Realistic / Historical
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian / Sherman Alexie
Budding cartoonist Junior leaves his troubled school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white farm town school where the only other Indian is the school mascot. Read by Sherman Alexie.
Code Name Verity / Elizabeth Wein
After crash-landing in France in 1943 and being captured by Nazis, a female wireless operator for the British (who goes by Queenie, Eva, Verity, and various other aliases) reveals bits of code in exchange for reprieve from torture…and to postpone her execution. Read by Morven Christie & Lucy Gaskell.
Mosquitoland / David Arnold
When she learns that her mother is sick in Ohio, Mim confronts her demons on a thousand-mile odyssey from Mississippi that redefines her notions of love, loyalty, and what it means to be sane. Read by Phoebe Strole.
Okay for Now / Gary D. Schmidt
While Doug struggles to be more than the thug that his teachers and the police think him to be, he finds an unlikely ally in Lil Spicer, as they explore Audubon’s art. Read by Lincoln Hoppe.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower / Stephen Chbosky
A series of letters to an unknown correspondent reveals the coming-of-age trials of a high-schooler named Charlie. Read by Johnny Heller.
The Princess Diaries (series) / Meg Cabot
Fourteen-year-old Mia, who is trying to lead a normal life as a teenage girl in New York City, is shocked to learn that her father is the Prince of Genovia, a small European principality, and that she is a princess and the heir to the throne. Read by Anne Hathaway.
Revolution – Jennifer Donnelly
Andi Alpers is so full of grief, rage, and antidepressants that nothing matters to her anymore when her distant father forces Andi to accompany him on a trip to Paris. In Paris, Andi finds the diary of Alexandrine, a young woman who lived during the French Revolution. She becomes obsessed with Alexandrine’s life and the historical mystery it could solve. Read by Emily Janice Card & Emma Bering.
The Ruby in the Smoke (series) / Philip Pullman
In nineteenth-century London, sixteen-year-old Sally Lockhart, a recent orphan, becomes involved in a deadly search for a mysterious ruby. Read by Anton Lesser.
Tamar / Mal Peet
In England in 1995, fifteen-year-old Tamar, grief-stricken by the puzzling death of her beloved grandfather, slowly begins to uncover the secrets of his life in the Dutch resistance during the last year of the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, and the climactic events that forever cast a shadow on his life and that of his family. Read by Anton Lesser & Anna Maxwell Martin.
Thirteen Reasons Why / Jay Asher
When high school student Clay Jenkins receives a box in the mail containing thirteen cassette tapes recorded by his classmate Hannah, who committed suicide, he spends a bewildering and heartbreaking night crisscrossing their town, listening to Hannah’s voice recounting the events leading up to her death. Read by Joel Johnstone & Debra Wiseman.
To Kill a Mockingbird / Harper Lee
Scout Finch, daughter of the town lawyer, likes to spend her summers building treehouses, swimming, and catching lightning bugs with her big brother Jem. But one summer,when a black man is accused of raping a white woman, Scout’s carefree days come to an end. In the county courtroom, she will join her father in a desperate battle against ignorance and prejudice. Read by Sissy Spacek.
Fantasy / Adventure
Blood Red Road (series) / Moira Young
In a distant future, eighteen-year-old Lugh is kidnapped, and while his twin sister Saba and nine-year-old Emmi are trailing him across bleak Sandsea they are captured, too, and taken to brutal Hopetown, where Saba is forced to be a cage fighter until new friends help plan an escape. Read by Heather Lind.
Daughter of Smoke & Bone (series) / Laini Taylor
Seventeen-year-old Karou, a lovely, enigmatic art student in a Prague boarding school, carries a sketchbook of hideous, frightening monsters–the chimaerae who form the only family she has ever known. Read by Khristine Hvam.
Far Far Away / Tom McNeal
When Jeremy Johnson Johnson’s strange ability to speak to the ghost of Jacob Grimm draws the interest of his classmate, Ginger Boltinghouse, the two find themselves at the center of a series of disappearances in their hometown. Read by W. Morgan Sheppard.
The Hobbit / J.R.R. Tolkein
Bilbo Baggins, a respectable, well-to-do hobbit, lives comfortably in his hobbit-hole until the day the wandering wizard Gandalf chooses him to take part in an adventure from which he may never return. Read by Rob Inglis.
Keeper – Mal Peet
In an interview with a young journalist, World Cup hero, El Gato, describes his youth in the Brazilian rain forest and the events, experiences, and people that helped make him a great goalkeeper and renowned soccer star. Read by Christopher Lane.
Leviathan (series) / Scott Westerfeld
In an alternate 1914 Europe, fifteen-year-old Austrian Prince Alek, on the run from the Clanker Powers who are attempting to take over the globe using mechanical machinery, forms an uneasy alliance with Deryn who, disguised as a boy to join the British Air Service, is learning to fly genetically-engineered beasts. Read by Alan Cumming.
Marina / Carlos Ruiz Zafon
When boarding-school student Oscar Drai meets Marina, she promises him a mystery and takes him to a secret graveyard deep in Barcelona, where they witness a woman dressed in black lay a single rose atop a gravestone etched with a black butterfly. Their curiosity leads them down a dangerous path, and they discover a decades-old conspiracy that puts their lives in the hands of forces more sinister and mystical than they could have believed possible. Read by Daniel Weyman.
Neverwhere / Neil Gaiman
Richard Mayhew’s life is forever changed after he rescues a young girl named Door and finds himself living in a city of monsters, saints, murderers, and angels, and he must help Door on her mission to save this strange underworld kingdom from destruction. Read by a full cast including James McAvoy, Christopher Lee & Benedict Cumberbatch.
The Red Necklace / Sally Gardner
In the late eighteenth-century, Sido, the twelve-year-old daughter of a self-indulgent marquis, and Yann, a fourteen-year-old Gypsy orphan raised to perform in a magic show, face a common enemy at the start of the French Revolution. Read by Carrington MacDuffie.
The Scorpio Races / Maggie Stiefvater
Nineteen-year-old returning champion Sean Kendrick competes against Puck Connolly, the first girl ever to ride in the annual Scorpio Races, both trying to keep hold of their dangerous water horses long enough to make it to the finish line. Read by Steve West & Fiona Hardingham.
Stardust / Neil Gaiman
Living in a Victorian countryside town overshadowed by an imposing stone barrier, Tristran is compelled to retrieve a fallen star for the woman he loves and crosses to the wondrous other side of the barrier, where he encounters dangerous rivals for the star. Read by Neil Gaiman.
The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavendar / Leslye Walton
Born with bird wings into a family cursed to be foolish in love, sixteen-year-old Ava delves into her family’s past hoping to understand her unusual nature and learn to fit in with her peers, but she is ill-prepared for what she discovers. Read by Cassandra Campbell.
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