Resources

Looking for more inspiration? Check out professional literature on working with teens and then take a look at what a few authors with titles on YALSA booklists or who have won YALSA awards have to offer.

Professional Materials

Books & Magazine Articles

Doyle, Miranda. 101 + Great Ideas for Teen Library Web sites. New York: Neal-Schuman, 2007.

Excellence in Library Services to Young Adults. Amy Alessio, ed. Chicago: YALSA, exp. 2008 (available in June).

Honnold, RoseMary for the Young Adult Library Services Association. Get Connected: Tech Programs for Teens .New York: Neal-Schuman, 2007.

King, Kevin A.R.  No Time for a Teen Read Week Celebration? Get Real! Young Adult Library Services. Fall 2005. Vol 4, issue 2. P6-7.

Koelling, Holly for the Young Adult Library Services Association. Best Books for Young Adults. 3rd edition. Chicago: ALA, 2007.

Kunzel, Bonnie and Constance Hardesty. The Teen-Centered Book Club: Readers into Leaders. Westport: Libraries Unlimited. 2006.

Langemack, Chapple. The Author Event Primer: How to Plan, Execute and Enjoy Author Events. Westport: Libraries Unlimited. 2007.

McLean, C. D. Fifty Ways to Promote Teen Reading in Your Library. Young Adult Library Services. Fall 2007 Vol. 6, issue 1 p8-10.

The Official YALSA Awards Guidebook. Tina Frolund, ed. New York: Neal Schuman, 2008. (Available in June).

Pfeil, Angela B. Going Places with Youth Outreach: Smart Marketing Strategies for Your Library. Chicago: ALA, 2005.

Phillips, Susan P. Great Displays for Your Library Step by Step. Jefferson: McFarland, 2008.

Reynolds, Tom K. Teen Reading Connections. New York: Neal-Schuman, 2005.

Schall, Lucy. Teen Genre Connections: From Booktalking to Booklearning. Westport: Libraries Unlimited. 2005.

Books with Bite ... from Authors with Bite!

Looking for more book recommendations? We asked a few authors whose titles have appeared on YALSA booklists and authors to share their favorite books with bite!

William Sleator

“When I think of Books with Bite in the realm of technology, the first thing that comes to mind is E.M. Forster's great story, The Machine Stops.  Anyone who uses the Iinternet MUST read this story. It takes place in the future, when the surface of the earth is too polluted for human habitation.  Everyone lives in a little cell inside the earth, like a giant beehive, one person per cell.  The Machine takes care of all their needs: air, food, water, medical care--and communication.  People rarely leave their cells; they communicate via a screen provided by the Machine.   It's just like people IM-ing and texting today!  You can tell by the title what happens to the Machine, upon which everybody in the world depends for everything.  It's horrifying fun to read about civilization collapsing!  What's amazing is that this story was written in 1909, and yet it seems completely modern.”

Scott Westerfield

Here are three books that bite so much they inspired me to write my own vampire novel: M.T. Anderson's classic Thirsty; Carl Zimmer's amazing and super-icky nonfiction Parasite Rex; and Robert Sullivan's Rats, a history of vermin in New York City. My favorite recent book that bites is Skin Hunger by Kathleen Duey, a horrific take on wizard school. Read it and you will never look at apples the same way again.

Richelle Mead

“One of my very favorite series is Rachel Caine's Morganville Vampires.  The first book, Glass Houses, literally had me biting my nails because I was so worried about the heroine!  I also really love Evolution, Me, and Other Freaks of nature by Robin Brande.   The "bite" there is of a totally different nature and follows a girl who's shunned by her parents and classmates after an incident involving religion forces her to stand up for what she believes.”

Darren Shan

“My favourite book With bite is the original Dracula novel by Bram Stoker. It gave the world an entirely new type of monster, and is still an unsettling, edgy read over a hundred years later. There have been many bad vampire books and films in the years since then, and the genre has something of a bad reputation in certain quarters, but the first Dracula is a stunning, ground-breaking work, brilliantly written, terrifying but stylish. Everyone should treat themselves to a bite of the real thing at least once in their life!"

Cynthia Leitich Smith

"My fave book with bite is the one that inspired me to begin writing for teens. It's Annette Curtis Klause's fierce and feisty werewolf novel, Blood and Chocolate. I'm also wowed by M. T. Anderson's vampire novel Thirsty,  Nancy Werlin's cyber-suspense novel Locked Inside, Deborah Noyes' horror anthology collection Gothic! Ten Original Dark Tales, and many more!"

Markus Zusak

"In The Commitments, the world’s hardest working band spend a lot of time biting each other’s heads off as they argue and laugh and slag each other (as they put it), all the while pointing  their Irish fingers at each other . . . always one of my favourite books."

Lois Lowry

"My choice would be Tracy Kidder's The Soul of a New Machine, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1982. It describes the war between two design groups to create the next-generation computer. The technology is pretty dated by today's standards but there is still plenty of byte in this one!"

Annette Curtis Klause

"My current favorite books with bite are the Southern Vampire mystery series written by Charlaine Harris.  Some of the tiles are Dead Until Dark, Club Dead, and Dead as a Doornail.  They are well written, clever and funny, and make me laugh.  I’m listening to Definitely Dead in the car right now and feel compelled to drive the long way home every day so I can hear more of the story.  These books aren’t published for teens, but I bet older teens would enjoy them."

Anthony Horowitz

“My two sons and I really enjoyed Darren Shan's lengthy vampire chronicle, Cirque du Freak, which comes in bite-sized chunks and makes for a great bed-time read. His follow-up, the Demonata, is even bloodier and has a huge following here in the UK. Justin Somper's Vampirates is also attracting more and more readers with its clever concept of blood-letting on the high seas. Older teens should take a look at Stephen King, particularly some of his earlier books such as Salem's Lot which is a brilliant, highly atmospheric examination of the world of vampires. And for that same age group, my favorite vampire story of all time is Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons. It's very long, quite complicated and very scary.”