YA Political Novels ------------------- compiled by Ilene Lefkowitz (ILefkowitz@aol.com), Mount Olive Public Library, New Jersey posted to YALSA-BK and PUBYAC, September 2000 Archer, Jeffrey. Shall We Tell the President? Someone is out to kill the president in this exciting adventure story. (Adult Fic) Avi. Nothing But the Truth. When a ninth grader is suspended for humming the national anthem in homeroom he sets off a national debate. (YAFIC), (YAPAP) Buss, Fran Leeper. Journey of the Sparrows. Food and jobs are scare for Maria as she avoids immigration and tries to make a new life in the United States. (YAFIC) Cage, Elizabeth. Spy Girls: License to Thrill. Three young women are recruited by the Tower, a part of the CIA, to find a document in the US Embasy in London that lists the location of leftover Soviet nuclear warheads. (YAPAP) Cormier, Robert. After the First Death. Events of the hijacking of a bus of children by terrorists seeking the return of their homeland are described from the perspectives of a hostage, a terrorist, an Army general involved in the rescue operation, and his son, chosen as the go-between. (YAFIC) Laird, Elizabeth. Kiss the Dust. Tara and her middle class Kurdish family must flee their home in Iraq when her father's involvement with the resistance movement becoems too dangerous. (YAPAP) Lynch, Chris. Poltical Timber. Mayor Foley, now in prison on several counts of racketeering, coaches his eighteen-year-old grandson to win the mayoral election and become his successor. (YAFIC) Martini, Steve. Critical Mass. Joceylyn Cole, an attorney living on a remote island in Puget Sound, is taken prisioner by an arms smuggling militia group that her client is involved with and which is assembling a nuclear device to destroy Washington DC. (Adult Fic) McCants, William. Much Ado About Prom Night. Becca's ordeals form the basis for this sly novel joining the angst of high school with points about love, sex, politics and peer pressure. (YAFIC) Mead, Alice. Adem's Cross. Adem and his family are Albanians living in war torn Kosovo under Serbian oppression. (YAPAP) Meltzer, Brad. The Tenth Justice. Ben, a clerk for a Supreme Court Justice, is being blackmailed and he thinks one of his friends I supplying information to the blackmailer in this thriller. (Adult Fic) Perrotta, Tom. Election. (YAPAP) Robert, Les. Lake Effect. Private eye Milan Jacovich returns a favor for a mobster and helps run Barbara Corn's mayoral campaign. When the competing candidate's wife is murdered, Jacovich investigates. (Adult Mys) Slaughter, Charles. The Dirty War. Arte, 14, is living in Buenos Aires, Argentina. When his father is taken prisoner by the government, his grandmother stages public protests. (YA Fic) Temple, Frances. Grab Hands and Run. Jacinto opposes the oppressive government of El Salvador. When he disappears, his wife, Paloma, and their twelve-year-old son Felipe and his sister try to escape to freedom in Canada. (YAPAP) Jumper by Steven Gould Wittlinger, Ellen. What's in a Name? Told by ten different teen narrators, the story revolves around a campaign to get the name of the town changed. Though it's the adults that are voting, the high school teens are deeply affected by the local politicing.