As you know, this year’s Teen Read Week theme is IT CAME FROM THE LIBRARY. This theme brings to mind all kinds of monsters and scary situations and one of the scariest monster situations I can think of is a zombie apocalypse. Just think, someone you have lived with all your life or gone to school with for years all of a sudden turns on you and attacks. All it takes is a bite or a scratch and you become infected. Scary stuff. ‘ Here is a list of some of my favorite (scary) zombie books just in case you haven’t found them yet.
THE INFECTS by Sean Beaudoin
Seventeen-year-old Nero is stuck in the wilderness with a bunch of other juvenile delinquents on an “Inward Trek.†As if that weren’t bad enough, his counselors have turned into flesh-eating maniacs overnight and are now chowing down on his fellow miscreants. As in any classic monster flick worth its salted popcorn, plentiful carnage sends survivors rabbiting into the woods while the mindless horde of “infects†shambles, moans, and drools behind. Of course, these kids have seen zombie movies. They generate “Zombie Rules†almost as quickly as cheeky remarks, but attitude alone can’t keep the biters back.
ASHES and SHADOWS by Ilsa Bick
An electromagnetic pulse flashes across the sky, destroying every electronic device, wiping out every computerized system, and killing billions.
Alex hiked into the woods to say good-bye to her dead parents and her personal demons. Now desperate to find out what happened after the pulse crushes her to the ground, Alex meets up with Tom—a young soldier—and Ellie, a girl whose grandfather was killed by the EMP.For this improvised family and the others who are spared, it’s now a question of who can be trusted and who is no longer human.
SOULLESS by Christopher Golden
Times Square, New York City. The first ever mass sÉance is broadcasting live on the’ Sunrise‘ morning show. If it works, the spirits of the departed on the other side will have a brief window—just a few minutes—to send a final message to their grieving loved ones. Clasping hands in an impenetrable grip, three mediums call to their spirit guides as the audience looks on in breathless anticipation. The mediums slump over, slackjawed—catatonic. And in cemeteries surrounding Manhattan, fragments of old corpses dig themselves out of the ground….
The spirits have returned. The dead are walking. They will seek out those who loved them in life, those they left behind…but they are savage and they are hungry. The horror spreads quickly, droves of the ravenous dead seeking out the living—shredding flesh from bone,’ feeding‘ . But a disparate group of unlikely heroes—two headstrong college rivals, a troubled gang member, a teenage pop star and her bodyguard—is making its way to the center of the nightmare, fighting to protect their loved ones, fighting for their lives, and fighting to end the madness.
The Enemy, The Fear, The Dead by Charlie Higson
They’ll chase you. They’ll rip you open. They’ll feed on you…When the sickness came, every parent, policeman, politician – every adult – fell ill. The lucky ones died. The others are crazed, confused and hungry. Only children under fourteen remain, and they’re fighting to survive. Now there are rumours of a safe place to hide. And so a gang of children begin their quest across London, where all through the city – down alleyways, in deserted houses, underground – the grown-ups lie in wait. But can they make it there – alive?
This is not a Test by Courtney Summers
It’s the end of the world. Six students have taken cover in Cortege High but shelter is little comfort when the dead outside won’t stop pounding on the doors. One bite is all it takes to kill a person and bring them back as a monstrous version of their former self. To Sloane Price, that doesn’t sound so bad. Six months ago,’ world collapsed and since then, she’s failed to find a reason to keep going. Now seems like the perfect time to give up. As Sloane eagerly waits for the barricades to fall, she’s forced to witness the apocalypse through the eyes of five people who actually to live. But as the days crawl by, the motivations for survival change in startling ways and soon the group’s fate is determined less and less by what’s happening outside and more and more by the unpredictable and violent bids for life. When everything is gone, what do you hold on to?
Rot & Ruin, Dust & Decay, and Flesh and Bone by Jonathan Mayberry
In the zombie-infested, post-apocalyptic America where Benny Imura lives, every teenager must find a job by the time they turn fifteen or get their rations cut in half. Benny doesn’t want to apprentice as a zombie hunter with his boring older brother Tom, but he has no choice. He expects a tedious job whacking zoms for cash, but what he gets is a vocation that will teach him what it means to be human.
This one needs to be added to the list, too. ‘ It isn’t a book about zombies, but it is just as scary. ‘ Even worse, because these “monsters” don’t die and rot off the bone. ‘ The people that terrorize the characters of this series are just normal people that start killing out of the blue. It makes it hard to trust anyone.
Dark Inside and Rage Within by Jayne Roberts
Since the beginning of mankind, civilizations have fallen: the Romans, the Greeks, the Aztecs…and now us. Huge earthquakes rock the world. Cities are destroyed. But something even more awful is happening: An ancient evil has been unleashed, and it’s turning everyday people into hunters, killers, and crazies. This is the world Mason, Aries, Clementine, and Michael are living in–or rather, trying to survive. Each is fleeing unspeakable horror, from murderous chaos to brutal natural disasters, and each is traveling the same road in a world gone mad. Amid the throes of the apocalypse and clinging to love and meaning wherever it can be found, these four teens are on a journey into the heart of darkness–and to find each other and a place of safety.
How would you stack up against a zombie horde? To help, here are a few resources on survival in case of a zombie apocalypse:
Karin Perry – Teen Read Week 2012 Committee Member
What a great zombie roundup! We recently got a few of these for our teen zone, but I don’t expect them to stay on the shelves for very long. Our teens love some zombie apocalypse action.