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The Kin by Peter Dickinson The Golden Goblet by Eloise Jarvis McGraw Park's Quest by Katherine Paterson The Moorchild by Eloise McGraw (I don't think it's the same Eloise McGraw) The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen by Lloyd Alexander A Girl Named Disaster by Nancy Farmer
Posts: 1658 | Registered: Sep 2003
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I think Jaiden's list pretty much sums up my young adult favorites, as well as some of GZs. I think To Kill a Mockingbird is a must, though that might seem a little advanced for junior high?
Where the Red Fern Grows and Tuck Everlasting are also great books for younger readers, or even to read aloud to an older classroom. (my 6th grade teacher read us Where the Red fern Grows out loud and though I had read it in 3rd grade, I just loved her reading it to us...silly.)
Yeah, but Jaiden's list is all up on my bookshelves. Posts: 6415 | Registered: Jul 2000
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Anything by Daniel Pinkwater would probably be good. His Young Adult Novel springs to mind. I loved Alan Mendelsohn: The Boy from Mars as well.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Anything by Louis Sachar. I do hope I spelled that right. There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom! and the Wayside School series; Holes has already been mentioned, and there are some others, I think.
I adore Lois Lowry--I especially like Number the Stars and The Giver.
I think Paulsen's pretty good--there's this one series about a boy in a wagon trail that gets lost and kidnapped by Indians. I can't remember what it's called--Mr. Something. My little brother really liked them.
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry is excellent, and Mildred Taylor has several sequels, prequels, and short stories about Cassie and her family. The Road to Memphis, I think one is called, but it's set much later (Cassie is seventeen or so). There are others between the two.
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Thanks for all the suggestions, though maybe I wasn't clear enough.
It seems most of you are targeting a 6th to 8th grade audience. This class targets teenagers, which means "more adult topics" are fine. A nineteen-year-old is still a teenager. A twelve-year-old is not. Louis Sachar just barely makes it (most of his stuff aims lower than the target). OSC, like I said in my first post, does not.
And I'm trying to steer away from sf/fantasy. I think there are probably enough good suggestions that I can get going strong on this, but I'm not really sure which of your suggestions fit the bill. I know (just because I've read the books) that some of them don't, which makes me nervous. I don't mean to be rude, but I really don't want to waste my time starting a whole bunch of books that won't work. Posts: 1903 | Registered: Sep 2003
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Of the ones I reccommended, House Like a Lotus best fits what you're looking for. It's not SF/F and it's got a teenage main character and themes.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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I think you're partly looking for books that are not so well-known? That they would likely not have read?
How about Lissa Hall Johnson's Just Like Ice Cream? (It seems to be out of print, though.) Or, to continue the food theme, Paul Zindel's My Darling, My Hamburger. Actually, most of Zindel's books are pretty good -- another one I'd particularly recommend is Pardon Me, You're Stepping on My Eyeball!
I read Johnny Tremain in high school, and loved it. I Never Promised You a Rose Garden is good too.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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this is tough. i didn't read a lot that was marketed for my age group. and i didn't read a lot that wasn't scifi or fantasy either.
I did read some horror novels:
Killing Mr. Griffin - Lois Duncan Scavenger Hunt Christopher Pike
I think Duncan, Pike, and R.L. Stine are the three I remember seeing a lot of in high school. At least as far as horror novelists.
I'm assuming Judy Blume is already on the list somewhere.
I think I saw that Tom Clancy had a series aimed at "young adult" readers.
Anything that Nicolas Sparks writes seems to be popular with that age group, but I don't know if that's who it's marketed to.
And I know you don't want sf&f, but I noticed that Gene Wolfe has a new book out called The Night that's part of a young adult series he's writing. (Darn, I just couldn't not list one!)
Posts: 3956 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:I second everything written down wholeheartly with one exception. I loved The Chosen, after I finished it I wasn't sure I would ever be able to read anything again, because I didn't think anything could come after Potok. However, judging from the age level that the books on your list are aimed toward, I think The Chosen is much too advanced. Certainly read it but I think a 12-15 year-old (the ages I presume your list is geared towards, though we read those books in school when we were 10-13) would be bored by it, rather than fall in love with it. I'm sure that would have been my reaction if I had read it at that age, and then I would have been deprived of Potok forever, because I never would have read anything by him again. /rant
Actually, I read The Chosen when I was 15, and I loved it. It was one of the books we read in my sophomore English class in high school.
