Youth Fiction Recommendations?

Cafe Society
1

In the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince thread, two posters very thoughtfully provided the names of some fiction which youngsters who had enjoyed HP books would enjoy reading. I would like more recommendations, please. Not only for my 11 1/2 year old son, but for a friend’s similarly-aged daughter.

Thus far, I have:

Garth Nix - The Old Kingdom Trilogy
Robin Mckinley - Rose Daughter, and Spindle’s End
Diana Wynne Jones - Fire and Hemlock
Ursula K. Leguin - A Wizard of Earthsea
Terry Pratchett - The Wee Free Men
Lloyd Alexander - Chronicles of Prydian series
Susan Cooper - The Dark is Rising series
Philip Pullman - His Dark Materials

Thank you.

2

The Sterkarm Handshake by Susan Price.
My son read this at about age 11. He also enjoyed Philip Pullman.

Melusine by Lynne Reid Banks

Lynne Reid Banks also wrote all of the Indian In the Cupboard books, my sons enjoyed these as well but they are a bit more lightweight.
The link to the Melusine book has quite a selection of reading for young adults.

3

I would recommend the Encyclopedia Brown books for boys or girls - I don’t know if you can find them in the stores, but I was able to order them online for my niece for last Christmas. I loved them as a tween.

The Dragonsingers of Pern series was mentioned already, wasn’t it? They’re getting close to an age where they might enjoy some of Heinlein’s lighter stuff, too.

4

Oh, forgot to mention that kids who are into fantasy/sci-fi stuff might also enjoy mythology books - I know I did.

5

Age 10-12 is a good time to read the Hobbit

**Heinlein ** Juveniles are excellent:
Rocket Ship Galileo (1947)
Space Cadet (1948)
Red Planet (1949)
The Rolling Stones (1952) (Inspiration for tribbles)
Starman Jones (1953)
The Star Beast (1954)
Tunnel in the Sky (1955)
Have Space Suit—Will Travel (1958)

Madeleine L’Engle
A Wrinkle in Time (1962) (Newbery Award Winner)
A Wind in the Door (1973)
A Swiftly Tilting Planet (1978)
Many Waters (1986)
*Second-generation (O’Keefe) *
The Arm of the Starfish (1965)
Dragons in the Waters (1976)
A House like a Lotus (1984)
An Acceptable Time (1989)

6

A list I put together for a friend (it’s a little “girl” centric because it’s based on my favorite books from childhood:

  • A Little Princess, The Secret Garden
  • No Flying in the House
  • Chronicles of Narnia
  • Never too young to get a headstart for English class with the gorgeous D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths (or the Norse, but it is out of print, great if you can find it)
  • The Miss Bianca books
  • Oz - The Road to Oz and Ozma of Oz were my favorites
  • Also by L. Frank Baum - The Sea Fairies (mermaids!)
  • E. Nesbit - 5 Children and It, The Enchanted Castle
  • Ballet Shoes (and all the other shoe books by Noel Streatfield, although that’s the best)
  • Heidi
  • Black Beauty
  • Betsy-Tacy by Maud Hart Lovelace (they start young, but follow the girls through high school)
  • Anne of Green Gables
  • Strawberry Girl
  • Charlotte’s Web
  • Harriet the Spy
  • From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg
  • Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell
  • DragonSong by Anne McCaffrey
  • The 100 Dresses, The Witch Family - Eleanor Estes (she has lots of good stuff)
  • Beverly Cleary - all of em, start with Ramona and work your way all the way through to Mouse on a Motorcycle!
  • The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
  • Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh by Robert C. O’Brien
  • Some Judy Blume might be fun at that age - Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Blubber
  • Charlie and the Chocolate Factory/Matilda
  • The Great Brain
  • Encyclopedia Brown
  • The Adventures of Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren
  • The Littles by John Peterson
  • The Borrowers by Mary Norton (I had a weird obsession with tiny things)
  • The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew (and a weird obsession with impoverished English children)
  • 101 Dalmatians by Dodie Smith
  • The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
  • Of Nightingales That Weep by Katherine Paterson
  • Bambi by Felix Salten
  • Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie
  • Sounder (crying)
  • Where the Red Fern Grows (more crying!)
7

My daughter has devoured most of the Redwall series by Brian Jacques. A Hat Full of Sky is a sequel to Wee Free Men and also very good. I think they could read some of Pratchett’s adult books, too, especially the Death series. He’s generally pretty clean. I recently picked up a copy of Inkheart by Cornelia Funke and so far it’s quite good. It also contains a lot of reference to classics of literature for kids that might pique their interest.

