If you like The Hunger Games...

If you're a fan of Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games, you might enjoy some of these dystopian reads as well:

	The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau The city of Ember was built as a last refuge for the human race. Two hundred years later, the great lamps that light the city are beginning to flicker. When Lina finds part of an ancient message, she's sure it holds a secret that will save the city. She and her friend Doon must decipher the message before the lights go out on Ember forever!
	The Giver by Lois Lowery Given his lifetime assignment at the Ceremony of Twelve, Jonas becomes the receiver of memories shared by only one other in his community and discovers the terrible truth about the society in which he lives.
	The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer In a future where humans despise clones, Matt enjoys special status as the young clone of El Patron, the 142-year-old leader of a corrupt drug empire nestled between Mexico and the United States.
	The Maze Runner by James Dashner Sixteen-year-old Thomas wakes up with no memory in the middle of a maze and realizes he must work with the community in which he finds himself if he is to escape.
	Uglies by Scott Westerfeld Just before their sixteenth birthdays, when they will will be transformed into beauties whose only job is to have a great time, Tally's best friend runs away and Tally must find her and turn her in, or never become pretty at all.

If you like The Help...

Often times when a film adaptation of a book is released, the popularity of that title increases at the library, and Kathryn Stockett's The Help is no exception. The book currently has a waiting list of more than 70 people. If you're on that waiting list and are looking for something similar in the meantime, here are five titles you might enjoy as well:

	Stand the Storm by Breena Clarke Sewing Annie Coats and her son Gabriel have managed to buy their freedom and operate a tailor’s shop and laundry, but they still struggle with their former owner. As they prepare for the imminent war, they assist escaped slaves seeking freedom.
	Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill Abducted from Africa as a child and enslaved in South Carolina, Aminata dreams of returning to her home. Sold and torn away from her husband, she winds up in Manhattan and helps pen the Book of Negros, a list of blacks rewarded for service to the king with a safe passage to Nova Scotia.
	The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd Fourteen-year-old Lily is on the run with motherly servant Rosaleen, fleeing both Lily's abusive father and the police who beat Rosaleen for defending her new right to vote. The two take refuge with three middle-aged black sisters who produce the well liked Black Madonna Honey and help Lily come to terms with her past.
	Cane River by Lalita Tademy A family saga following four generations of strong-willed women born into slavery near the Cane River in Louisiana. Slaves on a Creole plantation, Elizabeth and her daughter, Suzette win freedom after the Civil War, but their own children still struggle to gain financial independence and security.
	The King of Colored Town by Darryl Wimberley Cilla Handsom and Joe Billy King must endure the backlash of the integration of their segregated school with an all-white one run by an all-white board. Cilla falls for Joe Billy, who helps her with her gift with music, but Joe Billy sacrifices himself to protect her during an assault by the Klan.

Click here for more information on Kathryn Stockett's The Help.

William - Reference

If you liked Harry Potter

Like the magic and wonder of the Harry Potter series? Sad that it has come to an end? Here are five other series that might also spark your interest:

