Couldn’t Terry Pratchett work as either humor or fantasy?
You know, if the Jane Yolen 2041 is what I think it is, it’s not actually by her. It’s a collection of short stories published in about 1991 or so, including one by Yolen. Otherwise, she’s just the editor. I actually still have this one on my bookshelf. Two of the stories were first published in the magazines and were then heavily altered by the authors (I’ve only been able to track down one of the two because it’s a lot easier to find back issues of Asimov’s than it is Tales of the Unanticipated.) The short stories are:
“Much Ado About [Censored]” by Connie Willis (the one from Asimov’s)
“Who’s Gonna Rock Us Home?” by Nancy Springer
“Lose Now, Pay Later” by Carol Farley
“A Quiet One” by Anne McCaffrey
“Moby James” by Patricia A. McKillip
“If I Had the Wings of an Angel” by Joe Haldeman
“You Want It When?” by Kara Dalkey
“Ear” by Jane Yolen
“The Last Out” by Resa Nelson and David Alexander Smith
“Free Day” by Peg Kerr (the one from Tales of the Unanticipated)
“Beggerman” by Susan Shwartz
“Old Glory” by Bruce Coville
Now, most of these are actually pretty good. A lot of them could probably have been published in the magazines if they hadn’t been published in this anthology.
Otherwise, for the F&SF, Ender’s Game is of course a classic choice. When the list says C.S. Lewis, I’m assuming we’re talking Narnia. His Dark Materials isn’t a bad read either, but it can be a little funny to read Lewis and Pullman back-to-back. And of course Heinlein’s juveniles have been mentioned.
Keillor has Lake Wobegon Days, but I think you have to like either that kind of writing or PHC. (I like PHC but could never really get into Lake Wobegon Days as I generally prefer the first hour of PHC.) Happy to Be Here might be worth looking into instead. They’re pretty much all short stories first published in the New Yorker.
I’ve never heard of half of that ethnic list and can’t stand the other half. I didn’t particuarly like Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya when I had to read it, but then again it’s not my kind of book. Plus, I was convinced the only reason we had to read it was because he’s a local author and I don’t think it was incredibly well-written. Anyway, that might be a different choice.
Again, thank you all. I know I don’t like Terry Pratchett, at least from trying in vain to get through the first chapter of Good Omens (like pulling teeth), but I have lots of other great selections to go through now! The only hard part will be paring them down to 20 choices.
Hmmm
Realistic Fiction: Well, anything Spinneli does is gold. Maniac Magee was one of my favourite books at intermediate. I read Stargirl last year and I loved it. The Mighty Crashman is good, but pobably a little young to be considered a YA novel.
Historical Fiction: Theresa Tomlinson’s Forestwives trilogy is a retelling of the Robin Hood stories, and her Moon Riders does much the same thing with the fall of Troy, focusing on the Amazons. These would work well as ‘strong female character’ as well.
Fantasy: Another vote for the Old Kingdom trilogy, likewise for Northern Lights. Peeps by Scott Westerfield is a modern-day vampire tale, so I don’t know if this is the appropriate genre, but it’s a good read, if a little rushed at the end.
Science Fiction: Ender’s Game is a classic, as are the Heinlens. Feed by MT Anderson is great. A bit bleak, but I enjoyed it. Also Mortal Engines by Phillip Reeve. Set in the future, with cities on wheels, hunting each other across Europe.
**Gay experience in fiction: **Oh, you have GOT to read Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan. The best YA book I’ve read all year! It’s the first YA novel I’ve read dealing with gay themes where the characters aren’t freaked out by their sexuality. Otherwise you could try Dare, Truth or Promise by Paula Boock, which is a more conventional YA novel, featuring two girls in love; a shady past; a small town; dissaproving mothers; tolerant clergymen; a thrilling car chase; a happy ending. It was pretty groundbreaking for its time, mind you.
Biography/Autobiography: There’s Adelene Yen Mah’s Chinese Cinderella, or Judith Kerr’s excellent Out of the Hitler Time. Could Maus fall into this category? You could make a strong case for it being both, I guess.
Shocker/ challenged: What does this entail?
For the mystery/suspense, you could try the Shadow Children books by Margaret Peterson Haddix (they may be just slighty young for YA - I’d put them at 5th-6th grade, likely). Excellent boy books - lots of adventure and the like.
