Top 10 Favorite Books Before Age 18

[rose_onlyolder]

We all have to pay the bills. And to pay mine, I currently work as a residential counselor in a school for teenage girls with behavioral disorders. It’s a tough job for many reasons, but one of my biggest pet peeves about it has nothing to do with the work. As you might imagine if you now work, or have worked with this age group, I spend a lot of

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[rose_onlyolder]

1. Calico Captive, Elizabeth George Speare
2. The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster
3. Summer Sisters, Judy Blume
4. The Harry Potter Series, J.K.Rowling
5. His Dark Materials Trilogy, Philip Pullman
6. A Ring of Endless Light, Madeleine L'Engle
7. Walk Two Moons, Sharon Creech
8. Violet and Claire, Francesca Lia Block
9. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky
10. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith

I'm sure I'm forgetting some important ones, but those are the first that came to my mind today.

Cheers.

[rose_onlyolder]

Dear God I forgot anything and everything by Roald Dahl!

[kiwiria]

Lovely idea for a meme! I'm going to try to limit mine to English books (or books that have been translated into English anyway), as it's always more fun whe others actually know the books :D

This is in no particular order though. A Top 10 I can make - not a top 10 graded ;) And for the reference, I turned 18 in 1997.
1) Anne of Green Gables Series - L.M. Montgomery
2) The Blue Castle - L.M. Montgomery
3) Alanna Quartet - Tamora Pierce
4) Harper's Hall Trilogy - Anne McCaffrey
5) Clan of the Cave Bears - Jean M. Auel
6) Narnia - C.S. Lewis
7) Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
8) Rocco - Sherryl Jordan
9) Little House Series - Laura Ingalls Wilder
10) If Tomorrow Comes - Sidney Sheldon

[elanor_x]

1."The Three Musketeers" & "The Count of Monte Cristo" by Alexandre Dumas
2. Montgomery's Anne Shirley and Emily series
3. "The Invisible Man" and other SF works by H.G. Wells
4. Short stories by O Henry
5. Ernest Thompson Seton's stories about animals
6. Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series
7. "Dracula" by Bram Stoker
8. "The Thorn Birds" by Colleen McCullough
9. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by Harriet Beecher Stowe
10. Jack London - "The Call of the Wild", "White Fang" about animals and short stories

The following was read after 18, but would suit both me at that age and many of those girls:

Terry Pratchett's books, especially ones about witches ("Witches Abroad", "Lords and Ladies", "Maskerade" [parody of The Phantom of the Opera] etc.) and about Night Watch (Thud! - my favorite)

I would start them on "CARPE JUGULUM" a funny book ABOUT VAMPIRES (and witches trying to fight them)!!!

"The Princess Bride" by William Goldman (!!!)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith
Roald Dahl's short stories

[rose_onlyolder]

I forgot Princess Bride!!! Yes. This!

[kallaneboi]

I'm 22 now, so 18 wasn't that long ago for me, and I still read a lot of those books. So, in no particular order

[odette_river]

ANIMORPHS. YES.

[kallaneboi]

Weren't they just MADE OF AWESOME?

[odette_river]

YES.

[odette_river]

I'm 20, so I'm still basically reading the same stuff I read when I was 18. Here are the lists of what I read when I was 17/18 and 18/19. Also, here's a list of what I read now.

Going back in time, I read a lot of Animorphs from about age nine to age thirteen, took a hiatus, and then came back to them around age sixteen or seventeen. I also read a lot of Tamora Pierce, Philip Pullman, Garth Nix, and Diane Duane.

Some series I'd recommend right now are the Princess Diaries series by Meg Cabot and Ally Carter's Gallagher Girls series. Also, The Hunger Games series is quite good. My YA librarian says The Hunger Games is the best book she read in 2009.

[kallaneboi]

I'd forgotten about Garth Nix. I picked him up in junior high. Seconding his name.

[subitoburrito]

At age 21, I feel the same way that you do. My teen years ended so recently! It's a bit strange to look back and realize that I still enjoy many of the same novels.