	Green Rider series by Kristen Britain In the first book, Green Rider, Karigan G'ladheon meets a dying horseman in the forest on her way home from school. At his request, she takes on a mission to deliver a life or death message to the king. With the help of the ghost of the dead messenger and pursued by supernatural beings, she becomes a member of the Green Riders, an equestrian messenger corps that uses magic. More about Green Rider
	Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow by Orsen Scott Card Like Harry Potter, Andrew Wiggen, or Ender, is a child with a special destiny. An illegal third child, he is discovered by members of the International Fleet after a fight with a school bully and taken to a space station to train for military command. In the parallel novel, Ender’s Shadow, Bean is an orphan genetically engineered for extreme intelligence. He becomes Ender's friend and lieutenant. More about Ender's Game
	His Dark Materials series by Phillip Pullman Lyra Belacqua and Will Parry, two twelve-year-olds with daemon animal companions, travel between worlds to rescue kidnapped children from evil experiments, release captive spirits, and recover powerful magical weapons. They are aided by a bevy of beasts and wondrous creatures, including armored bears, former nuns, angels, and a Texas aeronaut. More about the first book, The Golden Compass
	Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan In the first book, The Lightning Thief, twelve-year-old Percy learns that he is the son of a mortal woman and Poseidon, god of the sea, and is sent to a summer camp for demigods like himself. He joins his new friends on a quest to prevent a war between the gods. More about The Lightning Thief
	The Lost Journals of Ven Polypheme by Elizabeth Haydon Venn Polypheme was a hobbit-like, Nain explorer who traveled much of the known and unknown world where magic thrives. Recently discovered by archaeologists, a few fragments of his original journals are reproduced the books The Floating Island, The Thief Queen’s Daughter, and The Dragon’s Lair. More about the first book, The Floating Island

If You Liked To Kill a Mockingbird...

If you liked To Kill a Mockingbird--this year's Read Across Lawrence selection--you might also like these novels.

	The Bottoms by Joe R. Lansdale Lansdale’s widely praised homage to To Kill a Mockingbird is part bittersweet coming-of-age story and part white-knuckled murder mystery. From a distance of seventy years, Harry Crane looks back on his youth in Depression-era East Texas, spinning a tale of race, murder, and a small town sheriff trying to do the right thing. More about the book
	Clover by Dori Sanders Like Lee’s Scout, Sanders’ young narrator Clover Hill is simultaneously innocent and wise beyond her years. When her father dies tragically on his wedding day, Clover—ten years old and black—begins living with a white stepmother she barely knows. Set in South Carolina in the 1980s, Clover is a touching, heartfelt story of a child coming to terms with grief and change. More about the book
	Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns This exuberant, quirky, crowd-pleaser of a novel is set in Cold Sassy, Georgia in 1906. Burn's young narrator Will Tweedy tells the story of his grandfather’s scandalous second marriage to a much younger woman, and has plenty of adventures of his own. More about the book
	Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton First published in 1947, Cry, the Beloved Country put a human face of the injustices of apartheid, became an international bestseller, and was hailed by critics as an instant classic. The beauty of Paton’s novel--the story of a Zulu priest who travels to Johannesburg to find his missing family--hasn’t diminished with time. More about the book
	A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines In 1940s rural Louisiana, a young, uneducated black man is sentenced to death for a crime he didn’t commit. Wanting him to die with dignity, his godmother convinces a local black school teacher to educate him. Gaines’ award-winning novel tells the simple but rich and moving story of the lessons both men teach each other as their relationship deepens. More about the book
	Mudbound by Hillary Jordan In 1946, Laura McAllan reluctantly moves to the Mississippi Delta after her husband purchases a farm. Narrated by six distinctive voices, Mudbound is an emotional but expertly rendered portrait of a particular place and time, and a poignant reminder of the toll of blind racism. More about the book
	My Last Days as Roy Rogers by Pat Cunningham Devoto The summer of 1954 in Bainbridge, Alabama is a season of high adventure and, ultimately, sobering drama for ten-year-old tomboy Tab and her best friend Maudie. Warm, humorous, and entertaining, Devoto’s debut is a knowing but loving portrait of the 1950s south. More about the book
	The Queen of Palmyra by Minrose Gwin It is 1963 and Florence Forrest, the child of an abusive father and an alcoholic mother, spends most of her days shuttled back and forth between the home of her grandparents and the home of Zenie, their black housekeeper. The Queen of Palmyra is an atmospheric, spellbinding story the tragedies wrought by racism. More about the book
	Right as Rain by Bev Marshall Full of humor, but also heartbreak, Right as Rain spans two decades in the intertwined lives of three families--two black and one white--in Zebulon, Mississippi. With intimately and vividly drawn characters, Marshall takes on the complexities of race in the South before and during the civil rights movement. More about the book
	The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd In Kidd’s much loved novel about the remarkable bonds between women, Lily and Rosaleen are taken in by three eccentric, bee-keeping sisters, after escaping from an abusive father and racist local policemen in 1960s South Carolina. The Secret Life of Bees is a vivid, hopeful story of the power of love. More about the book
	Snow in August by Pete Hamill Micheal Devlin, twelve-years-old and an Irish Catholic altar boy, develops an unlikely relationship with an aging rabbi who, in exchange for lessons about baseball and English, teaches him Yiddish and tells him stories about his life in Prague. Snow in August is an endearing tale of growing up and accepting others, and astrong evocation of 1940s Brooklyn. More about the book
	The Year the Colored Sisters Came to Town by Jacqueline Guidry In rural Louisiana in 1957, the arrival of two black nuns to teach at an all-white Catholic elementary school sends shockwaves through the community. It also teaches Guidry’s wide-eyed and precocious ten-year-old narrator some painful, and sometimes complicated, lessons about the results of racism. More about the book
	Your Blues Ain't Like Mine by Bebe Moore Campbell A racially-motivated beating in rural pre-civil rights era Mississippi echoes through the generations in Campbell’s poignant, poetic saga of family and race. Your Blues Ain't Like Mine was compared favorably to the work of Harper Lee, Alice Walker, and Flannery O’Connor. More about the book

