Action Adventure

F MAR Martinez, Victor. Parrot in the Oven. New York: HarperCollins, 1996.
Manuel wants to be a vato firme--a guy to respect. In the year before he is initiated into a gang, Victor works in the fields, pulls his dad from bars at night, deals with his mom's obsessive cleaning, and copes with a death.

F SHU Shusterman, Neal. Full Tilt. New York :Simon and Schuster, 2003.
Blake is the calm, responsible one in his group of friends. His brother, Quinn, is exactly the opposite--a risk taker. Then Blake is given an invitation to a carnival unlike any he's experienced, where the rides are life-threatening. He and his friends must complete 7 rides by dawn, but each ride is a reflection of one's deepest fears. Blake must overcoe is fear in survive and ultimately, to save his brother's life.

F TOM Tomey, Ingrid. Nobody else has to know. New York : Delacorte, 1999.
Fifteen-year-old Webber wakes up from a 3 day coma, finding he has multiple broken bones and his cross-country season is possibly ruined for the year. He also has amnesia. He finds out that while his grandfather was driving, it struck and seriously injured a little girl. Something keeps nagging at Webber that the story is not quite right and then his memory returns and he has a life-altering decision to make.

F WES Westerfeld, Scott. So Yesterday. New York : Penguin, 2004.
Hunter Braque, a New York City teenager who is paid by corporations to spot what is "cool," combines his analytical skills with girlfriend Jen's creative talents to find a missing person and thwart a conspiracy directed at the heart of consumer culture.

F FRE French, Albert. Billy. New York : Viking, c1993.
While out walking with friends in 1930s Mississippi, Billy kills a white girl. He is then thrown into jail and put on death row. This will give you chills.

F SHU Shusterman, Neal. Speeding Bullet. New York : Scholastic, 1992, c1991.
After rescuing a little girl from a speeding subway train, Nick quickly becomes famous and strange things begin to happen….

F HOB Hobbs, Will. Downriver. New York : Atheneum : Maxwell Macmillan International Pub. Group, 1991.
A fast read about teens river rafting in Arizona, but the weather changes and so do their lives.

F WYN Wynne-Jones, Tim. The Boy in the Burning House. New York : Farrar Straus Giroux, 2001, c2000.
From its opening scene, in which a teenage girl overhears her stepfather's creepy confessions, to its terrifying conclusion in a deserted mine shaftthis book has the magnetic energy of a well-crafted made-for-television thriller, without pausing for commercial breaks.

F MAR Marsden, John. The Dead of Night. New York : Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers, [1999], c1994.
Australia has been invaded. Six teenagers are living out their nightmare in the sanctuary of a hidden valley called Hell. Alone, they make their own rules, protect what is theirs, and struggle for courage and hope in a world changed forever. Seeking supplies, allies, and information, the friends make forays into enemy territory, drawing on nerve and resourcefulness they never even knew they had. As the risks become greater, so too do the sacrifices they must make. Intense, passionate, and compulsive.

F YOL Yolen, Jane. Armageddon Summer. San Diego, CA : Harcourt Brace, c1998.
Armageddon Summer provides a front-row seat for the type of event most of us only witness on a TV screen. Reverend Raymond Beelson is gathering 144 "Believers" atop Mount Weeupcut in Massachusetts to camp out, pray, and await Armageddon--July 27, 2000--when he predicts that his faithful flock will be saved as the rest of the world is set ablaze in fire and brimstone.

F HOR Horowitz, Anthony. Stormbreaker. New York : Philomel Books, 2001, c2000.
They told him his uncle died in an accident. He wasn't wearing his seatbelt, they said. But when fourteen-year-old Alex finds his uncle's windshield riddled with bullet holes, he knows it was no accident. What he doesn't know yet is that his uncle was killed while on a top-secret mission. But he is about to, and once he does, there is no turning back. Finding himself in the middle of terrorists, Alex must outsmart the people who want him dead. The government has given him the technology, but only he can provide the courage. Should he fail, every child in England will be murdered in cold blood. (from Amazon.com)

F FRE French, Michael. Pursuit. New York : Delcorte Press, c1982.
After a boy falls to his death on a hiking trip, his brother is pursued through the wilderness by the man he believes responsible.

F MAR Martel, Yann. Life of Pi. New York : Harcourt, c2001.
The son of a zookeeper, Pi Patel has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior and a fervent love of stories. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes. The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with Richard Parker for 227 days while lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again. The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them "the truth." After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story much less fantastical, much more conventional--but is it more true? (from Amazon.com)

updated 08/10/05