50 Fun Facts About YA Book

Who wrote The Hunger Games trilogy?

The trilogy has sold more than 100 million copies and placed second only to Harry Potter in NPR's 2012 poll of the top 100 teen novels.

In The Hunger Games, how many districts must each send two children to the arena?

The Capitol frames the annual games as punishment for a past rebellion; the last child standing is named victor.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is set how many years before the first Hunger Games novel?

The book had a virtual launch because of the pandemic; the film adaptation followed in November 2023.

Veronica Roth's Divergent is set in a post-apocalyptic version of which city?

Roth wrote it while studying creative writing at Northwestern, just north of the city she was destroying on the page.

In Divergent, Beatrice Prior leaves her birth faction to join which one?

There she takes the name Tris and falls for her instructor, Four.

In Twilight, Bella Swan moves from Phoenix, Arizona, to which small town?

Edward Cullen is 103 years old but frozen at 17; the novel was translated into 37 languages within three years.

Twilight was the biggest-selling book of 2008. Which book beat it to the top spot in 2009?

The film of New Moon came out that November, which did the sequel's sales no harm.

The title of John Green's The Fault in Our Stars comes from a line in which Shakespeare play?

Cassius tells Brutus that the fault is not in their stars but in themselves; Green's title turns the line around.

The Fault in Our Stars is dedicated to Esther Earl, a friend of the author who died of what at 16?

The narrator Hazel has the same illness; Green was also drawing on his time as a student chaplain in a children's hospital.

Which John Green novel won the ALA's top teen prize in 2006 and topped its most-challenged list in 2015?

The narrator Miles 'Pudge' Halter collects famous last words and goes to boarding school in search of a 'Great Perhaps'.

Percy Jackson & the Olympians is a series by which author?

By January 2022 the books had sold more than 180 million copies; the first was published by Miramax Books before Hyperion took over.

S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders is set, though never explicitly stated, in which city?

Hinton was 15 when she started it and 18 when it was published in 1967.

Why did S. E. Hinton publish The Outsiders under her initials?

The initials stand for Susan Eloise; the greasers-versus-Socs story is told by Ponyboy Curtis.

In Lois Lowry's The Giver, what role is 12-year-old Jonas selected for?

The role means holding every memory of the time before 'Sameness'; the 1993 novel won the 1994 Newbery Medal.

In Speak, freshman Melinda Sordino is ostracised after doing what at a summer party?

Melinda cannot say why she called, and nearly stops speaking altogether; the 1999 novel was filmed in 2004 with Kristen Stewart.

Rainbow Rowell's Eleanor & Park is set in 1986-87 in which city?

The two 16-year-olds meet on a school bus and bond over comic books and mixtapes.

Leigh Bardugo's Six of Crows is set mainly in Ketterdam, a city loosely inspired by which real one?

The heist novel is part of the Grishaverse and was completed by Crooked Kingdom in 2016.

Bardugo's debut Shadow and Bone follows orphan Alina Starkov in Ravka, a land inspired by which country?

The trilogy continues with Siege and Storm and Ruin and Rising, and became a Netflix series in 2021.

Angie Thomas's The Hate U Give grew from a college short story reacting to which police shooting?

The 2017 novel spent 50 weeks at No. 1 on the New York Times young adult list and became one of the most-challenged books of the decade.

Who narrates The Hate U Give?

The 16-year-old shuttles between a poor neighbourhood and an elite private school, and code-switching between them is a central theme.

In Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why, how does Hannah Baker leave her thirteen reasons?

Seven double-sided tapes are mailed two weeks after her death; Clay Jensen is the ninth person to receive them.

In The Maze Runner, what is the illness devastating the world outside the maze called?

The organisation WICKED tests immune teenagers in search of a cure; the book spent 148 weeks on the New York Times list.

Ransom Riggs's Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children was built around what?

It was meant to be a picture book of photos Riggs collected until a Quirk Books editor suggested a narrative to string them together.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower follows Charlie's freshman year in a suburb of which city?

Chbosky spent five years on the 1999 novel and later wrote and directed the 2012 film himself.

Jenny Han was inspired to write To All the Boys I've Loved Before by which of her own teenage habits?

The 2014 novel was followed by P.S. I Still Love You and Always and Forever, Lara Jean, and a Netflix film in 2018.

Becky Albertalli's 2015 debut novel, whose title parodies 'homosexual agenda', was filmed in 2018 as what?

