Sunday, December 18, 2011

Twilight Recommended Reading


Do you love the Twilight Saga and want to find similar stories?
Try one of these!

More vampires…

Pretty Dead
Francesca Lia Block
Beautiful vampire Charlotte finds herself slowly changing back into a human after the mysterious death of her best friend.

Vampire Kisses
Ellen Schreiber 
In her small town, dubbed "Dullsville," sixteen-year-old Raven -- a vampire-crazed goth-girl -- is an outcast. But not for long...

Peeps
Scott Westerfeld
Cal Thompson is a carrier of a parasite that causes vampirism, and must hunt down all of the girlfriends he has unknowingly infected.

The Last Days
Scott Westerfeld
When New York City is plagued by a bizarre epidemic and strange events, Pearl, Moz, and Zahler combine their talents with a vampire lead singer and a drummer who can foresee the coming darkness in hopes of staving off the apocalypse.

Marked: a House of Night Novel
P. C. Cast
Zoey enters the House of Night, a school where, after having undergone the Change, she will train to become an adult vampire--that is, if she makes it through the Change.

The Vampire Diaries
L. J. Smith
After returning from the afterlife, Elena is forced to battle an ancient evil when Stefan, her vampire boyfriend, goes missing.

Blue Bloods
Melissa De La Cruz
Select teenagers from some of New York City's wealthiest and most socially prominent families learn a startling secret about their bloodlines.

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner
Stephenie Meyer
In this devastating story, Bree Tanner--a character introduced in Eclipse--and the newborn vampire army prepare to close in on Bella Swan and the Cullens, following their encounter to its unforgettable conclusion.

More paranormal activities…

Shiver
Maggie Stiefvater
In all the years she has watched the wolves in the woods behind her house, Grace has been particularly drawn to an unusual yellow-eyed wolf who, in his turn, has been watching her with increasing intensity.

I Kissed a Zombie, and I Liked It
Adam Selzer
Living in the post-human era when the undead are part of everyday life, high schooler Alley breaks her no-dating rule when Doug catches her eye, but classmate Will demands to turn her into a vampire and her zombie boyfriend may be unable to stop him.

Kiss Me Deadly: 13 Tales of Paranormal Love
A collection of short stories combining dark seduction and modern romance presents a variety of tales featuring the romantic lives of humans and werewolves, ghosts, fallen angels, zombies, and shape-shifters.

Fallen
Lauren Kate
Mysterious and aloof, Daniel captures Luce's attention from the moment she sees him on her first day at Sword & Cross boarding school in Savannah. He's the one bright spot in a place where cell phones are forbidden, the other students are screw-ups and security cameras track every move. Drawn to him like a moth to a flame, Luce has to find out what Daniel is so desperate to keep secret ... even if it kills her.

A Great and Terrible Beauty
Libba Bray
After the suspicious death of her mother in 1895, sixteen-year-old Gemma returns to England, after many years in India, to attend a finishing school where she becomes aware of her magical powers and ability to see into the spirit world.

City of Bones
Cassandra Clare
Suddenly able to see demons and the Darkhunters who are dedicated to returning them to their own dimension, fifteen-year-old Clary Fray is drawn into this bizarre world when her mother disappears and Clary herself is almost killed by a monster.

The Summoning
Kelley Armstrong
After fifteen-year-old Chloe starts seeing ghosts and is sent to Lyle House, a mysterious group home for mentally disturbed teenagers, she soon discovers that neither Lyle House nor its inhabitants are exactly what they seem, and that she and her new friends are in danger.

Blood and Chocolate
Annette Curtis Klause
Having fallen for a human boy, a beautiful teenage werewolf must battle both her pack mates and the fear of the townspeople to decide where she belongs and with whom.

Lips Touch: Three Times
Laini Taylor
Three tales of supernatural love, each pivoting on a kiss that is no mere kiss, but an action with profound consequences for the kissers' souls:

The Silver Kiss
Annette Curtis Klause
A mysterious teenage boy harboring a dark secret helps Zoë come to terms with her mother's terminal illness.

*Always feel free to ask your librarian for more suggestions!*

Need
Carrie Jones
When her family falls apart and she is sent to live with her grandmother in a rural town in Maine, Zara begins to feel as though she may be able to start life anew--until a stalking pixie with bad intentions makes himself known and causes chaos in her emotionally fragile world.

Regular old forbidden love…

Perfect Chemistry
Simone Elkeles
When wealthy, seemingly perfect Brittany and Alex Fuentes, a gang member from the other side of town, develop a relationship after Alex discovers that Brittany is not exactly who she seems to be, they must face the disapproval of their schoolmates--and others.

The Truth About Forever
Sarah Dessen
The summer following her father's death, Macy plans to work at the library and wait for her brainy boyfriend to return from camp, but instead she goes to work at a catering business where she makes new friends and finally faces her grief.

Harry Potter Recommended Reading List


Do you love the Harry Potter series and want to find similar books?  If so, try reading one of the following.

