Honolulu Waldorf High School freshman Paul Businger enjoys volleyball, soccer and body boarding. Seventh-grader Beth Tsuha at Waiakea Intermediate on the Big Island likes swimming, ballet and karate. Jenzo Dy-Liacco, a sixth-grade student at Star of the Sea School, prefers piano, karate and games — "video games, card games, board games, field games, etc. etc." Typical of their generation, all three students are avid readers of fiction.

Fifteen-year-old Businger's favorite books include "Eragon" by Christopher Paolini, "Dune," the classic science-fiction novel by Frank Herbert, and the "Harry Potter" series.

"I like to imagine myself in books and think about how I would react to the situations that main characters find themselves in," Businger said.

Twelve-year-old Tsuha thinks reading is "fun, a good way to expand your mind and learn new words." Her favorite books are "Avalon," by Rachel Roberts, "Luna Bay," by Francess Lantz and the "Harry Potter" series.

When he's deep into a great piece of fiction, 12-year-old Dy-Liacco said, "I feel like I'm eating the book with my mind." Dy-Liacco likes "The Shadow Thieves," by Anne Ursu, "Septimus Heap: Flyte," by Angie Sage, and J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows."

According to a 2007 survey by the Children's Book Council, book sales in the category for teens, classified as young-adult fiction, are up more than 25 percent over the past few years. (Book publishers classify youth ages 12 to 18 as young adults.) The increase in sales is considered a genuine boom in the industry.

Young adult author Graham Salisbury, whose sales are approaching 1 million books, says his "Hawai'i at War" series ("Under the Blood-Red Sun," "House of the Red Fish," "Eyes of the Emperor") sells well, as does his "Blue Skin of the Sea," a non-war book.

"Sales are steadily rising. The sheer number of new writers being published is another clue that this is so," Salisbury said. "Publishers wouldn't keep putting books out there if the prospect of sales didn't support that effort. If a work is worthy, or fresh, it will sell."

Following the unprecedented success of "Harry Potter," most major publishing houses established or pumped up their young adult imprint. Stores created teen sections that are separate from books for younger children. And teen readers today are able to converse directly with their favorite authors about their books via the Internet.

Young adult author Terri Farley ("Seven Tears Into the Sea," "Phantom Stallion Series") said, "I hear from about 100 readers each day and though I answer every one myself, I'm usually about 600 e-mails behind."

Farley said she bases ideas about what readers like on e-mail correspondence and from the letters she receives from fans through her publisher.

Nowadays teens can find fiction on a staggering variety of topics, some of which were taboo not so long ago.

As a child, Salisbury said he read very little outside of school because there simply wasn't much available, unlike the "explosion we have today," and that reading was not encouraged in his childhood home. Now that he's the parent, things are different.

"My own kids all read like crazy and love it. In fact, I don't think any of them could even live without a book in hand," Salisbury said. "I know I sure couldn't."