# Youth Fiction Recommendations? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 2, 2005, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youth-fiction-recommendations/315323 "2005-08-02T16:59:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2005, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youth-fiction-recommendations/315323/21 "2005-08-03T13:47:21Z")
> [@delphica](#): > > 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. Sounds like _The Canterville Ghost_ by **Oscar Wilde**. I believe there’s also a more recent ‘childrens’ version available by **Susannah Davidson** I used to love The Borrowers books by **Mary Norton** - may not have aged well, though, as they’re set in the 1950s English countryside… More recently, _The Various_ by **Steve Augarde** was good. A young girl has to spend her holidays with her uncle on his farm and encounters various fey beings… If you like **Alan Garner** ’s books then you’ll quite likely like this one. ---
**Author:** ![Lissla\_Lissar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lissla\_Lissar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissla_Lissar)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2005, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youth-fiction-recommendations/315323/22 "2005-08-03T14:37:47Z")
I haven’t read Garth Nix’s _Keys to the Kingdom_ series, only the _Old Kingdom_ trilogy, but a friend of mine has read both. She says the _Keys_ series is geared towards a much younger audience. Read _Sabriel_, which is dark fantasy, and if you find you like it, rejoice that it’s the beginning of a trilogy. Honestly, I haven’t given it to anyone who doesn’t like it. Cynthia Voigt’s Tillerman Family series is good- _Homecoming_, _Dicey’s Song_, _Seventeen Against the Dealer_, _A Solitary Blue_, _Sons From Afar_. Some of them are more for girls, some for boys. They’re not fantasy- I think they take place in the 70’s or early 80’s in America. Excellent books, although not fantasy. I read them at 11 or 12. John Bellairs is excellent, and still frigging scares the pants off me. But I’m a wimp. _The Spell of the Sorcerer’s Skull_, _Lamp from the Warlock’s Tomb_, _The Curse of the Blue Figurine_. Robin McKinley’s _Beauty_, a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, is lovely and very suitable for the 11-14 age group. In a couple of years give them _The Blue Sword_ and _The Hero and the Crown_, too. I think they’re all being reprinted by Firebird Press, which is…um… part of HarperCollins, I think. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2005, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youth-fiction-recommendations/315323/23 "2005-08-03T17:38:09Z")
> [@GingerOfTheNorth](#): > > Diana Wynne Jones - Fire and Hemlock As others here have pointed out, Diana Wynne Jones has written many good books. _Fire and Hemlock_ is one of her most serious and somber, so it might not be a good one to start with; it’s also maybe more of a girl book. Her _Chronicles of Chestomanci_ are probably closest to Harry Potter; and _Howl’s Moving Castle_ has the advantage that there’s a recent movie of it. > [@delphica](#): > > 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. These are all good, but there are differences between them. Some tell a single story; others are more episodic and the main storyline is mostly a frame within which stories from earlier times are told. Some have ghosts and other fantastic elements; at least one (_A Stranger at Green Knowe_) does not. So I can imagine a kid possibly liking some of these but not others. I tried reading Garth Nix’s _Sabriel_ not too long ago, and I just _could not_ get into it. Enough people, here and elsewhere, have praised it that I might give it another try. But when a fantasy book starts with a Prologue, in which I don’t know who anyone is or what’s going on, and then shifts to a Chapter One with a completely different setting and characters but I still don’t know who anyone is or what’s going on there either, that strikes me as bad storytelling. ---
**Author:** ![UrbanChic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/9dc877/32.png) [@UrbanChic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UrbanChic)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2005, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youth-fiction-recommendations/315323/24 "2005-08-03T17:54:24Z")
My ten year old son enjoyed Carl Hiaasen’s _[Hoot](http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=aF8LBzLAjF&isbn=0375829164&itm=1)_ so much he’s looking forward to _[Flush](http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=aF8LBzLAjF&isbn=0375821821&itm=1)_. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2005, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youth-fiction-recommendations/315323/25 "2005-08-03T17:59:34Z")
> [@Dung Beetle](#): > > 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. The one I read didn’t go as far as the one you read, but I really appreciated the tone the book had, that Alice was normal for noticing that she was growing up, and that her relationship with her father allowed her to ask about some touchy things. Thanks for figuring out what books I meant! ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2005, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youth-fiction-recommendations/315323/26 "2005-08-03T18:29:01Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Thanks for figuring out what books I meant! Thanks for asking a question I know the answer to! I think that’s the first time that’s happened around here. ---
**Author:** ![Spudo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@Spudo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spudo)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2005, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youth-fiction-recommendations/315323/27 "2005-08-03T18:34:24Z")
Terry Pratchett also has a book called The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents, that’s aimed at the same age group as The Wee Free Men and Hat Full of Sky. ---
**Author:** ![SusanStoHelit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ab992/32.png) [@SusanStoHelit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SusanStoHelit)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2005, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youth-fiction-recommendations/315323/28 "2005-08-03T19:03:55Z")
> [@delphica](#): > > 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. Patricia Wrede also wrote the Enchanted Forest series, starting with _Dealing with Dragons_. They are great pre-teen/teen reading about a princess who gets kidnapped by a very cultured dragon, and decides that she likes it so much that she refuses to get rescued. ---
**Author:** ![Lisa-go-Blind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Lisa-go-Blind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lisa-go-Blind)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2005, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youth-fiction-recommendations/315323/29 "2005-08-03T19:48:34Z")
No one’s mentioned **A Series of Unfortunate Events**? 11 years olds can handle it, though they’ll miss out on a lot of the fun touches for older readers (references, parodies, puns). The books still read well as an adventure story, espeically if the kids are bookwormish types. And I second/third/whatever Ellen Raskin, an amazing writer. **The Westing Game** is a masterpiece, but **The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel)** was terrific, and I also liked **Figgs and Phantoms** (which looks like it might be out of print!). ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2005, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youth-fiction-recommendations/315323/30 "2005-08-03T20:41:53Z")
> [@Meurglys](#): > > Sounds like _The Canterville Ghost_ by **Oscar Wilde**. > I believe there’s also a more recent ‘childrens’ version available by **Susannah Davidson** YES! It was a spin on Wilde’s Canterville Ghost (naturally, previous to posting last night, I spent about 20 minutes googling “Canterbury Ghost” to no avail), but it was definitely set in modern times. The version I remember from childhood doesn’t seem quite like Davidson’s, but there appear to be a few other retellings out there as well. Thanks for the good info! ---
**Author:** ![GingerOfTheNorth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/cdc98d/32.png) [@GingerOfTheNorth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GingerOfTheNorth)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2005, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youth-fiction-recommendations/315323/31 "2005-08-03T23:35:21Z")
I just thought I’d let you all know how much the girl’s mom appreciates this! ---
**Author:** ![gfloyd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d2c977/32.png) [@gfloyd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gfloyd)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2005, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youth-fiction-recommendations/315323/32 "2005-08-04T07:35:51Z")
I read The Borrows when I was about that age and that was less than a decade ago. I loved them. I liked The Littles too. I couldn’t get enough of the idea of miniture people. I also read a lot of Heilein at that age, both what are now considered young adult novels and his adult ones. If the kids are into fantasy, I’d recomend all of Tamora Pierce’s books. There are five different quartets and another pair of books, set in two different, unrelated worlds, but both are very good. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/youth-fiction-recommendations/315323.md?page=1)