More Wizards and Magic…

The Amulet of Samarkand
Jonathan Stroud
A magician's apprentice summons up the djinni Bartimaeus and instructs him to steal the Amulet of Samarkand from the powerful magician Simon Lovelace.

Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo
Obert Skye
When fate brings fourteen-year-old Leven and thirteen-year-old Winter together, they discover that for mankind to continue dreaming, the gateway between reality and dreams needs to be found and demolished.

So You Want to Be a Wizard
Diane Duane
Thirteen-year-old Nita, tormented by a gang of bullies because she won't fight back, finds the help she needs in a library book on wizardry which guides her into another dimension.

Magyk
Angie Sage
After learning that she is the Princess, Jenna is whisked from her home and carried toward safety by the Extraordinary Wizard, those she always believed were her father and brother, and a young guard known only as Boy 412--pursued by agents of those who killed her mother ten years earlier.


The Tales of Beedle the Bard
J. K. Rowling.
The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a Wizarding classic, first came to Muggle readers' attention in the book known as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Now, thanks to Hermione Granger's new translation from the ancient runes, we present this stunning edition with an introduction, notes, and illustrations by J. K. Rowling, and extensive commentary by Albus Dumbledore. Never before have Muggles been privy to these richly imaginative tales... 

A Wizard of Earthsea
Ursula K. Le Guin.
Ged was the greatest sorcerer in all Earthsea who tampered with long-held secrets and loosed a terrible shadow upon the world.  This is the tale of his testing, how he mastered the mighty words of power, tamed an ancient dragon, and crossed death’s threshold to restore the balance.

More Fantastical Fantasies…

Gathering Blue
Lois Lowry
Lame and suddenly orphaned, Kira is mysteriously removed from her squalid village to live in the palatial Council Edifice, where she is expected to use her gifts as a weaver to do the bidding of the all-powerful Guardians.


The Book of Three
Lloyd Alexander
Taran, Assistant Pig-Keeper to a famous oracular sow, sets out on a hazardous mission to save Prydain from the forces of evil.

 
The Fellowship of the Ring
J. R. R. Tolkien
The first volume of a three-volume epic adventure set in the fantasy world of the Third Age of Middle-earth, a world inhabited by many strange beings.

 The Blue Sword
Robin McKinley
Harry, bored with her sheltered life in the remote orange-growing colony of Daria, discovers magic in herself when she is kidnapped by a native king with mysterious powers.

Eragon
Christopher Paolini
In Alagasia, a fifteen-year-old boy of unknown lineage called Eragon finds a mysterious stone that weaves his life into an intricate tapestry of destiny, magic, and power, peopled with dragons, elves, and monsters.

 
The Golden Compass
Philip Pullman
Accompanied by her daemon, Lyra Belacqua sets out to prevent her best friend and other kidnapped children from becoming the subjects of gruesome experiments in the far North.
  
Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher
Bruce Coville
Small for his age but artistically talented, twelve-year-old Jeremy Thatcher unknowingly buys a dragon's egg.

 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
C. S. Lewis
Four English school children find their way through the back of a wardrobe into the magic land of Narnia and assist Aslan, the golden lion, to triumph over the White Witch, who has cursed the land with eternal winter.

Revenge of the Witch
Joseph Delaney
Young Tom, the seventh son of a seventh son, starts work as an apprentice for the village spook, whose job is to protect ordinary folk from "ghouls, boggarts, and all manner of wicked beasties.”

More Tales of Daring and Adventure…

The Hunger Games
Suzanne Collins
In a future North America, where the rulers of Panem maintain control through an annual televised survival competition
pitting young people from each of the twelve districts against one another, sixteen-year-old Katniss's skills are put to the test when she voluntarily takes her younger sister's place.

Max: a Maximum Ride Novel
James Patterson
When millions of fish start dying off the coast of Hawaii and something is destroying hundreds of ships, the government enlists the Flock--a band of genetically modified children who can fly--to help get to the bottom of the disaster before it is too late.

The Lightning Thief
Rick Riordan
After learning that the father he never knew is Poseidon, God of the Sea, Percy Jackson is transferred from boarding school to Camp Half-Blood, a summer camp for demigods, and becomes involved in a quest to prevent a war between the gods.

The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp
Richard Yancey
Through a series of dangerous and violent misadventures, teenage loser Alfred Kropp rescues King Arthur's legendary sword Excalibur from the forces of evil.

Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson 
While going through the possessions of a deceased guest who owed them money, the mistress of the inn and her son find a treasure map that leads to a pirate fortune as well as great danger.

Gregor the Overlander
Suzanne Collins
When eleven-year-old Gregor and his two-year-old sister are pulled into a strange underground world, they trigger an epic battle involving men, bats, rats, cockroaches, and spiders while on a quest foretold by ancient prophecy.

Artemis Fowl
Eoin Colfer
When a twelve-year-old evil genius tries to restore his family fortune by capturing a fairy and demanding a ransom in gold, the fairies fight back with magic, technology, and a particularly nasty troll.



