2006 seems to be the year of great YA for me. But because I've been busy making a poster for a conference (a new experience that makes me feel like I'm back at school) and filling out the census (yay! much joy for social scientists) and need to actually get some work done, I don't have time to do justice to some of the recent highlights.

Many of you have probably read Looking for Alaska by John Green. This book is set in a boarding school in the southern USA and follows the experiences of a 16 year old boy and his friends. I don't think I've read many YA books with a male narrator but really enjoyed the story. I thought it was an excellent book, well written and sensitive, with both funny and tragic elements. I'll be looking out for more books by John Green.

I wasn't going to include Juliet Marillier's Wildwood dancing in this post as I wasn't aware that it has been classified as YA in the book shops and libraries here. This was the story of a family of young women growing up in a town that uneasily co-exists with the fairies in the forest nearby. The story combines elements from many fairy tales to form a rich and vivid story set in an alternate Transylvania that is part history and part fantasy. Highly recommended for readers who like fairy stories, particularly ones with brave heroines and romance!

For a change of pace, Does my head look big in this? by Randa Abdel-Fattah explores the story of an Australian Muslim girl who decides to wear the hijab full time when she's in grade eleven. It's a funny story that also highlights the difficulties of being a Muslim when people think of it as being synonymous with being a terrorist or oppressed. I don't know if the cultural identity issue was handled in as light-handed a manner as Looking for Alibrandi but it's still great to see a book about Muslim teenagers that should be widely appealing to lots of teenagers. And I like the cover picture as it should help clarify what a hijab is for readers who are unaware.

And for a complete change, Lili Wilkinson's Joan of Arc combines lots of interesting facts about the heroic French teenager with first person accounts of aspects of her life and exploits. I wished could send it back through time to my younger self who would have adored this type of history. But that shouldn't take away from the fact that I still found it really interesting as an adult, particularly the pictures and the snippets from her trial. My only criticism would be that the fictional first person accounts that start each section aren't clearly flagged as such, even on the publisher's website. Apart from fellow history geeks, teachers and librarians should look into getting this book. The fairly short length should make it accessible to children.

Tags: abdel-fattah, books, fantasy, green, historical, marillier, non-fiction, wilkinson, young adult