Ready for a radical mix of contemporary topics? I’m giving you books about religion and spirituality beside books about sexuality and identity, next to books about what happens when teens decide that college isn’t necessarily the path they want to take post-high school. Again, dive in with additional titles, since we’re limited in our list numbers. All descriptions come from World Cat.

Religion and Spirituality
One of scary issues to tackle in real life is one that seems to be handled in a ton of unique ways in ya lit. This is one diverse list in terms of beliefs and non-beliefs.

Beautiful by Cindy Martinusen-Coloma: Much admired, beautiful, driven high school senior Ellie thinks she has her life all mapped out, but when tragedy suddenly strikes shortly after her hated grandfather’s funeral, she is left to wonder what it all means.

Once Was Lost by Sara Zarr: As the tragedy of a missing girl unfolds in her small town, fifteen-year-old Samara, who feels emotionally abandoned by her parents, begins to question her faith.

Hush by Eishes Chayil: After remembering the cause of her best friend Devory’s suicide at age nine, Gittel is determined to raise awareness of sexual abuse in her Borough Park, New York, community, despite the rules of Chassidim that require her to be silent.

Virgin Territory by James Lecesne: When an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary appears on a tree at the Jupiter, Florida, golf course where fifteen-year-old Dylan Flack is caddying for the summer, he encounters a group of “pilgrims” who dare him to take a risk and find out what he really wants out of life.

Donut Days by Lara Zielin: During a camp-out promoting the opening of a donut shop in a small Minnesota town, sixteen-year-old Emma, an aspiring journalist, begins to connect an ongoing pollution investigation with the turmoil in the evangelical Christian church where her parents are pastors.

Queen of Secrets by Jenny Meyerhoff: Fifteen-year-old Essie Green, an orphan who has been raised by her secular Jewish grandparents in Michigan, experiences conflicting loyalties and confusing emotions when her aunt, uncle, and cousin move back from New York, and her very religious cousin tries to fit in with the other football players at Essie’s high school, one of whom is Essie’s popular new boyfriend.

The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams: In a polygamous cult in the desert, Kyra, not yet fourteen, sees being chosen to be the seventh wife of her uncle as just punishment for having read books and kissed a boy, in violation of Prophet Childs’ teachings, and is torn between facing her fate and running away from all that she knows and loves.

This Gorgeous Game by Donna Frietas: Seventeen-year-old Olivia Peters, who dreams of becoming a writer, is thrilled to be selected to take a college fiction seminar taught by her idol, Father Mark, but when the priest’s enthusiasm for her writing develops into something more, Olivia shifts from wonder to confusion to despair.

Small Town Sinners by Melissa Walker (July 2011): High school junior Lacey finds herself questioning the evangelical Christian values she has been raised with when a new boy arrives in her small town.

OyMG by Amy Fellner Dominy: Fourteen-year-old Ellie will do almost anything to win a scholarship to the best speech school in the country, but must decide if she is willing to hide her Jewish heritage while at a Phoenix, Arizona, summer camp that could help her reach her goal.

Losing Faith by Denise Jaden: Brie tries to cope with her grief over her older sister Faith’s sudden death by trying to learn more about the religious “home group” Faith secretly joined and never talked about with Brie or her parents.

Sexuality
Or more specifically, coming to terms with the fact you might like someone of the same sex. Or you might identify with the opposite gender more than your own. Or that there are other people like there with these same identity questions as you.

My Invented Life by Lauren Bjorkman: During rehearsals for Shakespeare’s “As You Like It,” sixteen-year-old Roz, jealous of her cheerleader sister’s acting skills and heartthrob boyfriend, invents a new identity, with unexpected results.

Vast Fields of Ordinary by Nick Burd: The summer after graduating from an Iowa high school, eighteen-year-old Dade Hamilton watches his parents’ marriage disintegrate, ends his long-term, secret relationship, comes out of the closet, and savors first love.

Love Drugged by James Klise: Fifteen-year-old Jamie is dismayed by his attraction to boys, and when a beautiful girl shows an interest in him, he is all the more intrigued by her father’s work developing a drug called Rehomoline.

Shine by Lauren Myracle: When her best friend falls victim to a vicious hate crime, sixteen-year-old Cat sets out to discover the culprits in her small North Carolina town.

A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend by Emily Horner: As she tries to sort out her feelings of love, seventeen-year-old Cass, a spunky math genius with an introverted streak, finds a way to memorialize her dead best friend.