If You Liked Three Cups of Tea...

If you liked Three Cups of Tea, you might also enjoy one of these nonfiction stories of individuals on a mission to change the world in ways big and small.

	Stones Into Schools: Promoting Peace With Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan by Greg Mortenson Picking up where Three Cups of Tea leaves off, Mortenson tells of his ongoing initiatives to build schools for Afghan girls as a way of promoting peace and understanding. He recounts the aftermath of the 2005 earthquake in the region as well as his harrowing abduction by the Taliban. A satisfying and moving follow-up to Three Cups of Tea. More about the book
	The Faith Club: A Muslim, A Christian, A Jew -- Three Women Search for Understanding by Ranya Idliby, Suzanne Oliver, and Priscilla Warner Prompted by the 9/11 tragedy and questions about faith from her young children, a Muslim-American woman reaches out to two fellow mothers, one Christian and one Jewish, for help in writing a children’s book about the shared bonds of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. The women soon realize that they need an open and honest exploration of their faiths as much as their children and start what they call “The Faith Club”. This book inspired similar clubs and conversations all over the world. More about the book
	The Middle of Everywhere: The World's Refugees Come to Our Town by Mary Pipher The author of Reviving Ophelia examines the lives of refugees from some of the world’s most war-torn areas as they make their new homes in Lincoln, Nebraska. She focuses on the lives of immigrant teenagers and their families (she herself takes in several of Sudan’s “lost boys”) as they struggle to understand American life and as the Midwesterners work to understand their new neighbors. More about the book
	Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder This is the story of one man’s mission to change the world. Dr. Paul Farmer ventured from Harvard to Haiti and beyond in an effort to cure infectious disease and bring modern medicine to the farthest corners of the world. The major players in this inspirational story includes the Boston medical community, big pharmaceutical companies, and international governmental organizations. However, the heart of the story is Farmer, who makes great sacrifices to achieve his goals, and the people of the world’s poorest nations, who benefit from those sacrifices. More about the book
	There Is No Me Without You: One Woman's Odyssey to Rescue Africa's Children by Melissa Fay Greene A moving portrait of one woman’s stand against the AIDS crisis in Africa, this book tells the story of Haregewoin Teferra, an Ethiopian woman who lost her husband and daughter to AIDS and then opened her home to orphans of the disease. What started with a local priest delivering an abandoned child to her hut for care turns into a thriving orphanage that helps the children of the epidemic find new lives and adoptive parents all over the world. More about the book

If You Like Nicholas Sparks...

