles,” eighteen-year-old Fergus is distracted from his upcoming A-level exams by his imprisoned brother’s hunger strike, the stress of being a courier for Sinn Fein, and dreams of a murdered girl whose body he discovered in a bog.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins — Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen accidentally becomes a contender in the annual Hunger Games, a grave competition hosted by the Capitol where young boys and girls are pitted against one another in a televised fight to the death.

Ten Cents A Dance by Christine Fletcher — In 1940s Chicago, fifteen-year-old Ruby hopes to escape poverty by becoming a taxi dancer in a nightclub, but the work has unforeseen dangers and hiding the truth from her family and friends becomes increasingly difficult.

Nation by Terry Pratchett — After a devastating tsunami destroys all that they have ever known, Mau, an island boy, and Daphne, an aristocratic English girl, together with a small band of refugees, set about rebuilding their community and all the things that are important in their lives.

More best books are on the way, including a look at this year’s Newbery Award-winning title, The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, which is currently up for discussion at the CA Library Book Club.

Welcome back! I hope you had a relaxing and relatively calm holiday break, as I did. With the afternoons off, I spent some time putting together another blog…the CA Library Book Club. Rather than choosing a book for everyone to read and discuss, I thought I would leave it up to readers to comment on whichever books they would like to. You can discuss a book by commenting on it; if you would like to submit a book for discussion, you can do that to. It’s up to you! Visit the Book Club at http://calibrarybookclub.edublogs.org for more information.

I started with the first Harry Potter book, since it’s been 10 years since it was first published and I have gone back to re-read the entire series. I’m currently halfway through Prisoner of Azkaban, back when most everyone was deathly afraid of Sirius Black.