Today's teens will be running the world soon. Here's why I'm not worried.

We had 150 people at a YA event a couple of weeks ago. Most of them were teenagers. Some of them had driven in from out-of-state. They waited patiently to meet the authors of these books (psssst: we still have some signed copies):

   

It was an evening about identity and lots of things that impact it, from sexuality to family to standards of beauty to fanfic.

This time of year, we keep a particularly close eye on big sellers to make sure their spots on the shelves are well-stocked. A lot of those titles at the moment are from the YA section. Among those we're checking hour-by-hour, largely because they've become popular enough for their own movies, are:



A trilogy about one way society could go very wrong, and one teen who puts everything on the line to fix it. (I notice that Mockingjay, which picks up right where the current movie leaves off, has been disappearing particularly quickly.)



A novel about the Holocaust from a unique perspective.



A novel about what makes a life valuable from the point of view of a teen with terminal cancer.


Another dystopian trilogy, which also examines how we form our identities.

Looking for a gift for a teen? We've got it. Looking for a gift for yourself? You might want to ask a teenager. They have pretty good taste.