Crime Fiction For Youth

Got a mystery-minded kid at home?  Here are some titles from our Children's and Young Adult collections that they might enjoy, if you are not ready for them to jump into adult mystery fiction just yet. If you want to test the waters with mysteries written for grownups, try Alan Bradley and Lisa Lutz.

All books in this list are from our Children's collection unless otherwise noted.


Al Capone Does My Homework by Gennifer Choldenko

The Art of Secrets by James Klise

Complicit by Stephanie Kuehn [YA]

Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library by Chris Grabenstein

From Norvelt to Nowhere by Jack Gantos [YA]

The Ghosts of Tupelo Landing by Sheila Turnage

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

The Mystery of Meerkat Hill: A Precious Ramotswe Mystery for Young Readers by Alexander McCall Smith

Picture Me Gone by Meg Rosoff [YA]

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart [YA]

She Is Not Invisible by Marcus Sedgwick   [YA] 

The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes [YA]

Spirit and Dust by Rosemary Clement-Moore [YA]

Burning Blue by by Paul Griffin [YA] 

The Edge of Nowhere by Elizabeth George [YA]  

Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City by Kirsten Miller 

The End of Everything by Megan Abbott [YA]

How to Fall by Jane Casey [YA]

       

Links

Top 10 Crime Fiction for Youth [Booklist]

Edgar Awards -  choose Juvenile or Young Adult as category

Mystery Books for Pre-Teens [Cozy Mystery List Blog]

Two Boys and a Body: Mystery Fiction for Teenage Boys [NoveList]

Borderlands in Fiction and Non-Fiction

In contemporary crime fiction, border noir typically finds its home along the demilitarized zone separating the U.S. and Mexico, the jumping-off point for illegal immigrants desperate to move north, as well as the conduit for the flow of drugs and guns across the border (guns moving south, drugs moving north). Novels set on our southern border—typically in El Paso and Juárez, or San Diego and Tijuana—have flourished in the last several decades, reflecting both our ongoing battles over immigration policy and our so-often catastrophic war on drugs. The novels listed below reflect those sociopolitical issues, to be sure, but their emotional core goes deeper than that, to border culture itself, wherever those borders may be, and to the timeless chaos of lives in transition or, worse, suspended in the perpetually deferred dream of transition.
~Bill Ott* 

Not too long ago, we took an abcreads field trip to the movies to watch Gael García Bernal in Who is Dayani Cristal?, a moving documentary which combines the forensic investigation of the body of an anonymous migrant found in Arizona with García Bernal's journey through Central America, retracing the man's steps along the migrant trail.  This, and the article in Booklist linked below, reminded us of our own proximity to the U.S.-Mexico border and inspired us to provide this list of items from the catalog.

Fiction

Angel Baby by Richard Lange

The Border Lords by T. Jefferson Parker

Choke Point by James C. Mitchell

Death of an Evangelista by Allana Martin

Desert Blood: the Juárez Murders by Alicia Gaspar de Alba

Dove Season: A Jimmy Veeder Fiasco by Johnny Shaw

La Mordida by Jim Sanderson

The Power of the Dog by Don Winslow

Redback by Kirk Russell

Rules of Wolfe: A Border Noir by James Carlos Blake

Taken by Robert Crais

Tijuana Straits by Kem Nunn

Triple Crossing by Sebastian Rotella

Wrecked by Tricia Fields

Border Songs by Jim Lynch   

The Border is Burning by Ito Romo

Sunland by Don Waters

Golondrina, Why Did You Leave Me? by Bárbara Renaud González


Non-Fiction

The Dangerous Divide: Peril and Promise on the US-Mexico Border by Peter Eichstaedt

The Distance Between Us: A Memoir by Reyna Grande

Left Behind: Life and Death Along the U.S. Border by Jonathan Hollingsworth

The American Wall: From the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico by Maurice Sherif

Lost Souls = Animas perdidas  [DVD]
         

Links

Hard-Boiled Gazetteer to Border Noir [Booklist]*

Bibliocraft: Crafts Based on Unusual Library Collections

Jessica Pigza, a rare book librarian and assistant curator of the New York Public Library's Rare Book Division, has written a book that serves as both a lovely introduction the library and a fun assortment of crafting ideas. Her book, Bibliocraft: A Modern Crafter's Guide to Using Library Resources to Jumpstart Creative Projects, begins with a guide to different kinds of library collections, finding the right library for you, planning your library visit, finding what you want at the library, digital libraries, and recommended library collections.  Pigza then touches on the different types of libraries (branch library, research library, special collections), library cards, fees, how to search the library catalog (both Library of Congress Classification and Dewey Decimal classification, which is what the ABC Library catalog uses), and more.

The craft projects inspired by the library include fabric pouches, decorated paper, cross-stitch wall panels, and votive holders.  Each project is listed in the category which inspired it - children's books, illuminated manuscripts - and each project lists its more specific inspiration - for instance, the Kittens Pockets Dress was inspired by Johanna Spyri's Heidi.

