Beautiful. Inside Out and Back Again intrigued me before I opened the cover because I knew it was written in verse. I tend to admire pithy writing; a novel in verse promised efficient use of words. It delivered, and it also delivered the compelling story of a compelling hero that remains as relevant today as in 1975. Ten-year-old Ha journeys from familiar childhood to refugee in a strange land (Alabama) in the year of the cat, the year Saigon fell.

Ms. Thanhha Lai, whose story is largely autobiographical, packs more power in a single stanza than most accomplished authors can pour into a page. Beautiful.

Mr. Bacigalupi’s description of a future Gulf Coast region ravaged by a once oil-addicted society provides the base for the compelling story centered on Nailer, a teenage boy on the “have not” side of an abysmal economic divide. Nailer scrapes a living together as part of a crew that scavenges copper wire and other scrap within the rusting husks of ships from the oil-hungry past. It’s deadly work for little pay, but Nailer worries about this livelihood disappearing as soon as he grows too big to navigate the narrow ducts and passageways where he finds “scavenge”. Yet even in this wasteland, friendship and trust, and some good luck, make way for hope.

Ship Breaker presents several challenging and, I would say, timely themes in a way that may be provocative, but is not pedantic.

Bud (not Buddy), at age ten, is already well aware of life's lack of fairness. His mother has died, and he suffers one horrible experience after another in foster homes in Great Depression-era Flint, Michigan. After having a pencil shoved up his nose and spending a sleepless night locked in a shed, Bud decides it's time to try to escape this abusive cycle, but where to? He believes his mother meant to tell him who his father is before she died, but she waited too long. All he has are a few clues that he knows will lead to his father, or at least he hopes they will. So Bud sets out on a journey to the other side of the state and meets some interesting characters, and situations, along the way. He faces his adventure with honesty (even though he's a master liar), courage, and wit. An engaging story for fifth-graders on up.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet does not demonstrate brilliant writing style, and one can find in it a few anachronisms. Nevertheless, this debut novel has me looking forward to more from Mr. Ford. I think he will only get better, because he already knows how to craft a satisfying (if slightly saccharine) story.

The friendship between Henry and Keiko, adolescents in WWII-era Seattle, blossoms against a backdrop colored by fear, prejudice, and an inability by many to try to understand each other. Their ordinary coming-of-age struggles are made extraordinary by circumstances that are still relevant 40 years later. But along with the bitterness is plenty of sweetness (and some good music, good friends, courage, resilience, and wisdom).

I think this is a good title for teen readers, too, offering a glimpse of what the Japanese internment camps really meant, from the perspective of those directly impacted by them.

In Spud, we read the diary of 13-year-old John Milton, a.k.a. “Spud,” as he navigates his first year at a boarding school in South Africa. His entries describe being (justifiably) mortified by his parents, terrorized by sadistic older students, confused by girls, and embarrassed about being a “spud”—meaning his “balls haven’t dropped” and he sings like a girl [albeit beautifully].

The reader follows Spud and his first-year roommates (The Crazy 8) as they experience pranks, peer-pressure, and some slapstick moments. But along with the fart jokes, they face issues of depth, including alcoholism, mental illness, hazing, child exploitation, and death. Author John van de Ruit also acknowledges but avoids scratching beyond the surface of the topic of apartheid, setting the story in 1990 (the year Nelson Mandela is released from prison), but focusing on concerns more immediate to Spud.

Some things in the book disturbed me enough to be glad I don't have an adolescent son confronting even remotely similar challenges. These disturbing-to-me things are probably many of the same things that would appeal to an adolescent son if I did have one.