Young Adult Fiction! discussion
The Library-(book suggestions)
>
Any new YA recomendations?

Airborn by Kenneth Oppel
Midnighters #1: The Secret Hour by Scott Westerfeld
I also suggest Stardust by Neil Gaiman
Maximum Ride Series (fantasy) by James Patterson and the Alex Rider Series (Realistic Science Fiction) by Anthony Horowitz are both good adventurous escapes.
An Abundance of Katherines by John Green is hilarious! He is very popular right now after his Looking ofr Alaska won the Printz Award (much heavier than Katherines).
Beka Cooper: Terrier is Tamora Pierce's latest and a lot of critics are saying her best. I haven't read it yet, but she is the queen of YA fantasy and can do no wrong in my opinion.
Sharon Draper's Copper Sun (Historical Fiction) is intense--I couldn't put it down and feel smarter for having read it.
It is not as recent as the others, but for Chick Lit I would recommend Estrella's Quincinera by Malin Alegria. And of course, anything by Meg Cabot--she is awesome!
An Abundance of Katherines by John Green is hilarious! He is very popular right now after his Looking ofr Alaska won the Printz Award (much heavier than Katherines).
Beka Cooper: Terrier is Tamora Pierce's latest and a lot of critics are saying her best. I haven't read it yet, but she is the queen of YA fantasy and can do no wrong in my opinion.
Sharon Draper's Copper Sun (Historical Fiction) is intense--I couldn't put it down and feel smarter for having read it.
It is not as recent as the others, but for Chick Lit I would recommend Estrella's Quincinera by Malin Alegria. And of course, anything by Meg Cabot--she is awesome!


I tried the Twilight, and I just can't get into it lol
The Maximum Ride and Alex Rider series are on my Christmas Wish List, so I'm gonna check those out lol I like James Patterson and Anthony Horowitz.
I don't want anything TOO heavy lol A lot of the books I've read lately have been depressing so I'm looking for something a little lighter.
Thanks for the suggestions everyone! :D

Another good one, if you like music, is Lemonade Mouth: high school misfits form a band and start a revolution at their school.
Terry Trueman recently came and talked at our school, and my students absolutely love all of his work, especially Inside Out, Stuck in Neutral, and Cruise Control.
If you like your YA fiction with a little edge to it (more suitable for high school), I'd recommend Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn. King Dork by Frank Portman is another good one that is pretty edgy.

I'll also recommend Jordan' Sonnenblick's Notes from the Midnight Driver - very good.
Kaza Kingsley
Author of the Erec Rex series
http://www.erecrex.com

Another book that Knopf sent that I loved was Quicksilver by Stephanie Spinner. It's told from Mercury's point of view, and it had me laughing out loud.
Also, I love all of Nancy Werlin's books.
Ciao,
Cat Bauer

Also, try out Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale.


I'll also chime in on A Great and Terrible Beauty, which, although very different in subject, shares a certain dream-like feel (I think!).
What's the Erec Rex series?

I'd love to hear what you think of it!
Kaza :}

I also got a big giant kick out of Alcatraz and the Evil Librarians, which I picked up because of the title.

Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O'Neill

She said it was along the same lines of Harry Potter- the fantasy/ sci-fi type genre.



I've heard about 13 Reasons Why, and it very well may be a good book, maybe even insightful, touching, inspire thinking things through. I'm all for teens reading things that make them think, and do some intraspection. And teen suicide certianly is a very real problem.
Heck I might even like it if I read it. But I probably won't. I'm not knocking anyone who likes it, or this kind of story.
"Leisure reading" may not be a spendable commondity, but leisure reading time certianly is.

I could try to sell a wonderful book like the Book Thief to a 17 year old reluctant reader for days without success, but if I throw something like Cut, Speak, Wasted, or Crank in front of the same person, he or she is all over it. On one hand, I'm just happy that the reluctant reader is reading. On the other, I hate constantly pandering to the darker side of teen life in order to get them to read.

But if you have teens reading Crank, think of it -- they're reading poetry, how wonderful! Most teens get to college English and groan -- ewww, poetry. But if they've read CRANK or other Ellen Hopkins books, they'll be all, Wooo hooo! I like poetry! :)
I've been following this thread for a few weeks. It's great! Lots of great discussion and good ideas.
If anybody's interested in a new paranormal about a girl who gets sucked into other people's dreams, my YA novel WAKE hits bookstores everywhere March 4.
Lisa
http://lisamcmann.com

The Book Thief might have been a bad example. It's certainly dark, but its not sensational in the same way as the other books I mentioned. It just feels weird as a teacher, because we spend so much time in public schools telling kids not to do drugs, not to have sex, not to engage in risky behavior. All the while I know that the easiest way for me to sell a book during a book talk is to mention something like, "This book does bad language, drugs, and sex in it, so if you're offended by that sort of stuff, you probably shouldn't read it." That book will fly off my shelves.

