Action & Adventure

Turtle in Paradise is a 2010 historical fiction children’s novel by Jennifer L. Holm. Set in the Florida Keys during the Great Depression, the novel follows an 11-year-old girl’s struggles and successes as she visits her aunt and cousins in the town where her mother grew up. The novel won the Golden Kite Award and is a Newbery Honor Book as well as a Junior Library Guild selection. Other works by this author include The... Read Turtle in Paradise Summary

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is a science fiction adventure novel by French author Jules Verne. It was originally published in serialized form in 1869 under the title Vingt mille lieues sous les mers, and later as a book in 1870. In 1873, the first English-language translation was released. The book was highly acclaimed at the time of its publication and was one of several successful novels by Verne. Others include Journey to the... Read Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea Summary

Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer, is a young adult adventure-romance about a teenage girl who falls in love with a vampire. Her struggle to build a relationship in a world filled with suspicion and danger helped make the book a number-one New York Times bestseller. The novel launched the Twilight book series including New Moon (2006), Breaking Dawn (2008), and Midnight Sun (2020), which has sold more than 100 million copies and received multiple young reader... Read Twilight Summary

... Read Two Degrees Summary

In the 1993 novella Two Old Women by Velma Wallis, the harsh Alaskan climate and rigidity of tribal life set the stage for a life-changing journey marked by perseverance and passion. Faced with seemingly insurmountable odds, two elderly women find themselves in the fight of their lives, a fight they rise to with beauty and determination. The story of these two women, Sa’ and Ch’idzigyaak, has come to reverberate through the ages. Part of an... Read Two Old Women Summary

... Read Two Wolves Summary

... Read Typee Summary

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld is a young adult dystopian/science fiction novel and the first book of the Uglies Quartet. Published in 2005, Uglies was awarded the ALA 2006 Best Books for Young Adults award, the ALA 2006 Popular Paperback for Young Adults award, the Kirkus Editor’s Choice award, and the SLJ Best Book of the Year award. Uglies is followed by Pretties, Specials, and Extras.This guide uses the May 2011 Simon & Schuster BFYR paperback... Read Uglies Summary

Under a Painted Sky is a young adult historical novel set on the Oregon Trail during the 1849 Gold Rush. It is a debut novel by Stacey Lee, inspired by her own family history as a fourth-generation Chinese American. The novel won several prizes, including an American Library Association award. Her corpus focuses on Chinese culture and Chinese American experiences. Her other works with these themes include Outrun the Moon (2016), The Downstairs Girl (2019), Luck of... Read Under a Painted Sky Summary

... Read Under the Blood Red Sun Summary

... Read Under the Never Sky Summary

... Read Unplugged Summary

Unwind (2007) is a young adult novel by Neal Shusterman. It is the first book in the Unwind Dsytology, which includes UnWholly, UnSouled, and UnDivided, as well as the short story “UnStrung” and the UnBound anthology. This dystopian narrative takes place in a future United States where citizens fought a Second Civil War over abortion. As a result, parents can now opt to have children between 13 and 18 “unwound”—dismembered—in special harvest camps. Because most... Read Unwind Summary

... Read Varjak Paw Summary

... Read Vow of Thieves Summary

... Read Walden On Wheels Summary

... Read Walls Within Walls Summary

Marie Lu’s young adult science fiction Warcross (2017) is the first book in the Warcross series. Set in the future, bounty hunter Emika Chen takes part in an international online game to track down her mark. Lu writes primarily dystopian and science fiction for young adults and is well known for her bestselling trilogy, Legend. Kirkus Reviews included Warcross on its Best Teen Science Fiction books of 2017. This guide references the 2017 Random House... Read Warcross Summary

Set in the 1830s and beginning on a slave plantation in Barbados, Esi Edugyan’s Washington Black tells the story of the eponymous Washington and his unlikely adventures as he meditates upon the complexities of race, relationships, science, and art. In 1830, Wash is an uneducated, orphaned slave boy around 10 or 11 years old taken under the wing of Big Kit, a powerful and intimidating field slave. Big Kit protects him from the other slaves... Read Washington Black Summary

Watchmen is a limited series of comic books written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons, published serially from 1986 to 1987 and then republished as a single volume in 1987. Set in an alternate 1985 in which masked vigilantism has been banned, Watchmen follows a cadre of “costumed heroes”—some of whom work for the government—who uncover a plot hatched by one of their own to stop global nuclear annihilation by killing a significant... Read Watchmen Summary