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Must read books for adolescents?

J

Jimin

pfm Member
Hi all

I'm compiling a Christmas book buying list for my girls - aged 13 and 15. Both avid readers. I usually do a trawl of the charity shops to see what turns up, but I want to be more specific this year.

I'd be grateful for suggestions of books that have been significant for Fishies. Here are a few that I'm aiming to order now, that have significance for me:

Something wicked this way comes - Ray Bradbury
The colour of magic - Terry Pratchett
The curious incident of the dog in the night-time - Mark Haddon
Siddhartha - Herman Hesse

I'd be interested to hear ideas. Thanks!
 
The eldest loves Catch 22, as do I. The youngest loves HHG, as do I! The Dice Man - interesting!
 
My side of the Mountain - Jean George
The Once and Future King - TH White
Cannery Row - John Steinbeck
His Dark Materials all books - Phillip Pullman
 
Cannery Row, yes! It's on the shelf already. Pullman too, by gum. The other two, I'll look at, thanks!
 
My daughter, now 22, loved the folowing at that age:
Earthsea Cycle, by Ursula K. Le Guin
Eragon, by Christopher Paolini
The knife of never letting go, by Patrick Ness
Peter Pan in Scarlet, by Geraldine McCaughrean
Also the original Sherlock stories
 
Jean Rhys ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’

Ray Bradbury ‘Fahrenheit 451’

Ian Fleming ‘Casino Royale’

This is the sort of thing I will be pushing towards my G-Daughters soon. (both 10 yrs old) They are avid readers and have just about done all of the Harry Potter books, and are ready to be challenged.

We will feed them classics as we can.

- both girls have loved having a decent dictionary.
 
+ 1 for His Dark Materials by Pullman. My daughter (from around age 14) seemingly liked anything by Cassandra Clare.
 
Off the top of my head, these are ones my girls enjoyed at similar ages:

Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists - Robert Tressell
The Ocean at the End of the Lane - Neil Gaiman
 
Though both are avid readers my two daughters have, and have always had, very different tastes in books. The older one preferred 'literary' books, and books that were challenging in terms of the concepts they covered. The younger one preferred more 'escapist' fiction.

So, from memory, their favourites at that sort of age were:

Older daughter:

Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney
The Rotters Club by Jonathan Coe
Middlemarch by George Eliot
Atonement by Ian McEwan


Younger daughter:

The Little House on the Prairie (and its sequels) by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Princess Diaries (and its sequels) by Meg Cabot
The Dive From Clausen's Pier by Ann Packer
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

My own tastes at that age were mainly in the science fiction area; my particular favourite being The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick, and the 'Foundation' novels of Isaac Asimov. Then at 15 or so I discovered Sartre, and it was all downhill from there.
 
droodzilla said:
Catcher in the Rye
Earthsea Trilogy
Animal Farm (and 1984)
Lord of the Flies
Click to expand...

Great books but pretty heavy, would they not do some if those at school in English?

I guess it depends what the kids like , I read a lot of Dean R Koontz as a teen and of course the LOTR trilogy
 
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