Favorite Childhood Book - Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke
As I child, I read books all the time.  I especially loved the fantasy genre, and I recall many stories about magic and dragons that I thoroughly enjoyed from beginning to end.  However, this story stands out the most to me.  The story begins in a valley in England inhabited by a group of dragons, who are becoming endangered due to humans destroying the environment.  One young dragon named Firedrake sets off on a quest to find the dragons' ancient home, a ridge of mountains in the Himalayas called the Ring of Heaven.  He is accompanied by his friend Sorrel the brownie and meets a human boy named Ben along the way.  This story is full of charming characters, all sorts of magical creatures, fantastic adventure, and suspense.  Funke takes familiar fantasy creatures from myths and legends and adds her own twist to them, creating a satisfyingly original and humorous product.  This book is very difficult to put down, and even though it is targeted at children around 5th grade, if I were to read it now I think I would still enjoy it just as much.  Dragon Rider is truly a literary success.


Favorite Book I've Read in School - The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby is a required read for many high school students across the country, and with good reason.  This book is deep and meaningful but is also a very entertaining read, which I have found is rare for books that we read in school.  Gatsby is a sad story that focuses on the magnificently wealthy Jay Gatsby and his persistent love for Daisy Buchanan, his lover before he went to war, who is now married to another man.  The story is told from the point of view of Nick Carraway, a disillusioned bond salesman and cousin of Daisy who becomes Gatsby's best friend.  This book at its core is a very pessimistic analysis of the 1920s, criticizing the era for its superficiality and pursuit of cheap entertainment and immediate gratification.  Most of the characters are shallow and seek immediate pleasure, disregarding the consequences or how their actions may hurt other people.  The only character who doesn't act in this manner is Gatsby, which is why Nick admires him so much even though he is naive and sometimes even fake.  Fitzgerald is an outrageously talented writer, seamlessly connecting vividly descriptive paragraphs with sections of dialogue and plot development.  His writing is exquisitely detailed yet easy to understand, and his usage of literary techniques such as metaphors add richness and color to the story.  Although this book ends sadly, it leaves the reader feeling hopeful and uplifted, and stimulates reflection and thought.  This is possibly the greatest book ever written.

Best Coming of Age Story - The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
This book is remarkably unique and is probably the best young adult novel I have read.  The main character, Charlie, writes letters to an unknown friend as a means of dealing with the problems he faces in high school.  He is taken under the wings of two friendly seniors, Patrick and Sam, and becomes part of their friend group.  Charlie is easy to relate to, especially for teenagers, because he is starting a new school and faces many of the problems that high school freshmen face.  His greatest obstacle is that he is a "wallflower" who stands back and watches life go by instead of participating in it.  The secondary characters are also well developed and have sad stories of their own.  Sam dates boys who don't treat her well because she doesn't value herself, and Patrick experiences a very difficult breakup with his boyfriend, a closeted football player who is abused by his dad for being gay.  Charlie's innocence is enchanting, and he remains optimistic about life despite all of his issues.  As the book progresses, the reader discovers just how troubled his life is, and a tragic secret is revealed about his past.  Despite all of this, the ending is uplifting.  Everybody who reads this book will connect to it in some way or another.

Book I Recommend to Friends - Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira
This is a fairly new book, so not many people are familiar with it, and this is why I recommend it to my friends.  This book is similar to The Perks of Being a Wallflower in many ways.  For example, the story is told through letters that the main character, Laurel, writes to famous dead people who have influenced her life in some way.  Laurel, like Charlie, is a high school freshman with a tragic past.  Her older sister, May, died six months prior to the events of the book, and Laurel blames herself for her death.  We later discover that there are even more dark secrets that Laurel is withholding from her friends and family.  Laurel struggles to fit in at her new high school, but makes friends with two other freshmen named Natalie and Hannah.  She also falls in love with a mysterious junior named Sky.  Laurel's main issue is that she believes that her sister was perfect, and wishes that she could be exactly like her because she believes that she is worthless.  Instead of developing her own identity, she tries to act and dress just like May.  This makes it difficult at times for her to communicate with her friends and fractured family.  Aside from the main storyline following Laurel's growth throughout the book, there are sad stories involving the other characters, such as the forbidden romance between Natalie and Hannah.  This book is very sad, yet ultimately satisfying, and inspires hope in the reader.  Much like Perks, this is a book that everybody can relate to.

