This year on the Hub we are celebrating the Twelve Days of YA with a series of posts loosely based on the traditional Twelve Days of Christmas gifts. We have converted each gift into a related theme common to YA and paired it with a list of relevant titles. You may use the Twelve Days of YA tag to read all of the posts in the series.
Special thanks goes to Carli Spina, Faythe Arredondo, Sharon Rawlins, Geri Diorio, Becky O’Neil, Carla Land, Katie Yu, Laura Perenic, Jennifer Rummel, Libby Gorman, Carly Pansulla, and Allison Tran for their help creating the booklists and organizing this series.
On the first day of YA, my true love gave to me a partridge in a pear tree.
This is the first of many birds that appears in the original song, but the only theme on our list that has to do with the feathered fliers. We selected titles for this list that included bird imagery including those that have birds as part of the story, characters with bird wings, or just really amazing bird-centric artwork. We hope you enjoy the titles we picked and encourage you to share your favorite avian stories in the comments!
- Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs (2012 Teens’ Top Ten, 2012 Readers’ Choice List, 2012 Best Fiction for Young Adults)
- The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater (2013 Teens’ Top Ten, 2013 Top Ten Best Fiction for Young Adults)
- Hold Me Closer, Necromancer by Lish McBride (2011 Morris Award Finalist, 2011 Top Ten Best Fiction for Young Adults, 2014 Top Ten Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults)
- The Strange and Beautiful Sorrow of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton (2015 Morris Award Finalist)
- The Aviary by Kathleen O’Dell
- Like Water on Stone by Dana Walrath (2015 Best Fiction for Young Adults Nominee)
– Jessica Lind, currently reading The Beginning of Everything by Robyn Schneider