If you like Nicholas Sparks, you might enjoy these titles as well.

	The Last Promise by Richard Paul Evans Living in Italy with a distant husband and a sick child, Ellen finds romance with the mysterious new American in town. She soon finds herself forced to choose between the love of her child and the romantic love she has always yearned for and finally found. More about the book
	The Lighthouse Keeper by James Michael Pratt Orphaned after a car accident, young Peter O’Banyon is sent to live with his uncle, a lighthouse keeper on Nantucket. There he learns lessons about life, loss, and love that he will carry with him as he later marries his childhood sweetheart and goes off to fight in WWII. More about the book
	Candles on Bay Street by K.C. McKinnon Although he has never forgotten his childhood sweetheart, Sam Thibodeau enjoys a quiet, settled life in his Maine hometown with his wife and their veterinary practice. Sam’s emotions are thrown into turmoil when DeeDee, his old flame, returns to town with a young child and a big secret. More about the book
	On Mystic Lake by Kristin Hannah After her daughter leaves to study abroad and her husband tells her he wants a divorce, lonely and alone Annie Colwater returns home to her widowed father and her high school boyfriend who is facing tragedies that pale in comparison to her own. More about the book
	Remembering Blue by Connie May Fowler Leaving her abusive, alcoholic family behind, Mattie O’Rourke heads to the Florida Coast to start a new life. She finds love and passion with rugged fisherman Nicholas Blue, but the legend of an old Blue family curse casts a shadow over the young lovers. More about the book
	Icebergs by Rebecca Johns A WWII pilot survives a plane crash only to face greater struggles when he returns home to his young wife and the widow of his crewmate who perished in the crash. Subsequent generations of these two families will struggle with love, jealousy, reconciliation and revenge that all stem from that fateful accident. More about the book
	The Smoke Jumper by Nicholas Evans Connor and Ed share a dangerous profession — parachuting into forest fires — and a love for Julia, Ed’s girlfriend. The love triangle takes a fateful turn when a raging forest fire traps Julia, blinds Ed, and turns Connor into a hero. In the years that follow, the three must grapple with guilt, jealousy, loyalty, and unrequited love. More about the book

If You Liked The Kite Runner...

If you enjoyed The Kite Runner, you might also like one of these stories of individual struggles and triumphs in the midst of overpowering regimes and repressive cultures.

	The Swallows of Kabul by Yasmina Khadra This short, compelling novel follows the lives of two men, one a jailer and the other a shopkeeper, and their wives as they struggle to live under the Taliban’s oppressive regime. An act of brutal public violence sets off a chain of events that affect them all in unforeseen ways and intertwine their lives forever. More about the book
	Madras on Rainy Days by Samina Ali Layla, a young Indian woman who spent much of her life in America, returns to India for an arranged Islamic marriage . There, she tries to reconcile the freedom she has experienced with the traditions she is now expected to uphold, all the while trying to keep secrets hidden and appearances proper. More about the book
	The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay A powerful coming of age story set in apartheid-era South Africa, this novel is told by young Peekay, a white boy who must fight to find his place amidst black and white, Boer and English, and ultimately good and evil as he makes his way from farm life to boarding school to the boxing ring to adulthood. More about the book
	Sister of My Heart by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Two cousins are born on the same day into vastly different worlds of Indian society, one is the daughter of a wealthy upper-caste scion and the other the child of the family’s black sheep. Despite their differences, the two girls always feel a deep, inexplicable bond that is eventually shattered by a dark family secret that will set them on two very different paths. More about the book
	Sons of Heaven by Terrance Cheng Xiao-Di is a an intelligent and idealistic young man who, having been blacklisted by the Chinese government and shunned by his older brother, joins the growing student protest movement in Beijing. Inspired by the famous photo of a lone, unknown young man standing in front of an army tank during the Tiananmen Square uprising, this novel speculates on the people and events that led up to that iconic moment. More about the book

If You Liked Twilight...

