BBYA 2006 Top Ten with annotations

Akbar, Said Hyder and Burton, Susan. Come Back to Afghanistan: A California Teenager's Story. Bloomsbury, 2005. $24.95. (1-58234-520-1). California teen Hyder describes three summers (2002-4) he spent with his father who had returned to the Afghanistan to help rebuild his country by serving as spokesman to the president and governor of a border province.

Bartoletti, Susan Campbell. Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow. Scholastic, 2005. illus. $19.95. (0-439-35379-3). “I begin with the young…What material! With them I can make a new world.” Adolf Hitler exploited the idealism of millions of Germany’s young people to fuel his evil master plan for global domination.

Buckhanon, Kalisha. Upstate. St. Martin's, 2005. $19.95. (0-312-33268-8). Natasha and Antonio, young lovers, communicate via letters for nine years during his incarceration for murdering his father.

Green, John. Looking for Alaska. Dutton, 2005. $15.99. (0-525-47506-0). Miles is looking for the Great Perhaps--and an Alabama boarding school offers the possibility of finding it, especially after he meets the captivating, unpredictable, and utterly alive Alaska.

Lynch, Chris. Inexcusable. Simon & Schuster/Atheneum, 2005. $16.95. (0-689-84789-0). High school senior and football star Keir Sarafina says, “I hate it when people I love condemn me,” but has Keir done something inexcusable to Gigi Boudakian?

Meyer, Stephanie. Twilight: A Novel. Little, Brown/Megan Tingley, 2005. $17.99. (0-316-16017-2). Bella's move to rainy Forks, Washington is the most boring move she will ever make, until she meets Edward, the vampire love of her life.

Vaughan, Brian K. Runaways: Volume 1 HC. Illus. by Adrian Alphona. Marvel, 2005. $34.99. (0-7851-1876-4). Six teenagers discover that their parents are super-villains, and after deciding to turn them in, fight for both their own survival and an end to the evil from which they were born.

Westerfeld, Scott. Peeps. Penguin/Razorbill, 2005. $16.99. (1-59514-031-X). College freshman Cal comes to NY, spends a night with a beautiful girl-- and becomes a carrier. Now everyone he kisses develops a craving for meat, an aversion to sunlight, and super strength.

Wooding, Chris. Poison. Scholastic/Orchard, 2005. $16.99. (0-439-75570-0). When Poison's sister is kidnapped by Phaeries, Poison is determined to get her back but she doesn't realize that she is part of a much larger, darker story.

Zusak, Markus. I Am the Messenger. Knopf, 2005. $16.95. (0-375-83099-5). Aimless, amiable 19-year-old cab driver, Ed Kennedy, foils a bank robber and then begins to receive mysterious messages assigning him to intervene in the lives of strangers.