8

When I was very, very young I read my mother’s old editions of The Bobbsey Twins stories and enjoyed them far more than I did my father’s old Hardy Boys books.

Sometime around age 10, tho, I discovered the Three Investigators series, and absolutely devoured them as fast as I could find them. I’d highly recommend them for a pre-adolescent reader. (I mean, come on, the feature Alfred Hitchcock!)

9

I would recommend almost anything by Cynthia Voight. Not all of her stuff is fantasy, but the Kingdom books are. And she’s a damn fine writer, IMO. I still like her stuff, and I’m 29. She’s one of those writers who doesn’t write down to her audience.

10

If they like fantasy, the Atremis Fowl books by Eoin Colfer are pretty good.

11

He’s read them, I’m not sure if friend’s daughter has. He really loved them.

12

In the HP vein, the first thing that comes to mind is Diana Duane’s So You Want To Be a Wizard and its sequels. This is one of those series that starts off pretty strong, but toward the end, it’s like the same plot written over and over. I wouldn’t run out and buy all of them at once, but the first two at least are very entertaining.

Daniel Pinkwater’s books are classics (IMHO at least), especially Lizard Music and Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy From Mars. They are not really magic or fantasy, more like a very humorous non-reality. There is something about Ron Weasley that reminds me of a Daniel Pinkwater character, so I have recommended these with success to young HP fans.

The House with the Clock in Its Walls series by John Bellairs is good, and one thing I like about it is that the books switch back and forth between male and female main characters. Also, illustrated by Edward Gorey BONUS! I have heard some children find the magic/supernatural elements in these a little too scary, but I’m sure it depends on the individual child.

For a girl, Sorcery and Cecilia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot, by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer, cracked me right up. It has a sequel that I haven’t read yet.

Sadly, The Secret World of Og by Pierre Berton seems to be forever going in and out of print, I think it’s in the out cycle right now, but any decent library should be able to get it. You’ll be happy to know this is a CANADIAN MASTERPIECE of kidlit. Five children discover a secret world inhabited by weird creatures under their house.

A dark horse option – the wistful and sometimes downright eerie Green Knowe Chronicles by Lucy Boston. These are perhaps a little slower-moving than your son and his friend are probably used to. They’ve got kind of a weird gothic vibe going on, a family manor inhabited by the ghosts of children who used to live there back in Ye Historical Times. Very, very English.

Darn it, I can’t remember the name of this book, but I’ll describe it here in case another Doper knows the name. An American family moves into an old haunted castle (possibly the father is on sabbatical in England or something?) and encounters the castle ghost. With sort of a “Ransom of Red Chief” twist, the American kids are obnoxious and not at all afraid of the ghost, but eventually befriend him. It’s a hoot.

13

Diane Duane’s Young Wizards series:

So You Want to Be a Wizard
Deep Wizardry
High Wizardry
A Wizard Abroad
The Wizard’s Dilemma
A Wizarrd Alone
The Wizard’s Holiday
Wizards at War

Others by Diana Wynne Jones (there are even more than this, but these are the first ones that come to mind):

I’d suggest the Chronicles of Chrestomanci series along with Howl’s Moving Castle, Castle in the Air, The Dark Lord of Derkholm and The Year of the Griffin

14

The newest one (Wizards at War - it’s not been released yet, but I got an advance copy at a conference this summer, so it’s close - is much better than the more recent ones have been.
Oh, and for the girl as well, just about anything by Tamora Pierce. Your son might enjoy the Circle of Magic and The Circle Opens series, but her series’ set in Tortall tend to be a little girlier, although he might still enjoy them.

