Kat Got Your Tongue by Lee Weatherly

Main Character: Thirteen-year-old Kathy
Location:England
Time period: Contemporary
Genre: YA Fiction, Mystery

A teen-age girl wakes up in the hospital. You've been in an accident, she's told. You're name is Kathy, she's told. But she can't remember anything--not who she is, not where she's from, and not what she did that was so awful that her classmates refuse to talk to her anymore.

Kathy is as clueless as we are and so we go on this journey of discovery together. I can't say much more because I don't want to spoil, but I was thoroughly engrossed from beginning to end.

The Boy Who Dared by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

Main Character: Helmuth Guddat Huebner
Location: Germany
Time period: 1940s
Genre: YA Fiction, Historical, World War II, Holocaust

This book tells the story of Helmuth Guddat Huebner, a teenager who resisted the Nazi regime and was executed for treason. I especially enjoyed the contrast between the behaviors of Helmuth, his brother Gerhardt, and his stepfather Hugo. Helmuth chafes under the Nazi rule almost from the very beginning and slowly eases into resistance--though with each successful step he grows bolder. Gerhardt agrees that the government is wrong but feels that loyalty to the country is supreme. Hugo is almost a caricature of a "good Nazi," loud, uncouth, and bullying, though the author's note reveals that he changed after Helmuth's death. This book pairs nicely with The Silenced by James DeVita which was inspired by teenage resistance fighters during WWII but is set the near-future.

The Off Season by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

Main Character: High School junior D.J. Schwenk
Location: small town Wisconsin
Time period: Contemporary
Genre: YA Fiction, Sports--Football
Series: sequel to Dairy Queen

At the end of Dairy Queen, D.J. had decided to try out for her school's football team. She makes the team and is well accepted by the boys. The only complication is that her sort-of boyfriend, Brian, is the quarterback for her school's biggest rival and they will inevitably have to play against each other. Off the field, there is another complication with Brian. When they are alone on her family's farm or on long drives, they get along fine, but when Brian is with his friends he pretends he hardly knows her. As hard as that is, her problems are only going to get worse this year. She injures her shoulder in a game, and is told that if she continues to play football she will not heal well enough to play basketball. That choice becomes moot when one of her older brothers, now playing college football, is seriously injured in a game, and D.J. is the one that stays with him in the hospital as he tries to face the possibility that he is paralyzed.

The first book was a blend of humor and romance. This one takes a darker tone, and I ached for D.J. She is so young to have to shoulder the burdens of her whole family; she is strong but she does have a breaking point. I certainly hope that life treats her better in the third book, which, according to the author's website, is currently in progress and due out Fall 2009. I can hardly wait.

My Mother the Cheerleader by Robert Sharenow

Main Character:
Location: New Orleans, Louisiana
Time period: 1960
Genre: YA Fiction, Historical, Civil Rights Movement

Not what you might expect from the title. Set in New Orleans in 1960, the "Cheerleaders" of the title were the women who would go down to yell all sorts of abuse at Ruby Bridges as she would go in to the elementary school. When a visitor from New York comes down and stays in the boarding house owned by Louise and her mother, events are set in motion that culminate in a night of terrifying, brutal violence.

The Silenced by James DeVita

Main Character:
Location:
Time period: Not too distant future
Genre: YA Fiction, Dystopian Society

This book can fit in with stories about the Holocaust--it is inspired by young people in Nazi Germany who formed a resistance group. In some ways it brought to mind "The Wave," the 1980s book about a teacher who tried a different way of teaching the Holocaust.

The Silenced also fits in well with some recent YA fiction that deals with oppressive governments and resistance movement--particularly The Hidden Children series by Margaret Haddix or Epic by Conor Kostick.