OK, I never read any of these but have seen the film version on The Chocolate War and heard of A Separate Peace but never heard of Good Times, Bad Times. So what’s the reason the latter is discredited?
Why is Good Times/Bad Times discredited? I am thinking about the book by James Kirkwood Jr.
One of my favorites from 4th grade. Got a copy of my bookshelf now for nostalgia’s sake.
Wasn’t a big reader as a teenager but I remember enjoying Ender’s Game.
I read a book by “Bring 'em back alive” Frank Buck. Don’t know if it was that one but it was fascinating. It included stories about training big cats, and I applied that to my little house cat that looked all like a miniature black leopard. It was simply about reinforcing things that cats already do through rewards and motion cues and before long they’re patterned to perform to stand up on their hind legs or do a back flip on command (actually the practiced motion, the command you say out loud is just for show).
There weren’t that many YA titles when I was a YA, at least not that I found, but one of them still stands out as the most important book any YA should read, the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
And no mention of Have Spacesuit Will Travel? Has it gone out of style? This is one I read at the young age because my older brother had it.
The Hobbit was mentioned. I didn’t finish Lord of the Rings until much later, IMHO the Hobbit was superior, but perhaps I took on LOTR at too early an age.
Tom Swift books were fun but I considered those more juvenile than YA.
I started reading YA when I was 10 and continued reading it until I was 13-14. In that time, I read A LOT of the short novels that were geared to that age group. I had a number of these at home, and sourced many, many more at the public library and at my middle school’s library. Some of my most memorable selections were:
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Several Judy Blume novels, mainly from the Fudge series: “Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing”, “Superfudge”, and “Fudge-a-Mania”, as well as the related “Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great”. These were fun, relatable stories. Also Blume’s “It’s Not the End of the World”, about divorce.
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Much of Beverly Cleary’s “Ramona” series (I read “Ramona the Brave” and / or “Ramona Quimby: Age 8” as late as when I was 15), as well as “The Mouse and the Motorcycle” and its sequel “Ralph S. Mouse”. Cleary’s writing was very relatable, as it told the stories very much from a child’s point of view. A great author.
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The “Bruno and Boots” series by Canadian author Gordon Korman, about two boys who attend a private boarding school called Macdonald Hall, commit shenanigans there, and find creative if controversial ways to solve problems. Was introduced to it by my great Grade 5 teacher, who read to us the second book in the series, “Go Jump in the Pool!” I read much of this series, as well as some of Korman’s other books.
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At around 12-13, I discovered “Series Canada”, a series of short novels written by Canadian author Paul Kropp. Each of these featured a story that aimed to reflect true adolescent issues in which a teenager (or two) has to face a serious real-life issue (e.g. running away, looking for biological mother, violent schoolmate, some drug issue), see here for an example. This was quite age-appropriate reading, and I found the stories fascinating and informative. The books were typically illustrated with black and white drawings in a graphic style that seemed to be common in Canadian books in the 70s, 80s and early 90s, possibly all done by one artist. This reading tied in well with “Northwood”, a forgotten but excellent Canadian TV series I was watching at the time similar to “Degrassi High” or “Beverly Hills 90210” that dealt very realistically with issues such as teen crime and prostitution, DUI, abusive parents, date rape, etc.
I was particularly drawn to stories about inner-city kids and those about kids who attempt to exercise some agency in their lives in the face of adult authority. So for example, some of Korman’s books, such as “I Want to Go Home!” about a boy’s repeated attempts to escape from summer camp with a fellow campmate. Of the books in his Bruno and Boots series, I was particularly invested in “The War with Mr. Wizzle”, where the boys scheme to get rid of a new assistant headmaster, a computer nerd who takes over the school and finds different ways to micromanage the students. Some of my most interesting one-offs were:
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How Many Miles to Babylon? - An original story by Paula Fox about an inner-city boy who sets off to find his mother, and gets kidnapped by a gang of other boys on the way. This is one which I would like to re-read.
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Can You Sue Your Parents for Malpractice? - A personal favorite of mine. It’s written by Paula Danziger, IMO, one of the best YA authors. I have a copy with me and have written the TV Tropes entry about it. It’s about a 14-year-old girl who is frustated by her personal situation. She is the middle daughter in a family with a selfish, sexist, bossy father and a mother who tends to be complacent toward him. She then takes an elective course about young people and the law, hoping it will prepare her to become a lawyer who will fight for social justice and teach her about whether she has any legal rights vis-a-vis adults.