Most Original Book - Unwind by Neal Shusterman
Unwind is an excellent young adult novel with many sci-fi elements.  I consider it one of the most original books I have ever read because Shusterman was inspired by real-life stories and combined them with elements from his own mind to create a brilliant and well-developed basis for this story.  The elements from real life that inspired this book are the controversy of pro-life vs. pro-choice, the abandoning of children and teenagers by their parents, and a secret and illegal medical experiment that involved cutting body parts off of infants for research.  Shusterman combined all of these concepts to create the idea of unwinding.  This book takes place in the future, after the fictional Heartland War which was fought over whether abortion should be legal.  In the end, a compromise was made: unborn children could not be aborted, but unwanted teenagers above the age of 13 could be unwound.  This means that all of their body parts are taken apart and medically implanted into or grafted onto people who need to organs or body parts.  All of the teen's body parts are still living, so technically they are still alive.  This story is about 3 teens chosen to be unwound who escape, named Connor, Risa, and Lev.  Their stories are all different, but they all want to avoid being unwound, and travel across the country with help from adults along the way until they reach a safe haven for unwinds called the Graveyard.  This book is very entertaining to read, and is remarkable in how well-developed the concept of unwinding is.  This is definitely a good read for teens who enjoy sci-fi and adventure stories.

Best Characters - Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling
Obviously, the Harry Potter series has been extremely successful, and J. K. Rowling is an extremely talented writer.  These books are effective for many reasons, and one of them is that it has brilliantly well developed characters.  Between professors, students, villains, and Muggles, there are many characters introduced across these seven books, and in most cases, this would confuse the reader.  However, readers are able to easily distinguish Harry Potter characters in their minds because they are so distinct and memorable.  There is a wide variety of personalities, from the arrogant and conniving Draco Malfoy, to the humorous and mischievous Fred and George Weasley, to the level-headed and wise Albus Dumbledore.  All of these characters are multi-dimensional, leaving the reader to interpret them in various different ways.  For example, there is much disagreement over whether Severus Snape is a "good" or "evil" character, because his story is so complicated.  Rowling is able to stir up strong feelings in the reader towards different characters.  The reader is led to love heroic characters like Dumbledore, Neville, and Luna.  Likewise, almost all readers agree in their strong hatred for cowardly or villainous characters such as Gilderoy Lockhart, Peter Pettigrew and especially Dolores Umbridge.  All of these characters tie together to create a rich, deep, and delightfully entertaining story filled with magic, adventures, and mystery.

Overall Favorite Book - The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
I've read many great books over the course of my life, but The Hunger Games stands out as the best for many reasons.  One of its greatest strengths is its incredibly gripping narrative.  The story is packed with action, and the reader constantly fears for the safety of the protagonist, Katniss, and her companions.  This story is also based on an incredibly original and well developed idea.  The story takes place in a dystopian North America, which is split into 12 districts which are governed by the oppressive Capitol.  In order to pit the districts against each other and prevent revolution, the Capitol selects two teenage tributes from each district to compete in the annual Hunger Games, a battle to the death set in an isolated location which is full of dangers.  The winning district will receive gifts of food and other important resources for the rest of the year.  When Katniss is forced to compete in the games, she must fight for survival.  This book is not only an extremely exciting read, but causes the reader to ponder the morality of killing someone to save your own life, and how Katniss's real enemies are not the teens she faces in the arena, but the Capitol that set up the Games in the first place.  Even people who don't normally like to read will probably love this book.