All the while I know that the easiest way for me to sell a book during a book talk is to mention something like, "This book does bad language, drugs, and sex in it, so if you're offended by that sort of stuff, you probably shouldn't read it." That book will fly off my shelves.
When I taught high school (I now teach 8th grade), I had to teach The Catcher in the Rye, a book I cherished as a teen. Imagine my shock when 80% of my students loathed the book and said that Holden C. was nothing but a big whiner. Ouch.
So the following year, I led into Salinger's book with a lesson on banned books (which stirred outrage and, in the case of Harry Potter books, amusement). Then I told them that the book they were about to read (my cherished book -- which I wisely kept to myself) had been banned in many, MANY schools due to profanity, sexual themes, smoking, drinking, and overall bad morals. The kids THAT year ate it up, and the consensus was completely the other way (80% sympathetic to the book).
The moral of the story? Teens like underdogs, picked on books, etc., because they so often play the role themselves. Trumpet a book as a classic, as a winner, as the best thing since sliced bagels, and you've half lost them at the gate.
Who SAYS teaching isn't marketing (as well as acting, counseling, entertaining, and spinning)?

You really must read King Dork by Frank Portman, if you haven't already. The Catcher in the Rye is like another character in the book.
Edit:
Actually, I just saw that you'd read it when I looked up the entry for the book here. Your story about teaching Catcher just brought to mind this passage from the book:
"I should mention that Catcher in the Rye is this book from the fifties. It is every teacher's favorite book. The main guy is a kind of misfit kid superhero named Holden Caulfield. For teacher he is the ultimate guy, a real dream boat. They love him to pieces. They all want to have sex with him and with the book's author, too, and they'd probably even try to do it with the book itself if they could figure out a way to go about it. It changed their lives when they were young. As kids, they carried it with them everywhere they went. They solemnly resolved that, when they grew up, they would dedicate their lives to spreading The Word."

Janis -- I actually like realism better than fantasy, and I don't mind rough stuff, either. But suicide is painful (M*A*S*H notwithstanding), and while I can see a therapeutic role for a suicide YA book (done correctly), I don't need it myself. The last one I read was Fran Arrick's Tunnel Vision (and that's going back a ways).

I would think part of the struggle for teachers would be in showing the students they really can recommend some books that they will like, as opposed to books that are merely "good for them".
I do wish some teacher along the line had told me To Kill A Mockingbird didn't contain any killing of birds (though I would have needed to be warned about the rabid dog scene, and that possibly would have been enough to still keep me from reading it). I had heard over and over it was good, but the title threw me off. I avoided books where animals were killed like the plague. (I'm still mad I was forced to watch "The Red Pony" in Jr. High.) I never read it as a teen, did catch the movie at some point and loved it. Finally read the book just last year. I think I would have loved it as a teen.
You make a good point though, that many teens are dawn to base and sensational stories. It is tough on the one hand to want to steer them towards good books with better subject matter (or less explicit writing), but also just being glad they are reading something.
Newengland, I here ya. Different strokes. Your comment just made me chuckle at myself :) Suicide certainly is a difficult subject, even within realistic fiction. I'd rather read a good serial killer story.


Aside from teaching the required novels, I do my best to expose my students to more modern literature, and even assign them to read for 20 minutes EVERY night, even if it is reading their blogs online. I enforce the importance of reading anything!!


Anyway, To Kill A Mockingbird wasn't a required book in any of my classes, although it may have been listed as one of our options when we were able to choose, I can't remember. But it's one I wish I had been required to read. MUCH better than the books I was required to read.
I'm glad you expose your students to modern reading as well. It's good to require students to read something they're allowed to pick as well. I actually got out of a lot of required reading, because I read so much on my own and was able to get credit for that. The only books I had to read were books we all read as a class. Sadly it was the reluctant readers that got stuck reading more boring stuff, and that just reinforced their opinion of reading. They "learned" reading really was awful. I learned the books I was made to read for class were usually awful. Big diffference. What a gift it is to teach a reluctant reader that reading really can be an enjoyable and interesting thing! I have a 3rd grader I tutor that I am trying to teach reading really can be fun.
I think things have improved a lot in this area since I was in school (many, many years ago!). I'm glad for teachers who care about teaching the appreciation of books and reading, not just exposing kids to books that will hopefully make them think, grow or learn something. And I'm glad to see this awareness in High School, where it's still so needed.