It's a beautiful book and we recommend it highly!  It also inspired us to search some unusual library collections and see if we could find craft projects that seemed to be a match for those collections.

Henry S. Hall Jr. American Alpine Club Library 
The Henry S. Hall Jr. American Alpine Club Library provides you with all the information you could ever want on mountain culture and climbing routes. Located in Golden, Colorado, we're able to help you find the information you're looking for even if you're across the globe.
~from their website
Project: Alpine Shrug


Whitby Museum and Library
The Museum, our library and archives are run by our parent organisation. This is The Whitby Literary and Philosophical Society. The Society was founded in 1823 by a group of leading Whitby citizens led by the Rev. George Young, the author of the classic nineteenth century "History of Whitby" (1819) and minister at the Presbyterian Church. The chief object of the Society was to setup and maintain a museum, specialising in fossils, since "Whitby is a chief town of a district abounding with petrifications and containing not a few Antiquities". Ever since Whitby Museum has been run for the people of Whitby by the people of Whitby.
~from their website
Whitby is also the backdrop for Bram Stoker's Dracula and the museum contains some suitably creepy relics such as the "Hand of Glory".
Project: Pocket Nosferatu from Creepy Cute Crochet: Zombies, Ninjas, Robots, and More! by Christen Haden


VATNASAFN / LIBRARY OF WATER
VATNASAFN / LIBRARY OF WATER is a long-term project conceived by Roni Horn for a former library in the coastal town of Stykkishólmur in Iceland. The building stands on a promontory overlooking the ocean and the town, and houses three related collections - of water, words and weather reports - which reflect Roni Horn’s intimate involvement with the singular geography, geology, climate and culture of Iceland.
~from their website
Project: Exploration Bottles


The Desert Libraries of Chinguetti
"As recently as the 1950s, Chinguetti was home to an impressive thirty family-owned libraries, but severe drought saw the town’s residents disappear, taking their books passed down from generations with them. Today there remains less than ten libraries in the old town, catering to scholars that occasionally visit the isolated town, but mostly to tourists who pass through to see the priceless texts and experience a traditional nomadic hospitality of the Mauritanian desert."
~from MessyNessyChic
Project: How To Make A Tunnel Book

When Books Inspire Art

Several months ago, I stumbled across a photographer, Margot Wood of The Real Fauxtographer, whose blog includes many photos (or as she calls them, fauxtos) that were inspired by young adult books. Because she allows sharing her photos, as long as she's given credit for them, I'm going to share my favorite images of hers.

Courtesy of Margot Wood

This image was inspired by Shatter Me, by Tahereh Mafi. I haven't actually read the book (I tried, but I just couldn't get into it), but I love this image.

Courtesy of Margot Wood

This image was inspired by Anna and the French Kiss, by Stephanie Perkins. It's one of my favorite books, and after showing this image to one of my colleagues, we agreed that it perfectly represents Anna's character.

Courtesy of Margot Wood

This image was inspired by The Forest of Hands and Teeth, by Carrie Ryan. The picture is a little creepy, as it should be, since the book is about zombies.

And finally, the very first photo I saw in Margot's YA series.

Courtesy of Margot Wood

This image was inspired by Shadow and Bone, by Leigh Bardugo.

What I love about Margot Wood's blog is that she doesn't just post pictures inspired by young adult books. She talks about the photos, too: what books inspired them and how, how she took the photograph, the costumes that are used, and more. It's fascinating to see how books can inspire other types of art.

How do books inspire you, artistically or otherwise?

Unusual Library Collections and Customs in History

Chained Library, Chelsea Old Church [Colin Smith]

From age to age, libraries grow and change, flourish and disappear, blossom and contract...
~Matthew Battles

There's a book in the library catalog called Library: An Unquiet History.  We've only skimmed it, but it tells the stories you might already know about libraries - the burning of Alexandria's papyrus scrolls in 48 B.C. (author Matthew Battles calls it a "biblioclasm"); that "[i]n the Middle Ages, access to books, even literacy itself, was parceled out on a strict 'need to know' basis"; that "...in the nineteenth century, the sheer proliferation of books in number and kind transformed the library from temple to market, from canon to cornucopia"; and the birth of the modern public library, with the help of folks like Andrew Carnegie.  What this most excellent volume does not mention (though, granted, we've only skimmed its 214 pages) is some of the more unusual, and now mostly archaic, traditions of libraries through the ages.  For example...

