I admit it - one of the great joys of my son’s pre-teen and teen years was that I could shamelessly read YA literature, because after all, I was just keeping current with his reading choices and making it possible for us to discuss books we’d both read. Thus, I happily devoured the Akiko, Harry Potter, Hunger Games, His Dark Materials, and at least one other series whose name I can’t recall now (it was a kind of Matrix world, where everyone spent all their time hooked up to machines experiencing imagined realities).
The books available when I was that age were far different. My influential favorites involved settings I could relate to - The Chocolate Wars (still one of my all-time favorite books, and the sequel is almost as good), A Separate Peace, and the now-discredited Good Times, Bad Times.
Why yes, I did attend a New England prep school, why do you ask? I also read and appreciated The Outsiders and possibly other books by S.E. Hinton, but it didn’t reflect my life experience the same way as those other books did. It’s Like This, Cat was also good, though also not overly reflective of my own circumstances.
What books did you/do you love, either from your own YA years or that of your child’s/children’s? Are there any in particular you would recommend to adults? I’m not ashamed to read YA books as a grown up - sometimes I’m tired, and the relatively straightforward narratives/symbolism/messages are a welcome relief from more sophisticated books. James Joyce is all well and good, but I didn’t major in English, and if I’m exhausted and just want to curl up with an engaging book, I’d like something I can intellectually access without much brain strain, thank you very much.
I had four YA books between fifth grade and high school:
Non-fiction:
Flying Aces of World War I The Great War: Stories of World War I
Fiction:
Combat! The Counterattack Star Trek: Mission to Horatius
My brother got this American Heritage book for Christmas 1966. I think I read it more than he did:
Air War against Hitler’s Germany
I also read all the Encyclopedia Brown and Alvin Fernald books I could find at the library, along with Ten Beaver Road, Andy Buckram’s Tin Men, Project: Genius, and my absolute favorites The Mad Scientists’ Club and The New Adventures of the Mad Scientists’ Club.
I’m a bit too old and my kids are too young to have gotten into the big YA (although I have seen most of the films). So “The Outsiders” is really one of the few YA books I can actually recall from my youth.
That said, you kind of hit the nail on the head with the “New England prep school” (or Northeastern private college with a lot of fraternities) experience. All these YA series (Hunger Games, Harry Potter, Maze Runner, Enders Game, Divergent, etc) all seem to want to capture a sort of “institutionalized coming of age” story:
Children are sorted into clans or house of some kind, usually aligned to their personality
They are part of a class considered the “elite” of the larger world (or special and/or protected in some way)
The main character often is initially an outcast or atypical for their group
They more or less instantly bond with their house and form instant rivalries with the other houses
There’s a lot of working both with and against whatever authority figure oversees them
There is an outside antagonist of some kind that is unquestioningly malicious (supposed to represent the “real world” I suppose
The main character usually ends up as “The Chosen One” (as all kids are the center of their own universe
You beat me to it, though I find his books kind of hit and miss. The Fault in Our Stars is pretty great, Paper Towns is positively thoughtful, An Abundance of Katherines is terrible, but then I have not yet read Looking for Alaska or Turtles All the Way Down.
A.A. Milne’s “When We Were Very Young” and “Now We Are Six.” I learned to read with those books, and I still enjoy them. The illustrations are great too.
I’m also a big fan of the Bounty trilogy, mentioned above, and have read all of Nordhoff and Hall’s other books as well.
I never stopped reading YA. But as for what I was reading at that actual age that would fit the category…I would say any of the John Bellairs books, particularly The House With a Clock in It’s Walls. This book by Robert Arthur was one of my favorites: Ghosts and More Ghosts. He also wrote The Three Investigators series, those were good. I read all the Nancy Drews and Judy Blumes as well.
This book I loved also: House of Stairs, by William Sleator. He wrote lots of good YA, another I would recommend is Singularity.
The Chronicles of Narnia of course. Here’s a book I read several times that I don’t see talked about much: The Marvelous Misadventures of Sebastian by Lloyd Alexander.
Oh!
Jane-Emily, by Patricia Clapp.
A Candle in Her Room, by Ruth M. Arthur
Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth; by E.L. Konigsburg
The Active-enzyme, Lemon-freshened Junior High School Witch, by E.W. Hildick
My grandson (who’s a YA) loves Jonathan Stroud (the Bartimaeus Series, the Lockwood & Co. series), as well as the Rick Riordan mythological heroes books.
i went to school in the 80s so al the school approved ya was from the 50s-70s like se hinton robert cormier the chocolate war guy a lot of gritty inner city stuff like cooley high and the contender … some of the judy blume jr high stuff although one day I got a hold of one of her adult books …lol that’s when I learned I liked her adult books better …
in the 8th grade, I had a nice discussion about my book report on Bret easton ellis’s less than zero … I was supposed to give it in front of the class … that did not happen and I had to get approval for books I did in class book reports on …
Homecoming (1981)
Dicey’s Song (1982)
A Solitary Blue (1983)
The Runner (1985)
Come a Stranger (1986)[1][2]
Sons from Afar (1987)
Seventeen Against the Dealer (1989)