Boyd -- I truly hear what you are saying. I think it would be difficult to teach teens these days. Heck, all the censorship of books has gone cuckoo-bananas in the past 25 years. Does anybody remember when there weren't all these "categories" for books? And now we're even splitting YA into two categories -- clean and "edgy" or whatever it's called.
I know you spend a lot of time teaching kids to stay away from drugs, etc. But when I was a teen and I read Go Ask Alice, it didn't make me want to do drugs. When I was a teen and I read Judy Blume's Forever, it didn't make me go out and have sex. And when I read Catcher in the Rye, it didn't make me start swearing.
I think we sell teens short, sometimes. If a book is too much for them, they'll put it down. But just because we teach kids no drugs, sex, or risky behavior, we sometimes jump too far -- we think if they don't know it exists, they won't do it. I think books like CRANK are a great tool -- CRANK shows teens that meth addiction sucks!
Letting teens know about things doesn't mean we're endorsing those things. I think it shows a teen that hey, I'm an adult who is trusting you enough to share a tough book with you, because I think you can handle it.
I don't think we trust teens enough with books these days. As a parent of a teen, and a YA author, that disturbs me.
I wonder, to those of you who teach high school -- do you feel pressure from parents regarding the kinds of books you have in your classroom and the books you recommend?
I teach K-8th grade at a very small charter school and I find it very difficult to recommend books to my junior high students. I want them to enjoy good literature that is out there, however I have this gag over my mouth that the school has put on me. It's as crazy as, "no ghosts, no witches, no language of any kind, and certainly nothing having to do with sex or violence". That crosses out all of the classics :)
I was having a conversation with PJ Haarsma (author of Softwire Rings of Orbis)yesterday and (not to go too far off the subject)we were discussing how as a whole Americans have gotten too politically correct. If we say Merry Christmas, it is not meant to offend, it is just a kind greeting at that time of the year. And we discussed the loss of Halloween in schools, and how we just want the holidays that we grew up celebrating back. We, as a nation are trying to be sensitive to everyone else's beliefs, but at the same time, we are censoring our own. By not allowing kids/teens to explore literature, they are losing knowledge. We need our children to understand the world around them, and if we censor the information that is out there, then I think that we are harming them more.
I was having a conversation with PJ Haarsma (author of Softwire Rings of Orbis)yesterday and (not to go too far off the subject)we were discussing how as a whole Americans have gotten too politically correct. If we say Merry Christmas, it is not meant to offend, it is just a kind greeting at that time of the year. And we discussed the loss of Halloween in schools, and how we just want the holidays that we grew up celebrating back. We, as a nation are trying to be sensitive to everyone else's beliefs, but at the same time, we are censoring our own. By not allowing kids/teens to explore literature, they are losing knowledge. We need our children to understand the world around them, and if we censor the information that is out there, then I think that we are harming them more.


Oh. And in the book stores I see more kids than ever in the growing YA sections. These are salad days for YA we are living in. In that sense, the kids are lucky.
And yes, teens are a lot savvier than many adults suspect. Immature, but savvy.




Boyd -- I'm going for the same thing in my reading initiative: 25 books read independently at home. Many kids love it. Then there are those who say they read, but you wonder. And always, reading is considered secondary to other homework (where more concrete proof of completion must be presented the next day). Parents feel this way, too. Ironic when you consider that a daily reading habit will take these kids farther in ALL subjects than a silly busywork math sheet will (but my English prejudices are leaking out... again).


I'll research blogspot. My goal is to try it this spring with this bunch of kids (a good bunch of kids).
Books mentioned in this topic
King Dork (other topics)The Hunger Games (other topics)
Chasing Brooklyn (other topics)
Fallout (other topics)
Metropolis (other topics)
I like fantasy, horror and mystery. Like Avi, William Sleator, R.L. Stine or Peter Abrahams type authors. Or even some funny chick-lit.
Nothing to over the top. It doesn't matter if it's cliche or just a light read. Preferably something recent/up-to-date. I just want a good long novel(I'll take short stories too) that I can get into and really enjoy.
thanks!