Brooklyn, Burning by Steve Brezenoff (August 2011): Sixteen-year-old Kid, who lives on the streets of Brooklyn, loves Felix, a guitarist and junkie who disappears, leaving Kid the prime suspect in an arson investigation, but a year later Scout arrives, giving Kid a second chance to be in a band and find true love. *I’ve included this one since gender is a huge plot point, despite not being expounded upon in the description.

Jumpstart the World by Catherine Ryan Hyde: Sixteen-year-old Elle falls in love with Frank, the neighbor who helps her adjust to being on her own in a big city, but learning that he is transgendered turns her world upside-down.

David Inside Out by Lee F Bantle: At a Minneapolis high school, a cross-country runner tries to deny his sexual feelings for a male teammate.

Say the Word by Jeannine Garsee: After the death of her estranged mother, who left Ohio years ago to live with her lesbian partner in New York City, seventeen-year-old Shawna Gallagher’s life is transformed by revelations about her family, her best friend, and herself.

Life After High School
Not everyone decides they need to go to college. Heck, some decide high school isn’t their thing, either. These are stories about teens who take slightly different paths, as well as stories about what that first college year is like. This is a category I’m particularly interested in expanding, especially if they feature diverse characters, teens who don’t finish high school, or those who pursue jobs/careers without college, so please share titles you know, too.

The Things a Brother Knows by Dana Reinhardt: Although they have never gotten along well, seventeen-year-old Levi follows his older brother Boaz, an ex-Marine, on a walking trip from Boston to Washington, D.C. in hopes of learning why Boaz is completely withdrawn.

I Now Pronounce You Someone Else by Erin McCahan: Eighteen-year-old Bronwen has long felt that she was switched with another child at birth, and so although she loves Jared, she must decide if she is ready to be married or should, instead, live on her own first.

Purple Heart by Patricia McCormick: While recuperating in a Baghdad hospital from a traumatic brain injury sustained during the Iraq War, eighteen-year-old soldier Matt Duffy struggles to recall what happened to him and how it relates to his ten-year-old friend, Ali.

The Snowball Effect by Holly Nicole Hoxter: Having lost her stepfather, grandmother, and mother in the span of a year, seventeen-year-old Lainey unexpectedly reconnects with long-lost relatives, copes with her five-year-old brother’s behavioral problems, and endangers her long-term romance when drawn to a young man with an unexpected connection to her mother.

Psych Major Syndrome by Alicia Thompson: College freshman and psychology major, Leigh Nolan, finds her problem-solving skills woefully inadequate when it comes to her increasingly tangled and complicated romantic relationships.

The Ivy by Lauren Kunze: When Callie arrives for her freshman year at Harvard, she encounters her three vastly different roommates, new friendships, steamy romance, and scandalous secrets.

We’ll Always Have Summer by Jenny Han: The summer after her first year of college, Isobel “Belly” Conklin is faced with a choice between Jeremiah and Conrad Fisher, brothers she has always loved, when Jeremiah proposes marriage and Conrad confesses that he still loves her.

An Off Year by Claire Zulkey: Upon arriving at her dorm room, eighteen-year-old Cecily decides to postpone her freshman year of college and return to her Chicago home, where she spends a year pondering what went wrong while forging new relationships with family and friends.

As I mentioned in the first post of this week, contemporary ya lit transcends the time it was published. The stories inside the books capture a reader and speak truths that go well beyond a time period.

More than once I’ve been asked what I think are foundational contemporary ya books — that is, what books were published in the past that are still important and still make an impact. I’ve rounded up some of the titles I consider to be keystone contemporary ya titles, and I’m certain I’ve left some off. I’m going to be blunt in telling you what some of these are about, but I don’t feel the need to suggest they’re spoilers to the storyline. The books have been out long enough to talk about their content openly. Feel free to chime in if there’s something you’d like to have added to the list.

In no particular order, books that all advocates of ya lit should have on their shelves:

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

Anderson’s groundbreaking book about a rape victim published when I was 15. I didn’t find it for another year or two, but it’s a book I will never forget. Anderson’s main character had her innocence stolen from her unwillingly, and I remember reading this and despite how dark it was, that spoke to me loudly.

Eleven years later, this book still matters to ya lit. It was one of the first to tackle this issue, and Anderson’s contribution to the field through her other contemporary titles (Twisted, Catalyst, and Wintergirls in particular) only reemphasize her mark on the ya lit world.