It's interesting, everyone seems to complain that being forced to read something in school makes you hate it. I must be some kind of oddball, because I really enjoyed many of the books I read for English class.
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What else did we read in high school? Let's see...
A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens A Separate Peace, by John Knowles Lord of the Flies, by William Golden Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens The Stranger, by Albert Camus A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck Gulliver's Travels, by Jonathon Swift
These are likely too SF/F: Watership Down, by Richard Adams Alas, Babylon, by Pat Frank Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula K. Leguin Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clarke A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
Posts: 4534 | Registered: Jan 2003
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No no, I think 15, for an advanced student, would be fine, and I loved/ still love most of the stuff I read in school. But if Brinestone's list of required reading is aimed towards teenagers, then, as I said before, those are some of the youngest teenagers I know. Of the books on her list that I've heard of, they were all books that I or my friends read in fifth grade, while we were ten or eleven. And teenagers who are reading at that reading level are simply not capable of appreciated writing on the level of Potok's, IMHO.
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blacwolve, I appreciate your comment. I haven't read a single one of these books, and I've only heard of a handful, and know very little about them. I feel like I'm groping in the dark for books that my professor sees as "young adult," when I see the lines as much more . . . fuzzy than that. Or maybe just overlapping. I read kids books in college, adult books in elementary school. What makes a book "young adult?" His definition was "marketed towards and intended by the author for teenagers." I guess that works, but does it really tell us about what teenagers are reading and are enjoying reading? Hmmm . . .
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There's a series I haven't read, but heard was good... Books by Louise Rennison, starting with Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging. There's a whole series about the adventures of this girl, but that's the first one.
Posts: 4816 | Registered: Apr 2003
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You read Alas, Babylon in high school? Do you mean as required reading for school, or by your choice? I loved that book. I've purchased copies three different times (I keep giving mine away to friend I think should read it, and then have to buy new).
But I can't see a school ever requiring reading of that....
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It was one of the books we read for my freshman English class. Through all four years of high school we read books that weren't really traditional. For example, at one point we read Congo, by Michael Crichton. Anyway, I liked Alas, Babylon, but I was one of the only ones.
Oh, remembered a couple more good YA novels from high school:
Cheaper By The Dozen and Belles On Their Toes, by Frank B. Gilbreth and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey. The Human Comedy, by William Saroyan.
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Probably a little younger than you were looking for, but im 22 years old now and this is still one of my favorites. Posts: 2532 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Ooh and somebody said SOmething Wicked this way comes. INCREDIBLE book. absolutely breathtaking. Same with The Illustrated Man.
Posts: 2532 | Registered: Jul 2001
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the scholastic series books suddenly come to mind. Goosebumps might work. I read a lot of Animorphs when I was 12-14; the characters are definetely teenagers, but it's a bit on the sci-fi side. KA Applegate also wrote a series called Everworld that has high-school aged characters. I only read a few of those; they were pretty good, but they're fantasy.
You can also try John Peel (again, this is sf/f, so I might not be very helpful). He had this series called...umm...something. And a book about dragons, called...Dragon Something.
Posts: 4089 | Registered: Apr 2003
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My recommendations from the first post are probably too young – more that on the cusp of teenagerness. More at the 10 to 13-ish age at best (It’s been a really long time since I’ve read most of those, so my memory is pretty fuzzy.). Sorry.
The thing is, by the time you hit the teenage reader, and when I think about the things we read in school in high school and middle school – they were adult books. I remember reading some books with teenage characters -- Lord of the Flies, The Chosen, The Diary of Anne Frank, and A Separate Peace, but I don’t know that those were necessarily written with the teenage reader as the target audience. Of course, all those seem similar to The Outsiders to me (which is the only one on the professor’s list I’ve read), which I read in 7th grade. Seems like some of the definition is in the marketing, which is a hazy thing to nail down, especially on older works. And where would Robin McKinley fit, whose books often end up in the young adult section (and would be all over my recommendation list if you wanted SF/F), but who has been pretty clear she wasn’t targeting the younger audience particularly, its just where her publisher decided to put them.
Didn’t mean to go on and on like that, but your Prof is confusing. This assignment would have drove me crazy when I was in school.
I second the recommendations for Cheaper by the Dozen,Bells on Their Toes, and Johnny Tremain. Good reads, and more that older YA age group.
Posts: 14 | Registered: Jan 2004
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*idly wonders* How strict is the no sf&f guideline?
