Teen Brochure, February

Teen Scene Brochure Spring 2018

Collection Highlight: YA Steampunk

What happens when the future’s technology meets the past? Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction that seamlessly blends the past with the future, bringing robots, airships, and all types of gadgets and gizmos to Victorian England. With this genre you can enjoy the aesthetics of the past without the story being limited by the technological realities of the time!

The Brass Giant by Brooke Johnson 

“Seventeen-year-old Petra Wade, self-taught clockwork engineer, wants nothing more than to become a certified member of the Guild, an impossible dream for a lowly shop girl.[…] When Emmerich Goss–handsome, privileged, and newly recruited into the Guild–needs help designing a new clockwork system for a top-secret automaton, it seems Petra has finally found the opportunity she’s been waiting for. But if her involvement on the project is discovered, Emmerich will be marked for treason, and a far more dire fate will await Petra. Working together in secret, they build the clockwork giant, but as the deadline for its completion nears, Petra discovers a sinister conspiracy from within the Guild council…and their automaton is just the beginning”–Page 4 of cover.

Airborn by Kenneth Oppel

Matt, a young cabin boy aboard an airship, and Kate, a wealthy young girl traveling with her chaperone, team up to search for the existence of mysterious winged creatures reportedly living hundreds of feet above the Earth’s surface. In a swashbuckling adventure reminiscent of Jules Verne and Robert Louis Stevenson, Kenneth Oppel, author of the best-selling Silverwing trilogy, creates an imagined world in which the air is populated by transcontinental voyagers, pirates, and beings never before dreamed of by the humans who sail the skies.

Want more steampunk? Take a look at these additional titles available in the RPL Teen Scene.

Collection Highlight: YA Fantasy Written by Women

Fantasy is a genre of stories in which humans are not limited by the rules of the real world- and are often not even set in the real world!- and is characterized by fantastical elements. These could be superpowers, mythology, magic, or creatures like mermaids or dragons that do not exist in our world. Fantasy has historically been dominated by male authors whose novels are usually set in a pseudo medieval Europe. Times are changing however, and these women authors are bringing a breath of fresh air to an old genre, and offering representation to groups of people traditionally invisible in fantasy literature along the way!

The Young Elites by Marie Lu is the story of Adelina Amouteru, a survivor a plague that swept her country and took her mother’s life. Like all who survived the plague, she is marked and considered a malfetto, an abomination.  Adelina suddenly finds herself sentenced to death after accidently killing her father when the powers she did not know she had, gifted to her by the gods, go haywire. She is saved by a young man known as The Reaper and is introduced to a group called the Young Elites. Their mission is to fight back against Inquisition Axis who are dedicated to killing off people like Adelina and her new friends.

Serpentine by Cindy Pon is a novel steeped in rich Chinese mythology. Skybright was abandoned by her mother as a baby and taken in by a wealthy family to be raised as their youngest daughter’s handmaiden. As Skybright turns sixteen things begin to change within her, and one night she awakes to find a serpent coil where her legs used to be and the spirits of the dead at her doorstep asking for offerings. She tries to keep the life she lives at night a secret from her family, but the two worlds inevitably collide and Skybright finds herself right in the middle of the mess.