Forever. . .by Judy Blume

I could list any book by Judy Blume, honestly, but this is the one I chose because I think it’s such an important book for teen girls especially. It’s a book about sex and sexuality and coming to terms with all of those feelings that emerge when you meet the first person you are in love with. Blume’s brutally honest with her story telling, and she’s not shy to delve into tough topics. This is the author who talks bluntly about masturbation in books like Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret and about how friendships are growing and dynamic things in Just as Long as We’re Together. Sex, masturbation, friendship, changing bodies, family — they’re incredibly tough topics to handle in the way Blume does, and yet they’re the things that teen readers need and want to read about. The beauty of Blume is she’s timeless, and what she hits on is authentic and never delves into becoming an issue or becoming an adult talking to a teenager.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
This is another book that published the same year Anderson’s Speak did, and I remember this being the it book for a long time in high school. Charlie is an incredibly vulnerable male lead who journals about the tricky terrain of being the not-cool kid, falling in love for the first time, and — wait for it — drugs. I remember the fervor in which my friends and I read this book in high school to read about the drug life in particular, since it was something with which we were utterly unfamiliar. But being exposed to it in a safe environment, in a book, was important. It made sense of a world we’d only heard about on the news. It gave it more context and meaning.

If testament to how this is a foundational book in contemporary ya lit, consider that the movie is in production now. This book speaks to both male and female readers in its unflinching honesty and its heart.

The Pigman by Paul Zindel
Every time I see this book sit unread on a shelf, I cry a little bit on the inside. When I talk to someone who says they haven’t read this, I cry a little harder. I’m a huge advocate of killing darlings and weeding in the library, but this is one book that I will never personally weed and it’s one that is so prevalent and relevant even today.

It’s a story of friendship! Of being able to maintain a friendship with someone of the opposite sex! Of the innocence and childlike instincts that teenagers possess. As much as we push teens today to grow up and act mature, at their heart, they’re still kids. Then there is, of course, the story of respecting and understanding the world as it works and learning that all people contribute something to the world, even if they’re old and seem like they should just die already. The cross generational friendship here is so well done. And the tropes and themes explored here appear everywhere, as I believe I’ve mentioned in another review before.

Cut by Patricia McCormick
Ten years ago this book published. I didn’t read it until a couple years after it came out, though I knew what it was about. When I read it though, I was shocked with how honest it was with the issue of cutting, and how close to the heart it hit.

While other books have published on the topic of self mutilation, Cut will always be the first and the most impactful for me as a reader. It shocks me how few people today are familiar with this one or still see it as foundational as it was. McCormick was tackling things that were taboo ten years ago and are still taboo today. It helps this book is short and gets right to the point. Those who are most likely to be impacted by this story need that. Bonus that this book….isn’t about the issue but rather about a girl who has a challenge she needs to work through. It’s her story of overcoming cutting, not a story about cutting that features a girl.

Geography Club by Brent Hartinger
2003: fewer than 10 years ago, it was still taboo to even talk about being gay. It was just a couple years before that, in 1998, that college student Matthew Shepard was killed for being gay.

This is a book I did not pick up until I took a ya lit class in graduate school in 2008, but the story presented still spoke to today’s world. Knowing you’re gay in high school is not easy. That’s why so many kids keep this stuff quiet. Russel wants to keep it quiet, but he also begs for a chance to talk to people going through the same stuff he is in school, despite the knowledge that the second he’s outed, he could easily become a target of relentless torment and ridicule. The book speaks to kids who experience this, and despite some of the weaker writing aspects, it’s the story that stands out and still sparks controversy today. But this is a champion of a book about self discovery and both self/social acceptance.

Looking for Alaska by John Green
I read this book as soon as it came out, back in 2005. Doesn’t seem that long ago, honestly, but this was another one of those books that was quite groundbreaking. It tackles the idea of the impact a friend can make on another, and the ways that dealing with death change you and make you understand the fragility/importance of life.

The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
I didn’t read this one until my ya lit class in grad school, and in the end, it didn’t make quite the impact on me I thought it would. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t play a huge role in contemporary ya lit nor that it’s not just as important as it was when it published more than 30 years ago. This is a story about social hierarchies, cliques, violence and intimidation among boys. The pain and resistance, the resilience, and the bravery to tackle these issues that still emerge in works today makes it a stand out classic.

This is one of the few books that I want to go back and revisit, now having read much more in the ya world than I had prior to reading it the first time. It’s one I think will resonate a little louder and longer the second time.