Just in time for the theatrical release of New Moon, here are more vampire tales you might enjoy.

Books written for a young-adult audience:

	Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz The students at an exclusive New York City prep school are rich, powerful, and have a thirst for human blood. When 15-year-old Shuyler Van Alen starts to crave raw meat and have flashbacks to ancient times, she begins to grasp her family’s deadly secret. Sequels: Masquerade and Revelations. More about the book
	Vampire High by Douglas Rees The students at Cody Elliot’s new high school seem a little odd. They avoid sunlight, have superhuman strength, and make frequent trips to the blood bank. Cody thinks they might be vampires and is a little worried about fitting in. More about the book
	Vampire Kisses Series by Ellen Schreiber A new family has moved into the local abandoned mansion. Raven, a 16-year-old, vampire-obsessed goth girl, suspects that they might be vampires and soon finds herself falling for the new boy in town. First book in the series is Vampire Kisses. More about the book
	Tantalize by Cynthia Leitich Smith Orphaned 17-year-old Quince Morris is reopening her parent’s vampire-themed restaurant with the help of her uncle. Her plans start to hemorrhage when the chef is mauled to death, possibly by Quince’s boyfriend who happens to be a werewolf. More about the book
	Companions of the Night by Vivian Vande Velde Kerry Nowicki, a 16 year-old girl, encounters a vampire-lynching party during a late night trip the laundromat. When she helps the accused vampire escape, a complicated game of cat and mouse follows. More about the book
	Peeps: A Novel by Scott Westerfeld After moving to New York, 19-year-old Cal Thompson contracts a parasite that causes vampirism. Luckily for Cal, though he is a “peep”, he is partly immune. Cal is recruited to work for a shadowy organization that tracks down dangerous peeps and starts to believe that things are not what they seem. More about the book
	Bloodline by Kate Cary This novel uses diary excerpts from each main character to piece together the story of a World War I nurse who falls in love with a descendant of count Dracula. She travels to Romania to be married before understanding the disturbing truth about her future in-laws. Followed by the sequel Bloodline: Reckoning. More about the book

Books written for an adult audience:

	Southern Vampire Mysteries Series by Charlaine Harris Sookie Stackhouse is a cocktail waitress in rural Louisiana who tries to keep to herself for a good reason: She can read minds. Her life starts to get a little stranger, and a lot more violent, when she starts dating a vampire named Bill. First book in the series is Dead Until Dark. More about the book
	Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter Series by Laurell K. Hamilton Anita Blake, a detective who happens to be able to temporarily raise the dead, lives in a version of St. Louis where vampires, werewolves, and other fantastic creatures have been partially integrated into society. First in the series is Guilty Pleasures. More about the book
	Sunshine by Robin McKinley On one eventful night, the self-proclaimed “Cinnamon Roll Queen of Charlie's Coffeehouse” discovers her dormant magical powers after being chained to a good-hearted vampire named Constantine. Together, they’ll need to outrun and outwit the group of evil vampires that brought them together to begin with. More about the book
	Rachel Morgan Series by Kim Harrison Rachel Morgan is a witch from Cincinnati who is in the private investigator/bounty hunter business with a vampire and a four-inch-tall pixie as partners. Her problems, however, are all too human. First in the series is Dead Witch Walking. More about the book
	Black Dagger Brotherhood Series by J.R. Ward In this romance series, Beth, a twenty-five-year-old with dim career prospects, learns that she is half-vampire after she awakens one night to find a very large, very dangerous-looking man standing at her door. First in the series is Dark Lover. More about the book
	Dark-Hunter Series by Sherrilyn Kenyon This long-running and immensely popular romance series revolves around the Dark-Hunters--vampire-like creatures in and around New Orleans. Start with Night Pleasures, the story of an ancient warrior who falls for a human woman after nearly two thousand years alone. More about the book