Reading Beyond the Borders of YA

A knowledgeable bookseller is a gift from the heavens, and one of my favorites is Brenda Leahy, the children's bookseller at the Dartmouth Bookstore in Hanover, NH. I'm in her section of the bookstore once a week while my younger son strums away at his guitar lesson, and she always has a new recommendation for me, my kids, or my students.

Brenda curates a great list of recommended books for teen readers pulled from beyond the borders of the YA section of the bookstore, so as a companion to this week's Parent Teacher Conference at the New York Times, here are some of my favorite recommendations from Brenda's list. I've embedded links to the author's websites underneath the titles wherever possible.

Oh, and here's the School Library Journal's "Best Adult Books 4 Teens," which is another great resource Brenda tipped me off to recently.

Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative by Austin Kleon (nonfiction)

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (fiction)

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk: A Novel by Ben Fountain (fiction)

The Age of Miracles by Karen Walker Thompson (fiction)

The Book of Jonas: A Novel by Stephen Dau (fiction)

The Distance Between Us: A Memoir by Reyna Grande (biography)

Alif the Unseen by G. Wilson (fiction)

The Land of Decoration: A Novel by Grace McCleen (fiction)

Dear Marcus: A Letter to the Man Who Shot Me by Jerry McGill (biography)

Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt (fiction)

Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats by Kristen Iversen (nonfiction)