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Charlie Pippin - A dramatic book by Candy Dawson Boyd about a girl who rebels against her very strict, withdrawn, traumatized Vietnam War veteran father and the restrictive rules of the supposedly elite magnet school-type institution where she goes (but never does anything malicious, to a large extent, she and her friends simply want to do things like sell things, protest, and otherwise expand her horizons past what father and school think is appropriate). Will not give any spoilers, but when Charlie wants to find out more about why her father is so traumatized by the war, she comes to a discovery leading to an idea for a daring solution that results in serious conflict and drama.
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Maniac Magee - By Jerry Spinelli. This is one I started reading but for some reason put down. It’s about a homeless boy navigating his racialized town. One day I may get back to it.
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Mini-Bike Hero - Another Canadian one, by Claire Mackay. This is about a boy who gets a mini off-road motorcycle behind his father’s back (IIRC his father didn’t want his son to become a “motorcycle punk” like his uncle).
I could name various other ones; these are some of those that I found most captivating. I should mention that I largely have my aforementioned Grade 5 teacher to thank for becoming a published author (I have published one book and various articles online and in print. All are non-fiction but I am currently working on my first novel, the first draft of which should be finished soon). She took us to the library, where Gordon Korman gave us a lecture. I learned he had published his first book (“This Can’t Be Happening at Macdonald Hall”) as a school project. This sent a strong message to me that I could become a published author / illustrator at a very young age (I did - published a very modest article in a local magazine around the time I turned 15, though the illustrator part I put on hold.)
I had to read The Chocolate War as a high school freshman, as it was one of the books covered in our freshman English class’s curriculum. I was attending a small, all-boys Catholic high school (which was the book’s setting), so it felt eerily like reading about my own school.
Yup, yup, yup, yup (except that I didn’t know about Enid Blyton till decades later). I was a Stratemeyer Syndicate gal, reading Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew and some of the more obscure series as well (currently reading the Motor Boys).
I also read a bunch of even older stuff from basically the dawn of YAL, scavenged off parental and grandparental bookshelves: E. Nesbit’s pioneering fantasy YA like The Phoenix and the Carpet and her non-fantasy stories like The Wouldbegoods, Louisa May Alcott, Horatio Alger Jr., R.M. Ballantyne, Kipling and Haggard, and some truly bizarre shit like the Christian-fundamentalist Elsie Dinsmore stories of Martha Finley
Not that I didn’t also dig the contemporary and recent YA fiction of my '70s and '80s youth, most of the classics that other posters have mentioned already (and others: Joan Aiken, Elizabeth George Speare, Lucy M. Boston, Sydney Taylor, anybody?). In fact, I have been recently discovering and enjoying a lot of sequels that didn’t exist back in my day: whoa, you mean authors just kept writing YA books even after I stopped being a YA? Mind blown! (There are at least two sequels to Julie of the Wolves alone! 
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That’s a great book! Wonderful photos too! Serious adventurers they were. I have it in the zebra stripes hardcover, once owned by a great great uncle. Given to him by his fiancé way back in time. who sorry to say stood him up and married someone else.
A lot of people don’t realize that there was an entire series of Oz books, all of which I read when I was in about the 3rd grade. I also read books that belonged to my older sister, like “Lad, A Dog” and other dog and horse books that she had. As a teen, I read the H. Ryder Haggard books (Allan Quatermain, She, Lost City of Gold, Temple of Skulls, etc.). Indiana Jones was based on the main character of Allan Quatermain.
I read those Oz books at about the same age. Also ran across Sandburgs Rootabaga Stories. He wasn’t as good at fantasy as Baum.
There were also a bunch of Raggedy Ann and Andy books.
I forgot to mention Brian Jacques / Redwall books.
While the other authors lost my interest, whether from repetitive stories or wanting a different writing style, some of PA’s books started feeling like grooming (although not a word I used at the time) in book form.
Oooh, this is my wheelhouse. I teach reading/literacy/English at a boarding school and my students are low-level learners despite being older teens and adults.
