Young reader and teen donation recommendations?

During the holidays, the bookstore where I work collects donations of new books for the state's foster children. I'm trying to decide what to donate this year. The youngest children are usually fairly well taken care of, so I concentrate on middle school age and older.

I usually donate 7-10 books, depending on what I can afford. In the past I have donated books by Harper Lee, Anne McCaffrey, Gary Paulsen, Charlie Higson, Anthony Horwitz, Sarah Dessen, Scott Westerfeld, and Stephenie Meyer. I am not opposed to donating these authors again.

Can you recommend titles children of those ages would love to receive? What about good books to teach young people how to take care of themselves and their finances?

Thanks in advance, Renee

If some of the foster kids in your area are African-American you can include some books such as The House of Dies Drear by Virginia Hamilton, The Righteous Revenge of Artemis Bonner by Walter Dean Myers and The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. I used to have a good personal finance books for kids called Making Cents.

Thanks for these suggestions. I think I'm going to add the Hamilton & the Snyder to the pile this year. (Snyder also wrote The Velvet Room, one of my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE books as a child, unfortunately not readily available right now.)

The Myers I'll note for next year, since none of the local bookstores stock it right now and it sounds awesome -- I love historical fiction.

_Making Cents_ I'll probably skip, though. It looks like it's grades K-2, and the request the local children's service agency had was books to help the kids aging out of the system find their feet in the adult world.

BTW, I'm also donating another Snyder book I saw at work today. The Bronze Pen is about a little girl who gets a magical pen: the stories she writes with the pen come true. I'm going to give it along with a journal and a pen, three gifts in one. The agency apparently tries to match the books with the kids to some extent, so I'm hoping there's a little girl who likes to tell stories and dreams of writing them.

Thanks much for the suggestions.

If anyone else is listening and feels inclined to join in, your recommendations would be useful for about another ten days. After that, I'll have made my purchases for the year.

Merci encore. Mange tak. Mille grazie. Muchas gracias.