Graphic Novels/Manga

Graphic Novels/Manga

Looking for a good manga or graphic novel?  If so, try reading one of the following.

Graphic Novels…

Maus
Art Spiegelman
The story of Vladek Spiegelman and his wife, living and surviving in Hitler's Europe. By addressing the Holocaust through cartoons the author captures the everyday reality of fear and the sensation of survival.

 The Arrival
Shaun Tan 
In this wordless graphic novel, a man leaves his homeland and sets off for a new country, where he must build a new life for himself and his family.

 The Sandman series
Neil Gaiman
A rich blend of modern myth and dark fantasy in which contemporary
fiction, historical drama and legend are seamlessly interwoven; THE SANDMAN is also widely considered one of the most original and artistically ambitious series of the modern age.

Ghostopolis
Doug TenNapel
Accidentally transported to the spirit world by a washed-out ghost wrangler, Garth Hale discovers that he wields unique powers aggressively coveted by the spirits around him and teams up with his grandfather's ghost to find a way back home.

Pitch Black
Youme Landowne & Anthony Horton
A story about an artist who meets a homeless man on a subway who has found solace and shelter amidst the darkness of the underground world of New York City.

The Canterbury Tales
By Geoffrey Chaucer, adapted by Seymour Chwast
A lighthearted graphic-novel interpretation of Chaucer's classic depicts a band of medieval pilgrims on motorcycles who exchange satirical stories while staying at the Tabard Inn.

Persepolis
Marjane Satrapi
The great-granddaughter of Iran's last emperor and the daughter of ardent Marxists describes growing up in Tehran in a country plagued by political upheaval and vast contradictions between public and private life.

Blankets
Craig Thompson
Wrapped in the landscape of a blustery Wisconsin winter, Blankets explores the sibling rivalry of two brothers growing up in the isolated country, and the budding romance of two coming-of-age lovers.

Vietnamercia
G. B. Tran
A memoir in graphic novel format about the author's experiences as the son of Vietnamese immigrants who fled to America during the fall of Saigon describes how he learned his tragic ancestral history and the impact of the Vietnam War on his family while visiting their homeland years later.

Batman: the Dark Night Returns
Frank Miller
The Dark Knight returns in a blaze of fury, taking on a whole new generation of criminals and matching their level of violence. He is soon joined by this generation's Robin — a girl named Carrie Kelley, who proves to be just as invaluable as her predecessors.

Fun Home
Alison Bechdel
Meet Alison's father, a historic preservation expert and obsessive restorer of the family's Victorian house, a third-generation funeral home director, a high school English teacher, an icily distant parent, and a closeted homosexual.

Bone: Out from Boneville
Jeff Smith
When Fone Bone, Phoney Bone, and Smiley Bone are run out of Boneville, they become separated in a forested valley. There they begin an adventure of a lifetime.

American Born Chinese
Gene Luen Yang
Alternates between three interrelated stories about the problems of young Chinese Americans trying to participate in popular culture.

Manga…

Naruto: The Tests of the Ninja
Masashi Kishimoto
In the village of Konohagakure, school is literally a battlefield where classmates are ninjas in training competing to become the greatest ninja in the land.

Bleach: Strawberry and the Soul Reapers
Tite Kubo
Fifteen-year-old high school student Ichigo Kurosaki has martial arts skills and the ability to see ghosts, and his life is about to change when he meets Rukia Kuchiki, a soul reaper and protector of innocents. 

Hellsing
Kohta Hirano
This series follows the Hellsing Organization, an old institution created by English royalty to squash the ghoulish undead of the world, as they face an insurgence of murderous monsters running rampant across the isle, fueled by...could it be...Nazis?

Kimi Ni Todoke
Karuho Shiina
Shy Sawako Kuronuma is ostracized by her classmates, who call her Sadako because of her resemblance to a horror movie heroine, but when Shota Kazehaya, the most popular boy in school, becomes her friend, things start looking up.

Black Cat
Kentaro Yabuki
When Train Heartnet, also known as "Black Cat," decides to quit being an assassin for a secret organization to live life on his own terms as a bounty hunter, he soon discovers that his past is not easily left behind.

Mistress Fortune
Arina Tanemura
Fourteen-year-old psychic Kisaki Tachikawa works for a secret government agency that fights aliens, but when she falls in love with her partner, Giniro, she is suddenly transferred to California.

Death Note
Tsugumi Ohba
When high school student Light Yagami finds the Death Note, a notebook dropped by a Shinigami death god, he discovers that any person whose name is written in it dies, so Light decides to use the notebook to rid the world of evil.

Chobits
CLAMP
Having left the country for a cram school in the city, Hideki Motosuwa has humorous and unusual experiences with Chi, a "persocom," or miniature android and personal computer.

Rurouni Kenshin
Nobuhiro Watsuki
The wandering swordsman, Himura Kenshin, once an assassin, now fights to protect those in need.

*Always feel free to ask your librarian for more suggestions!*