Her books are listed here and there’s also a listing she has of books for boys.

15

I second Brian Jacques’ Redwall series - I started reading them in 5th grade, shortly after the first one came out, and my grandmother still buys me each one in hardback as it comes out. Read them in the order in which they were written – start with Redwall, then go to Mossflower, even though (on mine, at least) it says on Mossflower’s cover that it’s a prequel to Redwall. I love those books, and I think they’re just about perfect for an 11-year-old.

These might be a little advanced, but I loved anything by Ann Rinaldi – Time Enough for Drums, The Last Silk Dress, etc. – they’re historical fiction, probably girl-oriented.

I can’t remember how old I was when I started reading them, but I liked the Nancy Drew series.

From Glory’s list:
I loooooove the Anne of Green Gables series. I just finished re-reading it again, as I do at least once a year. I admit, though, that I start on book 3, when Anne doesn’t do all that embarassing stuff anymore. I just love those books – they’re like old friends.

I also like The Westing Game and The Phantom Tollbooth a lot. And one that reminds me in spirit of the latter is Haroun and the Sea of Stories, by Salman Rushdie (it can be read at 2 levels – one that is light and appropriate for kids, and one that is darker if you know Rushdie’s life story).

Strawberry Girl and Island of the Blue Dolphins are great, too, but I liked The Witch of Blackbird Pond even better.

Gosh, there were so many! I’ll have to ask my mom to read me off the titles – they’re still at my childhood home.

16

There’s also the Bartimaeus books, by Jonathan Stroud. The first two are “The Amulet of Samarkand” and “The Golem’s Eye” (IMO, the first one is better than the second, but they’re both good), and a third, “Ptolemy’s Gate,” is due out soon.

It’s a different take on the “young wizard” stories, but the 5,000-year-old djinn Bartimaeus (whom the boy manages to summon even though it should be impossible) is definitely the interesting half of the duo. Smart, wisecracking, caustic, and always testing his boundaries (the footnotes alone are worth the read!) he really makes the books shine.

17

I liked the second more than the first, but I agree on the recommendation. Fun books.
Diana Wynne Jones is spectacular and doesn’t get nearly the recognition she deserves.

For very light reading, The Princess Diaries are fun. I don’t know how many books are in the series. Better than the movie.

Walter Farley’s Black Stallion books were some of my favorites as a child, and this is one of those times when the movie captures the essentials of the book in a gorgeous way.

Joan Aiken’s The Wolves of Willoughby Chase was a book that I took out of the library about 12,845 times. There are sequels that I’ve never read.

The Garth Nix series is spectacular, but it might be frightening for some kids. The first book, Sabriel, is one of the best books I’ve ever read, but it gave me nightmares. Cree. Pee.

Pullman’s books are more advanced than anything else in this thread. I don’t know if I would have appreciated them at 11-12.

And I’m drawing a blank on another series. There’s an author who is routinely under attack by right wingers because her books depict a young girl who lives with her father and older brother and whose life is approached in a fairly realistic way. She notices that the other girls are starting to develop breasts, for example, or asks her father about sex. I’ve only read one of the books, but I think they’d be a great read for a girl of a similar age, if someone can provide the name. I read one because I saw that it was leading a banned books list and I wanted to see what the fuss was all about.

18

Question. I’ve read recommendations of Garth Nix in these threads before so I took one of his newer books out of the library. Mister Monday was the book and it was the start of a new series.

I didn’t like it at all. Then again all the posts mention the series starting with Sabriel.

So I’m wondering - is the new series very different from Nix’s older stuff, or it it pretty consistant with his older stuff and Nix is just not for me?

19

You’re referring to the Alice series, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. I started reading them because they were on the banned books list as well, and I plan to read the whole series. I just got done with the newest one, and it has a part in it where a friend of Alice’s gives a guy a hand job! This stuff is not given in any detail, but the mere mention of it is pretty amazing. BTW, I would let my fourteen year old read these if she wanted to.

20

I liked John Christopher’s Tripods series when I was a kid.