Because Diane Duane's Young Wizards books handle some RL issues remarkably well. The first volume is So You Want to Be a Wizard, but if I were suggesting just one book, I'd actually recommend book 5, The Wizard's Dilemma. Reading it without the first 4 is no problem (sufficient context is given without spoiling the earlier books), and it is an amazing read. Have tissues ready.
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I recommend against reading the Animorphs series. It's pretty derivative, like a sci-fi soap opera in book form. So many wasted hours, so much wasted money...
Posts: 4816 | Registered: Apr 2003
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IMHO, There are not that many non scifi/fantasy books out there that target young adults that are much good. Notable exceptions that I know of:
"The Dark Frigate" like was said, Caddie Woolawn and if you like it you might try Laura Ingals' books: "little house on the prarie" and whatnot. "out of the dust" is a really good one Robert Louis Stevenson's "Kidnapped" is not bad. "Sign of the Beaver" is pretty good. "Call it courage" is a really great one if they don't have to be to long. "Freckles" is really friggin good and I think it qualifies as a 'young adult book' Somewhat like Freckles is "Sir Gibbie" "Warrior Scarlet" I think its called or warrior's scarlet or the warrior scarlet or somesuch, IS A REALLY GOOD BOOK. Another thing you might try are Y.A. books on, say, Davy Crockett or Thomas Jefferson and other frontier and early Americans. You shouls also be able to find decent YA books on Marco Polo and Christopher Columbus. Also a great book(I think) that I haven't yet read is called "Maiden Voyage"
Posts: 1103 | Registered: Apr 2002
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The Scarlett Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston The Joy Luck Club Amy Tan Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare Most of the comedies by Shakespeare, namely The Merchant of Venice, As you Like it, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, and even Twelfth Night. Sense and Sensibility Jane Austen To Kill a Mockingbird The Princess Bride William Goldman (my 15 year old brother is reading this right now for a class and just loves it.) The Good Earth Pearl Buck The Screwtape Letters C.S. Lewis Awakenings Kate Chopin or O Pioneers! by Willa Cather. (These are both nice and short.) The Sea Wolf Jack London Gone With the Wind Margaret Mitchell
There are a gazillion more. There should be some Dickens in there too, maybe The Pickwick Papers to keep it light.
I think an older teenager can be expected to read a lot of good literature and understand it. WE were all expected to, right? Posts: 6415 | Registered: Jul 2000
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Oh, ugh. I hated Dickens. I should try him again, I might make it through the many many words he used (he got paid by the word, you know. ugh.) and actually enjoy him. Happily, I got a bunch of e-versions of Dickens for free (yay fictionwise!), so I won't be spending money for my experiment.
Okay: new recommendations now that I know the target audience is LATE teens...
Go Ask Alice by anonymous Fried Green Tomatoes by Fannie Farmer Absolutely American by David Lipsky Any short story collection by Mark Twain (the novels are over-used) Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut Red Badge of Courage by Erich vonRemarque (sp?) Where the Red Fern Grows by somebody famous The Yearling by that lady who wrote the yearling
Okay, I'm out of ideas for now Posts: 1545 | Registered: May 2002
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I’m working on establishing a library of sorts for my classroom…these are some recommendations given by my students – DISCLAIMER- I have only read those starred and I enjoyed them, but the rest come highly recommended by my high school students… Life of Pi by Yann Martel White Oleander- Janet Fitch *Catcher in the Rye- Salinger *House on Mango Street-Sandra Cisneros Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants- Ann Brashares *Are you there God? It’s me Margaret.- Judy Blume *Go Ask Alice- Anonymous Flowers in the Attic- VC Andrews The Perks of Being a Wallflower- Stephen Chbosky Tears of a Tiger-Sharon Mills Draper *Siddhartha – Hermann Hesse
Posts: 862 | Registered: Oct 2003
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quote: I recommend against reading the Animorphs series. It's pretty derivative, like a sci-fi soap opera in book form. So many wasted hours, so much wasted money...
I was absolutely addicted to Animorphs. Every month I'd pay five bucks for a book that I'd read in an hour and a half. Then all I had to look forward to was next month's book. *sigh*
Posts: 4089 | Registered: Apr 2003
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To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee A Separate Peace by John Knowles All Quiet on the Western Front by Remarque The Bread Givers The Sparrow (I haven't read this but a friend did, and liked it) The Color Purple by Alice Walker The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver The Firebrand and Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley Lord of the Rings by Tolkein Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean Auel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton (anything by him, really) Beauty by Robin McKinley (I think it's written for teens, but marketed towards younger readers) The Amelia Peabody Series by Elizabeth Peters Downriver by William Hobbs The Princess Bride by William Goldman
A lot of these books are written for adults. Unfortunately, most stuff written specifically for teenagers is junk. The problem is, stuff marketed towards teens will be about as intellectually stimulating as Seventeen Magazine. Most of my friends read stuff written for adults.
