The Book Club Hub – YA Novels

Book clubs offer a great opportunity for friends and book lovers to gather (whether virtually or in person) to catch up and discuss a good book. There’s only two problems with this activity and they seem to come up at every meeting: what book should the group read next and how do you find enough copies for everyone?

TBPL is here to help with our Book Club in a Bag service. Each bag includes 10 paperback copies of the same book, discussion questions for your group to ponder, author information, and book reviews. With almost 200 different titles available, there is bound to be one that is the perfect next read for your group.

Visit our online catalogue to place holds on book club bags as well as individual copies of any of the books mentioned below. If you’re looking to view all of the book club bags available, simply click the link and search “book club bag”. Any Library patron can place a hold on a bag for pick up at any of our open branches. These bags are loaned out for 8 weeks, which gives you and your book club plenty of time to read and discuss.

Every month, a new set of book club titles will be highlighted in The Book Club Hub post. This month features Young Adult novels. YA novels, while written with youth in mind, can and have been enjoyed by many adults as well. Here are this month’s feature books:

The Marrow Thieves – Cherie Dimaline

In a futuristic world ravaged by global warming, people have lost the ability to dream, and the dreamlessness has led to widespread madness. The only people still able to dream are North America’s Indigenous people, and it is their marrow that holds the cure for the rest of the world. But getting the marrow, and dreams, means death for the unwilling donors. Driven to flight, a fifteen-year-old and his companions struggle for survival, attempt to reunite with loved ones and take refuge from the “recruiters” who seek them out to bring them to the marrow-stealing “factories.”

Bullets, Blood and Stones: The Journey of a Child Soldier – Donne White

The first rule for survival when you’re a child soldier carrying an AK-47 is kill or be killed. But after you look at the blood of your first victim, you realize two things: one, you hate yourself. And two, there is no turning back.
When Scott discovers a pouch of stones clasped in the bony fingers of a skeleton in an African cave, the magic of the ancients is released and he and his nemesis, Bruce, are whisked to Uganda. There they meet Charlie, a former child soldier who has escaped from Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army. When Charlie is recaptured, the two teenagers set out on a daring rescue to save him and the children in a nearby village. Immersed in the insane evil of this rebel army, Scott and Bruce find themselves on a dangerous adventure beyond anything they could have ever imagined.

This Side of Home – Renee Watson

Identical twins Nikki and Maya have been on the same page for everything—friends, school, boys and starting off their adult lives at a historically African-American college. But as their neighborhood goes from rough-and-tumble to up-and-coming, suddenly filled with pretty coffee shops and boutiques, Nikki is thrilled while Maya feels like their home is slipping away. Suddenly, the sisters who had always shared everything must confront their dissenting feelings on the importance of their ethnic and cultural identities and, in the process, learn to separate themselves from the long shadow of their identity as twins.

In her inspired YA debut, Renée Watson explores the experience of young African-American women navigating the traditions and expectations of their culture.

The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins

Could you survive on your own in the wild, with every one out to make sure you don’t live to see the morning?

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister’s place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before—and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weight survival against humanity and life against love.

Despite being marketed for Young Adults, these novels touch on many tough and serious topics that will lead to thought-provoking discussions for readers of any age. The themes of culture, survival, and love will give your book club lots to think about, and any of these captivating titles would be a sure-fire hit at your next meeting.

Not in a book club? No problem! These books are also available as single copies in our online catalogue.

Book descriptions via GoodReads