This gothic horror tale about a pod of man-eating anthropophagi discovered in a 19th-century New England cemetery will keep you up at night. One, because it's so creepy and two, because it's so good. Recommended for older kids due to graphic details on killings, but targeted for the YA crowd and one well-written book (for adults too!).

Once the games start (along about p. 80) where teens representing various districts in a futuristic America must hunt each other down, Survivor-like, boys take notice. (If reluctant readers need to skip the build-up, so be it....)

Set in the future when violence is banned in the former USA, this fantasy is a football book in the rough. That is, the protagonist gets sent to a Canadian prison where the warden fields a rather violent football team (football is banned, too, you see). This book has spread like a rash in my room, lateraled from one enthusiastic boy to another.

The Percy Jackson and the Olympian series is plot, plot, plot. It also has the allure of characters from Greek mythology cast in modern times. Riordan mixes the super abilities of these gods and monsters with an irrepressible protagonist to keep most reluctant readers spellbound. Most boys read the entire series quickly and easily.

RUNNER features a teenager who lives on a boat with his unemployed dad, a Vietnam vet. Chance takes a chance when a stranger at the marina says he's noticed that Chance runs every day and wonders if Chance might make "deliveries" of thoroughly wrapped "packages" once a day. As he's offered good money, Chance accepts. But what's in the packages, and why are people beginning to follow him?

This basketball book also has a political issue in play. The young protagonist plays hoop on his high school team, only the coach insists on prayer before each game. When the boy gets civil libertarians involved, our hero becomes a (young) man without a country (OK, team) as the other players turn on him and support the coach. Great basketball scenes with a civic debate for good measure.

Dean Hughes takes two looks at WWII by alternating chapters from a German teen soldier's POV and an American teen soldier's POV. The author does not romanticize war in the least as both boys learn some hard lessons. Will both (or neither) come out of these relentless battles alive? Young fans of the war genre have given this high marks.

Boys like this "road novel" about a 14-year-old who takes his neglectful parents' car cross country and meets some unlikely characters along the way. It's the escapist allure and the mechanical angle, I think.