I was recently in Chicago for the American Library Association's Annual Conference and while there, I sat in on a meeting of the Best Books for Young Adults Committee. As the committee voted on possible titles to put on the 2010 BBYA list, I made notes of the books I was unfamiliar with. When I returned to my library I found we owned most of them so I checked several out and have started reading them.

The first one- sure to make the list as everyone on the committee voted for it- is If I Stay by Gayle Forman. Mia is 17 when she is forced to make a very difficult decision- and she thought having to decide to leave her boyfriend, Adam, to sty the cello at Julliard was going to be hard- when her family is killed in a terrible car accident. Mia must chose between following her family, or "what if I stay?"

A few of the other titles I checked out which are bound for the BBYA list are:

Broken Soup by Jenny Valentine

The Comet's Curse by Dom Testa

Marcelo in the Real World by Fransisco Stork

Creature of the Night by Kate Thompson

Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial America by Sally Walker (nonfiction)

If you read any of these please share your thoughts with me.