Back to School: YA Reads for Every Subject

Parents rejoice! Kids are headed back to school everywhere in Canada next week. To soften the blow for your young bookworm, here are six YA titles that span Arithmetic to Zoology (but curiously leave out Arithmetic and Zoology).Also, follow our All Lit Up Facebook page by next week to take part in a surprise YA contest!A musical that blends ancient parables, martial arts, and the gruelling history of the Chinese immigrants who built the Canadian Pacific Railway, The Forbidden Phoenix is a children’s play that resonates with everyone.Sixteen year-old Ash is disenchanted with her small, Prairie hometown; that is, until she discovers a secret library on the fringes of town, with its equally secret inhabitant.Told entirely in freeverse, Fishtailing details the lives of four troubled teens through glimpses in the poetry they write in English class. Fishtailing won the 2010 Governor General’s Award for Children’s Literature.After Bertrand Smith’s father creates a highly intelligent super-breed of dogs, they’re “dognapped” by a worldwide arms dealer threatening to use them for ill. Can Bertrand save the world – and the dogs – in time?The Birchy Maid is no ordinary fairy tale heroine: instead of swooning into her merchant prince’s arms, she hands him a list of rather unusual marriage stipulations.This novel reframes the adventures of Homer’s Odyssey through the eyes of Alexi: a fifteen-year-old slave captured into servitude by Odysseus.