Good books for teen-agers

I’ll be making a donation to Toys 4 Tots tomorrow, and it seems to me that they probably get tons of stuff for little kids but that teens get utterly left out.

I also believe that a gift of books is the best gift there is.

Alas, it’s been many years since I was a teenager.

Suggestions anyone?

Anything by Christopher Pike. I loved his books when I was about 14.

Orson Scott Card, specifically the Ender’s Game series. One of my kids hates to read, but he will read that series. I got him an autographed copy of Ender’s Game for his birthday.

Harry Potter series.

Doug Adams " Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy"

Lloyd Alexander books.

Donbas by Jacques Sandalesque ( one of my all time favorite books.)

There is a little known book series called, " The Straight Dope" by some guy called, " Cecil Adams". Has an enthusiastically spaztic following (The Teeming Million) who are vastly outnumbered by the rabidly ignorant slack jawed, zombied eyed Teeming Bajillions. It’s thankless work, but no one said world domination would be easy.

Philip Pullman is good for teenagers.

So is Robert Cormier, who wrote the Chocolate War and several other good books.

Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time is a classic.

Cecil Adams? I think I may have heard of him somewhere…:smiley:

There’s a few Dutch authors I can recommend:

Thea Beckman would one of My Favourites, there’s also Jan Terlouw, Evert Hartman,

http://www.frontstreetbooks.com/all_books.htm

…and Anke De Vries.
Sorry, posted early by mistake.

You’ll find a few of Thea Beckman’s books translated when you click on included link.

All the authirs I mentioned are very popular in both The Netherlands and Belgium, and I’m sure their books have been translated into English. The main publisher for these books is Lemniscaat.

Junk by Melvin Burgess, first book i ever enjoyed reading

Eragon by Christopher Paolini–my son just finished it and he said it’s even better than Harry Potter (from him, this is high praise!) Paolini began writing this book when he was 15 and is now working on the next book in the trilogy. It’s a fantasy novel with D&D influences.

I don’t know if they were released anywhere overseas, but Tomorrow, When the War Began and the rest of the series by John Marsden are great reads.

playboy is always popular with teenage boys

We had these over here in the UK. I enjoyed them very much. I also much liked The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde, As someone else said the Northern Lights trilogy by Philip Pullman, and of course there are always classics such as Catcher in the Rye.

Cynthia Voight is good.

I’d have been POd if somebody had given me Catcher in the Rye, I HATE that book.

As a recent teenager myself, I loved Walter Farley, Jack London, Salmon Rushdie, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
Still do :slight_smile:

Oh, and Maya Angelou and Mark Twain, as well asmost of these books.
Minus the Madonna and Howard Stern, of course.

When I was a teen I loved the LOTR books. Also, anything by Douglas Adams, and the Catcher in the Rye.

I’ve read a few YA novels by Chris Crutcher I really enjoyed. Also let me recommend William Sleator, as I do every chance I get.

Asimov, Heinlein, Bradbury, and Clarke. You can’t go wrong with a Golden Age.
[ul]
[li]“I, Robot” by Asimov[/li][li]2001 by Clarke, or perhaps Rama[/li][li]Starship Troopers or Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein (the first would probably go over better)[/li][li]“The October Country” and “S is for Space” and “R is for Rocket” by Bradbury. I refuse to trim further. :)[/li][/ul]