Also, for your Strong female character in fiction section - I recently read Meg Rosoff’s How I Live Now - it either won the Printz award for YA lit recently or was one of the nominees (I don’t remember at the moment and I’m feeling too early-morningish to look it up). Very interesting book.
YA: Historical Fiction
Avoid Paolini. I know the kid’s popular because he wrote a fantasy book at 15 (or whatever age) and now has a second to back it up, but lord, they’re not very good. They’re solidly in the YA category (at least I’d put them there), but they’re so incredibly derivative that you (or any audience, YA and others alike) are better off reading those that did it first, and better. You’d be far better off with Lloyd Alexander or Tolkien or any of the other fantasy writers.
His books are entertaining enough, but liberally rip off anything and everything that went before. Normally, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as all writers borrow from other writers, but he was so blatant about it that I couldn’t get around it. Yeah, he was young, and maturity might develop him into a better author, but he left me wondering whether he had an original thought in the entire book (or books, since there’s two).
Agreed. I tried reading *Eragon * and only made it through a couple of chapters before I gave up–the kid simply doesn’t write very well (for a 15-year-old kid, yeah–for a published author, no).
For a much better read, I recommend the Bartimaeus Trilogy (just checked–the third one is out now) by Jonathan Stroud, starting with The Amulet of Samarkand. Well written stories, and the demon Bartimaeus tends to steal the show away from Nathaniel, the kid wizard, whenever he’s in a scene.
Quick! Go look in a mirror! Do you still have a reflection? Because clearly you have no soul. 
Nobody seems to have mentioned I Am David, by Anne Holm. I liked it a lot, but it doesn’t seem to fit in any of those categories. It’s about a boy who escapes from a POW camp somewhere in Europe to find his mother in Italy, but it’s set during an imaginary and generic war.
Some great YA authors are: Lois Lowry, Jerry Spinelli, Robert Cormier, Louis Sachar (his non-Holes books can be either trite or zen depending on how you look at them), David Almond and John Marsden.
Humor (Fiction) (see Chap. 5) Gordon Korman is awesome. Try I Want to Go Home, Losing Joe’s Place or one of the Macdonald Hall books.
Strong female character in fiction (choose any) Maybe one of Karen Cushman’s books, or Number the Stars by Lois Lowry, or for a lesser-known read try The Breadwinner/Parvana.
Historical Fiction (Chap. 8)
Fantasy (Chap. 7) The Sandman books are a bit of a mixed bag. I really liked Brief Lives and The Doll’s House though maybe the latter is a bit more A than Y.
Science Fiction (Chap. 7)
Shocker/ challenged (you can use a challenged book) I suppose The New Joy of Gay Sex is out?
I loved reading when I was a kid. Hope this helps a little.
The author’s name is AVI and is one of the most popular as well as a darn good writer. Read anything he’s written and yes, it is AVI nothing else.
There is a great book called “Touching Spirit Bear” which I heartily recommend.
Anone else mentioned is a good bet too.
I’ve never read Spindle’s End–if that’s her Sleeping Beauty riff, I started it and quit after a couple of chapters (due possibly to other things in life). I far prefer Hero and the Crown to The Blue Sword, however. It’s one of the few books that I reread.
Daniel
Libba Bray, A Great and Terrible Beauty.
I don’t know how to classify it. It’s like a curried mixture of Wilkie Collins and Enid Blyton with touches of fantasy and historical fiction thrown in. For some reason it was filed in the general fiction section when I picked it up from Borders.
I’m going to review it for my blog, probably tomorrow.
Here’s another good one: A Mango-Shaped Space by Wendy Mass. It’s a nice portrayal of a girl with synesthesia (as a synesthete myself, I was intrigued by it because I’d never seen any other fiction about the subject). It could possibly fit under “strong female character.”
It’s interesting to see the syllabus-setter’s apparent biases - I can see all the ‘right-on’ buttons there: not requiring a strong male character, ‘ethnic’ presumably meaning non-white, gay, etc.
Don’t get me wrong, I think those categories should be included, but to give them without the others displays a significant bias to me.
As for the books, you’ve had a lot of good suggestions, so I’ll just echo the recommendations of Heinlein, Rowling, Tolkein, and Lewis and add John Wyndham.