• Anthropodermic Bibliopegy: As was widely reported earlier this year, there are multiple libraries (at Harvard University, at Brown University, at the Boston Athenaeum, at the University of Georgia) that include in their collections books bound in human skin. A volume at Harvard, Des destinees de l'ame (Destinies of the Soul), contains a note by the binder which reads"'A book about the human soul deserved to have a human covering.'"* Anthropodermic bibliopegy, basically tanning human skin as one would tan leather, has been practiced since the 16th century, with a rise in popularity during the 19th century, when the skins of criminals who had been executed were given to bookbinders. The practice has also been used by doctors to honor a deceased patient or colleague. Philadelphia's Mutter Museum also features a collection of books bound in this manner by 19th century doctor Joseph Leidy, and a human-skin wallet owned by the same.
• Chained Libraries: During the Middle Ages, a popular practice was chaining books, especially large, valuable reference books, to the bookshelf to prevent theft.  The chains, generally fitted to the corner or cover of the book to avoid wear and tear, would be long enough to remove the book from the shelf and read, but not take the book from the library. There are still a few chained libraries which have survived in Europe, mostly in England. The film of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone featured chained books in the restricted section of the library at Hogwarts.
• Scholars' (or Reading) Cages: Marsh Library in Dublin, Ireland went a step further to secure their books - they actually locked borrowers in cages! These cages are actually three alcoves with wire doors, perhaps an early and less trusting version of the library carrels you see in the college libraries today. (Shields Library at UC Davis has something similar for the convenience of their graduate students, though students do find them "creepy".)
• Xylothek or Wooden Libraries: These libraries, relatives of Wunderkammern or cabinets of curiosities, reached the height of popularity in Germany in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Each "book" is made out of a particular type of wood, covered in bark, with moss and lichen from the tree used to decorate the cover.  Inside, "readers" generally find leaves, flowers, fruits, seedlings, root, cut branches, and seeds, along with a special compartment with a written description of the tree and its uses. Great for those studying forestry, botany, or related fields.

Do you know of any interesting library collections or customs from history that we've missed?  Let us know in the comments!

Links

Anthropodermic bibliopegy [Wikipedia]

"Harvard University book bound in human skin" [BBC]* 

"Anthropodermic Bindings or Books Bound in Human Skin" [Eden Workshops]

"The Bizarre Art of Binding Books in Human Skin" [Mental Floss]

"Harvard libraries contain three books bound in human skin" [Daily News]

"Reading in Restraint: The Last Chained Libraries" [Atlas Obscura] 

Chained library [Wikipedia]

Xylotheks: Wondrous Wooden Books That Hold Wooden Collections [Atlas Obscura]

The Wooden Library [Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences]

New and Novel: Crime Novels

Series versus stand-alone, hard-boiled versus cozy, historical versus contemporary, a carefully planned menu versus potluck? Picking the best crime novels of the year is no easy trick.
~Bill Ott* 


Looking for a few good books full of mystery and suspense?  Here are some of the best-reviewed (and Booklist recommended) reads of the past few months.  Covert operations! Daring escapes! Obsession! Treachery! Psychological character studies! Enigmatic strangers! These books explore all the malevolent forces at work in the world, and their aftermath.

The Cairo Affair by Olen Steinhauer

In the Morning I'll Be Gone by Adrian McKinty

Natchez Burning by Greg Iles

An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris

The Orphan Choir by Sophie Hannah

Shovel Ready by Adam Sternbergh

The Thicket by Joe R. Lansdale

The Ascendant by Drew Chapman

Decoded by Mai Jia 

Deliverance of Evil by Roberto Costantini

North of Boston by Elisabeth Elo

Precious Thing by Colette McBeth

The Word Exchange by Alena Graedon                

The Fever by Megan Abbott

The Director by David Ignatius

The Bone Seeker by M. J. McGrath

The Late Scholar by Jill Paton Walsh

One Kick by Chelsea Cain

The Son by Jo Nesbø


Links 

The Year's Best Crime Novels: 2014 [Booklist]*

Blame It On Phryne: Return to the Jazz Age

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

~F. Scott Fitzgerald

The fabulous Miss Phryne Fisher, Australia's divine and fearless 1920s detective, has her own TV series. Downton Abbey is moving into the Jazz Age.  Woody Allen made Midnight in Paris, then Magic in the Moonlight. Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby had everyone falling in love with this classic all over again. It's almost 2020, 100 years since the Jazz Age, and perhaps nostalgia has already kicked in, because there are currently a lot of Lost Generation items at the library that will have you wanting to bob your hair (women) and slouch around in your Oxford bags (men). If you want to feel a Roaring Twenties vibe, try kicking back with one of these likely titles!


Non-Fiction

Flappers: Six Women of a Dangerous Generation by Judith Mackrell

Paris Without End: The True Story of Hemingway's First Wife by Gioia Diliberto

American Cocktail: A "Colored Girl" in the World by Anita Reynolds with Howard M. Miller

Miss Anne in Harlem: The White Women of the Black Renaissance by Carla Kaplan

Careless People: Murder, Mayhem, and the Invention of the Great Gatsby by Sarah Churchwell

Fiction

Bittersweet by Colleen McCullough

Empire Girls by Suzanne Hayes

The Perfume Collector by Kathleen Tessaro

The Last Nude by Ellis Avery

The Sisters by Nancy Jensen

The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty 

 Links

"Here's What a Bestseller Looked Like in the 1920s" [HuffPost Books]

"The Roar of the Crowd" [The New York Times]

"Hats, pearls, and all that jazz woo style mavens" [Christian Science Monitor]