Girl by Blake Nelson
If there is one author who is constantly underrated as a major force in contemporary ya lit, it’s Blake Nelson. Girl came out in 1994. Seventeen years ago Nelson wrote this manifesto of a girl out of control and coming to terms with who she is and what she wants to be. Andrea Marr’s a freshman in high school and she learns through trial and error (emphasis there!) that falling in love isn’t always as easy as it seems, and neither are things like drugs and sex.

I picked this book up just this year, after falling in love with Nelson’s other books in the last couple of years, and the impact it made on me was huge. I wish I’d read this in high school! Andrea is a killer character, and she learns incredible lessons throughout. But the beauty of this story is it never once sets out to teach a lesson. The lessons are picked up through growing up and doing things like going to high school. Girl resonates in so much of today’s hard, edgy contemporary, including Ellen Hopkins, Amy Reed (Beautiful was so much a retelling of Girl for me!), and more. It’s an utterly exhausting book to read, but it is so foundational and so overlooked. And it was written by a guy who so perfectly captures being a 15-year-old girl.

Nine is my magic number. I could offer you more, but I feel like this captures a wide swath of important, foundational ya titles. I’d be curious whether you agree with my thoughts here and whether there are others you think should be added. I know I am missing huge titles that relate to race and diversity (though I believe many of these hit on class issues of diversity) and would be curious what I should include and read for myself on those issues.

For those of you who work with teens or are building your knowledge/expertise in ya lit, these are 9 titles you absolutely should not miss.

Some of you know and others don’t, but Sarah and I are presenting at the American Library Association’s annual conference in New Orleans this month on the topic of contemporary ya lit. As part, we’ve developed a reading list for attendees, and I’m going to share with everyone some of the goods. I’m keeping it simple, with a topic, a cover shot, and a description (pulled from Worldcat). Some books fit in more than one category, though I’m trying to limit the books to one category for simplicity. I’d be interested in your thoughts on any of these titles or ones you think should be added to a category. Today, we’ve got Friendship, Love, and Rural Life as the topics du jour. And as always, feel free to borrow these lists.

Friendship
Friendship can be good, and friendship can be ugly. These books run the gauntlet. This collection tends to run heavy on female-driven narratives, so if anyone has any good contemporary guy stories about friendship, please share!

Beautiful by Amy Reed: Haunted by serious problems in her recent past, thirteen-year-old Cassie makes a fresh start at a Seattle school but is drawn by dangerous new friends into a world of sex, drugs, and violence, while her parents remain oblivious.

A Little Friendly Advice by Siobhan Vivian: When Ruby’s divorced father shows up unexpectedly on her sixteenth birthday, the week that follows is full of confusing surprises, including discovering that her best friend has been keeping secrets from her, her mother has not been truthful about the past, and life is often complicated.

Exposed by Kimberly Marcus:

Mostly Good Girls by Leila Sales: Sixteen-year-olds Violet and Katie, best friends since seventh grade despite differences in their family backgrounds and abilities, are pulled apart during their junior year at Massachusetts’ exclusive Westfield School.

Rival by Sara Bennett-Wealer: Two high school rivals compete in a prestigious singing competition while reflecting on the events that turned them from close friends to enemies the year before.

Shift by Jennifer Bradbury: When best friends Chris and Win go on a cross country bicycle trek the summer after graduating and only one returns, the FBI wants to know what happened.

How to Say Goodbye in Robot by Natalie Standiford: After moving to Baltimore and enrolling in a private school, high school senior Beatrice befriends a quiet loner with a troubled family history.

Lessons from a Dead Girl by Jo Knowles: After her former friend Leah dies in an automobile accident, Laine remembers their troubled relationship, dating back to elementary school when Leah convinced Laine to “practice” in the closet with her, and Leah controlled her every thought.

Like Mandarin by Kirsten Hubbard: When shy, awkward fourteen-year-old Grace Carpenter is paired with the beautiful and wild Mandarin on a school project, an unlikely, explosive friendship begins, but all too soon, Grace discovers that Mandarin is a very troubled, even dangerous, girl.

Love and Romance
This could go on for pages, so we’ve limited it significantly to titles that give flavor into a variety of relationships. These stories explore love, first romances, and sex. The titles below exemplify heterosexual relationships, as we’ll hit LGBTQ titles and relationship dynamics in another post.