The novel's title parodies the phrase 'homosexual agenda'; it won the William C. Morris Award for a debut YA book.

Tomi Adeyemi's Children of Blood and Bone follows Zélie Adebola trying to restore magic to which kingdom?

Adeyemi drew on West African mythology and Yoruba culture, and wrote 45 drafts over 18 months.

Karen M. McManus's One of Us Is Lying tells its story from the viewpoints of how many student suspects?

The 2017 debut spent five years on the New York Times list and spawned One of Us Is Next and One of Us Is Back.

Marissa Meyer's Cinder, first of The Lunar Chronicles, retells which fairy tale in sci-fi form?

The later books, Scarlet, Cress and Winter, each take on another classic tale.

Marie Lu has said her dystopian novel Legend was inspired in part by which film?

The 2011 novel is followed by Prodigy, Champion and Rebel.

Sarah J. Maas's Throne of Glass follows Celaena Sardothien, who has what profession?

The eight-book series began in August 2012 and concluded in October 2018.

In Scott Westerfeld's Uglies, at what age does everyone undergo the surgery that turns them 'Pretty'?

Tally Youngblood rebels after her friends Shay and David show her the cost of the operation.

Eoin Colfer pitched Artemis Fowl as which action film 'with fairies'?

Twelve-year-old Artemis is modelled on Hans Gruber and Captain Holly Short on John McClane.

Which best-selling novelist brought the self-published Eragon to Knopf?

Paolini began the book at 15 after finishing home school and spent a year touring the U.S. to sell it himself.

In Louis Sachar's Holes, Stanley Yelnats is sent to which juvenile detention facility?

The name is a joke: the lake in the Texas desert dried up long ago. The book won both the National Book Award and the Newbery Medal.

Who narrates Markus Zusak's The Book Thief?

The 2005 novel, set in Nazi Germany, has been translated into 63 languages and sold 17 million copies.

The ALA's Printz prize for teen books is named after a school librarian from which city?

The award is administered by YALSA and sponsored by Booklist magazine, and can name up to four Honor Books a year.

Walter Dean Myers's Monster won which prize in 2000, its first year?

The novel follows Steve Harmon, a Black teenager on trial, mixing his diary with the film script he imagines of his case.

Gary Paulsen's Hatchet is a survival novel about a boy stranded where?

Brian Robeson's story continues in The River, Brian's Winter, Brian's Return and Brian's Hunt; the 1987 book was a Newbery Honor title.

Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War, published in 1974, is set where?

A secret student society called the Vigils turns the school against one boy who refuses to sell chocolates; the book ranked third on the ALA's most-challenged list for 2000-2009.

Go Ask Alice, the 1971 'anonymous' teen addict's diary, was later attributed to whom?

Sparks went on to produce several more 'real' diaries of troubled teens; the book has remained in print since 1971.

Which 1942 novel by Maureen Daly is considered one of the earliest works of young adult fiction?

The term 'young adult' itself was first recorded the same year, 1942, as librarians tried to bridge children's and adult books.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian was the most challenged US book over which decade?

The novel follows Junior, a 14-year-old cartoonist who leaves the Spokane reservation for an almost all-white school, and includes 65 comic illustrations.

E. Lockhart's We Were Liars centres on which wealthy family and their private island?

Cadence cannot remember what happened the summer she was fifteen, and the other three 'Liars' return two years later to help her.

Sabaa Tahir's An Ember in the Ashes is set in a fantasy world inspired by which ancient civilisation?

The story alternates between Laia, a spy for the rebels, and Elias, a reluctant soldier of the empire.

Tracy Deonn's Legendborn has been called a modern twist on which body of myth?

The 2020 debut won the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent.

Per a 2023 study, roughly what share of young adult book buyers were over 18?

Most of those adults were buying to read the books themselves, and about half were between 30 and 44.

Judy Blume's Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. follows a sixth-grader raised without what?

Margaret Simon's parents have an interfaith marriage; the 1970 novel has been challenged for its frank talk of puberty and religion.

Madeleine L'Engle's 1962 Newbery winner about Meg Murry opens which series?

The 1962 novel won the Newbery Medal and follows Meg Murry, Charles Wallace and Calvin O'Keefe across space and time to rescue the Murrys' father.

At which fictional Pennsylvania boarding school does The Catcher in the Rye begin?

Holden Caulfield has been expelled after failing every class except English; the 1951 novel still sells about a million copies a year.