For very low level learners I like to use anything by Jerry Spinelli (Maniac Magee being a perennial favorite but The Library Card and Love, Stargirl are also great). Laurel Croza is a Canadian First Nations author that is virtually unknown but her collection of short stories, The Whirlpool, is woth inclusion in any school library. I have lesson plans based on several stories from that collection. Both Spinelli and Croza write stories about kids but do not “dumb it down” like so many YA authors (coughcoughRLStinecough).
Gary Paulsen is also a favorite. I think everyone knows Hatchet but Paulson was a prodigious writer and Woodsong (a biography chronicling his participation in the Iditarod) and The Rifle are arguably better than Hatchet.
Scott O’Dell is really good as well. Island of the Blue Dolphins is probably his best known but The Black Pearl and Zia (a sequel to Island of the Blue Dolphins) both deserve a read.
Joelle Charbonneau’s The Testing series is great. Post-apocalyptic stories really took off after The Hunger Games was published and while The Testing trilogy is of similar ilk I find them superior to Collins’ work because they are much more vivid and realistic than The Hunger Games. Charbonneau’s books were brought to my attention by a student and now I have classroom sets of the whole trilogy and use them often.
Pete Fromm’s books aren’t exactly YA but they are very accessible to younger readers. Indian Creek Chronicles is an absolute masterpiece and Night Swimming, a collection of short stories, is well worth a read. Both books explore the themes of individualism and the sort of unique western ideas of self-reliance and independence.
Another great YA book about survival and self-reliance is I Am Still Alive by Kate Alice Marshall. A young girl – 16 or so – lives with her father in the middle of nowhere in the Canadian wilderness. However, Dad lives in BFE because he’s a former drug dealer now living on the run after stiffing his supplier. When his past catches up with him the young protagonist, knowing nothing about wilderness or even living in a cold climate, is forced to live a winter on her own – in the far Canadian north with no skills and almost no supplies to keep her provisioned. I haven’t read anything else by Marshall but several of her books are on my TBR list.
Anything by Laurie Halse Anderson is absolute gold. She’s likely best known for Speak but personally I find Wintergirls and Catalyst – especially Catalyst – to be much more engaging. This isn’t in any way a dis on Speak but she has such a powerful bibliography that there’s any number of her books that are similarly engaging.
Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli is great. I’ve never seen the movie but my students tell me it’s good.
Dear Martin by Nic Stone is also excellent. It’s is often challenged by the anti-CRT crowd which is strong evidence that it’s a worthwhile book. I have classroom set and my students read it routinely 
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On the hand-me-down books front, I inherited a deep shelf of those old blue-covered Nancy Drew books from parents, grandparents, aunts, and cousins. They were horribly racist and ethnocentric but well-written and entertaining. Every couple decades the publishing syndicate would have someone new come along and “revise” them (i.e., rewrite them from scratch with approximately the same story arc) and those were generally far inferior.
A couple I remember reading but don’t think were mentioned upthread are My Side of the Mountain, about a boy from NYC who moves to a forest outside a small town in upstate NY where he lives in a cabin he built in the trunk of an old tree. The other is From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, about a girl who with her brother runs away from home to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where they secretly live for a week or two, until a mystery causes them to leave.
I had to stop a minute and think about what you mean. My first reaction was “Count me among the CRT crowd! Today’s flat-screen TVs and monitors are much better; I don’t want to go back.”
I explained the basic problem fairly clearly in a post about 3 years ago.
Subsequent to that, I swear I found commentary from James Kirkwood himself, disavowing the anti-gay bigotry in the book. But, maybe that’s me projecting how I think he would have felt. (Looking him up now, I see he died in 1989 
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My own experience was quite similar. While the original books were, just as you say, “racist and ethnocentric” they were far ahead of their times in portraying young girls as intelligent, independent, and able to achieve almost anything - including earning the respect of everyone around them. That was a wonderful message to read as a young girl. (I didn’t include them in my list of YA books because I had devoured every last one of them by the time I hit 5th or 6th grade.) They were also terrific vocabulary builders: I credit my reading of the original books for my fabulous SAT scores in the vocabulary sections.
One other plus: reading between the lines, George was gay! And that was just fine.
Oh, I remember reading that*, and also PS Your Cat is Dead.
To my admittedly heterocentric perspective as reader, the headmaster wasn’t cast as evil because he was gay, nor was being gay positioned as anything deplorable. The headmaster was cast as both closeted and sexually abusive.
- The book, I mean, not your post from 3 years ago