The Duff by Kody Keplinger: Seventeen-year-old Bianca Piper starts sleeping with Wesley Rush, a notorious womanizer who disgusts her, in order to distract her from her personal problems, and to her surprise, the two of them find they have a lot in common and are able to help each other find more productive ways to deal with their difficulties.

The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han: Belly spends the summer she turns sixteen at the beach just like every other summer of her life, but this time things are very different.

The Secret Year by Jennifer Hubbard: Reading the journal of the high-society girl he was secretly involved with for a year helps high school senior Colt cope with her death and come closer to understanding why she needed him while continuing to be the girlfriend of a wealthy classmate.

When the Stars Go Blue by Caridad Ferrer: Soledad Reyes decides to dance Carmen as part of a drum and bugle corps competition, not knowing if it will help or harm her chance of becoming a professional ballet dancer but eager to pursue new options, including a romance with the boy who invited her to audition.

Kiss It by Erin Downing: Small-town Minnesotan Chastity (Chaz) Bryan wants nothing more than to get some sexual experience before she graduates from high school and moves away, but when she meets an intriguing boy visiting from North Carolina over Christmas break, her tough-girl facade slowly breaks down.

Not That Kind of Girl by Siobhan Vivian: High school senior and student body president, Natalie likes to have everything under control, but when she becomes attracted to one of the senior boys and her best friend starts keeping secrets from her, Natalie does not know how to act.

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins: When Anna’s romance-novelist father sends her to an elite American boarding school in Paris for her senior year of high school, she reluctantly goes, and meets an amazing boy who becomes her best friend, in spite of the fact that they both want something more.

Back When You Were Easier to Love by Emily Wing Smith: When her boyfriend Zan leaves high school in Utah a year early to attend Pitzer College, a broken-hearted Joy and Zan’s best friend Noah take off on a road trip to California seeking “closure.”

Shakespeare Makes the Playoffs by Ron Koertge: Fourteen-year-old Kevin Boland, poet and first baseman, is torn between his cute girlfriend Mira and Amy, who is funny, plays Chopin on the piano, and is also a poet.

Rural Life
A slice of life in the rural world. These stories take place outside the city and sometimes, it’s this setting itself that plays a huge role in the story.

King of the Screwups by K. L. Going: After getting in trouble yet again, popular high school senior Liam, who never seems to live up to his wealthy father’s expectations, is sent to live in a trailer park with his gay “glam-rocker” uncle.

What Would Emma Do? by Eileen Cook: While juggling friendship issues, a love triangle-turned-square, and escalating mayhem in her small religious town, Emma realizes she has to stop trying to please everyone around her and figure out what she wants for herself.

A Little Wanting Song by Cath Crowley: One Australian summer, two very different sixteen-year-old girls–Charlie, a talented but shy musician, and Rose, a confident student longing to escape her tiny town–are drawn into an unexpected friendship, as told in their alternating voices.

The Freak Observer by Blythe Woolston: Suffering from a crippling case of post-traumatic stress disorder, sixteen-year-old Loa Lindgren tries to use her problem solving skills, sharpened in physics and computer programming, to cure herself.

Ten Miles Past Normal by Frances O’Roarke Dowell: Because living with “modern-hippy” parents on a goat farm means fourteen-year-old Janie Gorman cannot have a normal high school life, she tries joining Jam Band, making friends with Monster, and spending time with elderly former civil rights workers.

The Sweetheart of Prosper County by Jill Alexander: In a small East Texas town largely ruled by prejudices and bullies, fourteen-year-old Austin sets out to win a ride in the next parade and, in the process, grows in her understanding of friendship and helps her widowed mother through her mourning.

Where I Belong by Gwendolyn Heasley: When sixteen-year-old Corinne Corcoran’s father loses his job, she is forced to give up her privileged Manhattan lifestyle and move to Broken Spoke, Texas, where she discovers that life is more than shopping sprees and country clubs.

Boys, Bears, and a Serious Pair of Hiking Boots by Abby McDonald: Seventeen-year-old Jenna, an ardent vegetarian and environmentalist, is thrilled to be spending the summer communing with nature in rural Canada, until she discovers that not all of the rugged residents there share her beliefs.

All You Get is Me by Yvonne Prinz: Almost sixteen-year-old city-transplant Aurora must adapt to life on an organic farm as she navigates an eventful summer when she falls in love, discovers that her mother has left for good, and watches her father take a bold stand in defense of the rights of undocumented Mexican farm workers.

Stay tuned — we’ve got more book lists coming up throughout the week.