Posts: 274 | Registered: Apr 2002
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I thought of another one that I don't see on the previous list. The Pigman by Paul Zindel. This is a good one for the around the 8th or 9th grade especially.
Why not one of the easier translations of The Odyssey ?
Posts: 440 | Registered: Oct 2001
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I recently read Life of Pi. It is, indeed, an excellent book, and I think it would be highly appropriate for a high school aged audience.
Posts: 4534 | Registered: Jan 2003
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You know, I do book reviews in addition to movie reviews, albeit at a slightly slower rate. [/shameless plug]
Posts: 4534 | Registered: Jan 2003
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quote:The guy who wrote I Want to Go Home and all the books about that boy's school in Canada. MacKenzie Hall or something like that. Now my mind's gone completely blank.
Gordon Korman.
The Twinkie Squad, Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag, Son of Interflux, and No Coins Please are my favourites. Although any of the MacDonald Hall books are good as well.
Anything else I would have contributed has already been mentioned.
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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saxy, I know. I have this need for two or more trusted witnesses to vouch for something before I get it, though. Heck, I just barely broke down and got a Terry Prachett book this fall, and Tom's been touting him as an author for years.
Posts: 1753 | Registered: Aug 2002
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Thank you, thank you, thank you everyone! I have half a mind to write out a master list and share it with my class. I think everyone else is just as bewildered as I was. Hatrack is awesome.
Posts: 1903 | Registered: Sep 2003
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its tough because some 13 year olds are still reading relitivly low level books wile some are reading adult fiction so 13 14 15 is makes diverse classroom for teachers.
Posts: 18 | Registered: Dec 2003
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Saxon- thanks for the endorsement- I just bought the book tonight, along with some others for my class. Maybe I'll read it this weekend before it hits the bookshelf in my classroom.
Posts: 862 | Registered: Oct 2003
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I don't know if anyone mentioned it, but I would suggest Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick. I think it's for the same level readers that would read Holes and I think it's just as good.
Posts: 3852 | Registered: Feb 2002
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dkw, I just did a search on Amazon and that looks really good. I've seen the movie of Freak the Mighty and loved it, but it looks like the audience is a little young.
My current list:
Courttia Newland, The Scholar Bette Green, Morning is a Long Time Coming Gordon Korman, Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag and Son of Interflux Madeleine L'Engle, House like a Lotus Ann Brashares, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Chaim Potok, The Chosen Sarah Dessen, Dreamland Garth Nix, Sabriel Lois Lowry, A Summer to Die Paul Zindell, The Pigman and maybe My Darling, My Hamburger Libba Bray, A Great and Terrible Beauty and maybe Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
I'm really excited about reading a lot of these! Thanks for all the help. Library trip tomorrow. I have to write little summaries about each of the books I read for this class, so if anyone's curious about which books I loved and which were only so-so, I can pass along a copy.
Posts: 1903 | Registered: Sep 2003
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Forgot one other - Mark Haddon, "The curious incident of the dog in the night-time." I've recommended this on another thread, and can't recommend it too highly. Definitely "teenage fiction" in the sense that it's marketed for teenagers and has a teenage central character. But the level of psychological insight takes it well beyond your usual "teen fiction" - it's about, and from the point of view of, an autistic teenager. Beautifully written, and very good fun as well as being insightful... anyways, I'm rambling on now, but think about it...
Posts: 1550 | Registered: Jun 1999
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I usually took my teacher's advice on good books to read and threw it out the window.
Teacher: "Hey, you should read Watership Down!"
Me: "Right. Jurassic Park it is!"
Uh, anyway, read Maniac McGee by Jerry Spinelli. It's the good stuff.
EDIT: Okay, my initial confusion on the age group has been straightened out. Maniac McGee is still good stuff, but it's like defintely too kidsy and short to be a Real Novel.
Actually, that kind of taps me out. I was a geeky kid, so I read all the game geeky stuff everyone here read . . . just not, apparently, all the relevant and enlightening mainstream stuff everyone else here ALSO read.
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