Comments | hahawhat: young adults

hahawhat

young adults

Feb 23, 2008 03:39

I never read young adult novels, but I think I'm going to start. I was always busy trying to be really a big intellectual, reading John Ashbery at like 14 because I heard him read a poem on NPR (what? As if I could understand one goddamn stanza back then? I could hardly handle putting in a tampon). When I was 9, I took a titanic leather bound ( Read more... )

Comments 29

laugh_life_away February 23 2008, 09:33:18 UTC

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret was pretty much my favorite book ever when I was nine or ten. But then again I liked Goosebumps (especially the ones where you could choose your own ending) and Summer Sisters. I probably shouldn't have just admitted that.

hahawhat February 23 2008, 09:40:11 UTC

Hahaha, Goosebumps. Oh man. I think my intellectual superiority complex really blossomed when I was reading Poe just to be MORE SOPHISTICATED than my peers. You take power where you can get it, I suppose, hahahaha.

Summer Sisters! WHAT IS THAT IM LOOKING IT UP RIGHT NOW

churchofmanlove February 23 2008, 09:38:20 UTC

I remember I really liked "Holes", that one that got made into a shitty movie with Mr. Labeouf whatchamacallit. I actually re-read it a few years ago and it was still a good read. Um, hum, Robert Cormier might be a good bet, I'm not sure which of his books I actually read but my mom, a children's/ YA librarian was all about him. I was waaay into those Gary Paulsen books, "Hatchet" and "Brian's Winter" and what not. And I don't know if it really counts, but I read like 15 of those Redwall books by Brian Jacques. That man knows how to pump them out. Oh, and S.E. Hinton! Though I didn't really start reading those until well into high school.

Dude, I LOVED Francesca Lia Block. No one else I knew read her books so I thought I had, like, discovered them. I made it my life goal at age 14 to make a movie out of "Weetzie Bat." So much for that one. And, finally, I think "Forever" may have scarred me for life.

hahawhat February 23 2008, 09:50:06 UTC

That is the coolest job in the world, your mom has. Damn ( ... )

churchofmanlove February 23 2008, 10:01:41 UTC

Oh man, we TOTALLY would have been mad enemies (frenemies?) back in tha day!

hahawhat February 23 2008, 10:08:13 UTC

Ahaha, were you that kind of nerd? One of their big things was to make plans to launch a full-scale attack on the boys below us. I also tried to hang out with some of them after school, but their parents always wanted really STRUCTURED and PLANNED FOR "playdates" (unheard of in my world), and they did things like have "family board game night" and made beds with pastel-painted rooms.

I am such an asshole about nerds. Even now, when I do asst. teaching for art classes, it is all I can do to keep from grabbing them by their shirts and yelling, "GET IT TOGETHER. WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM." I especially hate the ones who kiss my ass, they are always super bummed out on me when I'm like, "Do you think I care what Jose said? Mind your business."

I STRONGLY doubt you were ever this kind of nerd. They don't grow up to be people like you. Srsly.

Thread 8

gannet_guts February 23 2008, 09:59:20 UTC

I really loved books like The Secret Garden and Little Women. The Neverending Story was another fave. Oh and was obsessed with Little House on the Prairie. Hah and er ... Sweet Valley books.

Some people don't really like him, but I always had a soft spot for John Marsden (and Margaret Clark!). The earlier stuff they wrote was really honest and they didn't talk down to their readers.

Man, this is making me all nostalgic now! I just did a class on Youth and Children's writing and now I wanna read more!

tiffleigh February 23 2008, 13:36:41 UTC

There's an amazing amount of talented stuff out there being written, so your intro to YA is coming at an opportune time.

Lots of it right now is genre-based -- the stuff you hear about that becomes overnight sensations or NYT bestsellers -- and I don't mean the mediocre scourge that is Harry Potter (which skews younger on the YA scale and, sorry, AIN'T Roald Dahl).

Dark urban fantasy is all the rage -- magic, and faery, and vampires especially. But that either gets people pumped or turns them running the other way. Francesca Lia Block is DELICIOUS and Weetzie Bat is one of my favorite series.

Other popular stuff out there I liked includes Holly Black and Tara Bray Smith (urban fantasy), and William Sleator (House of Stairs). There's also Edward Bloor (Crusader), and Scott Westerfield (Pretties, Uglies, MidnightersAnother fortunate circumstance is that topics now being covered and/or the writers covering them, are in other spheres of experience that aren't necessarily white, or straight. The GLBT arena's a genre unto itself ( ... )

tiffleigh February 23 2008, 16:15:17 UTC

Some more authors -- a bit more "classic" stuff since most of the stuff I already mentioned is fairly recent:

Bertrand Brinley -- a series called The Mad Scientist's Club. Had that Encyclopedia Brown vibe to them, but these stories are a lot more adventurous. A group of kids hanging out and getting into all sorts of shenanigans, usually of their own design. They design a sub to create a Nessie-type monster in their local lake; they try to find treasure allegedly sealed in a historic cannon in the park. They're all brainy and make or use all sorts of gadgets like DIY walkies or ham radios. Has a nostalgic bent too. Great great reads.

Robert Cormier -- this may have been on your radar, but Fade, The Chocolate War, and After The First Death are both pretty outstanding, and make more sense at any age or re-read;

Stephen Gould -- Yeah, Jumper's a mediocre bland-fest of a movie now but the actual book upon which its based has much more gravity and teeth and character. There's a sequel to Jumper called Reflex. The book has ( ... )

skopparakringla February 23 2008, 15:42:27 UTC

Ah, jeez. This is going to be long winded but hopefully helpful.

My mom specifically forbade me from reading the Goosebumps and Animorphs and Babysitter's Club series, you know, so I was kind of impoverished when it came to stuff that 'everyone likes.' I did read a shit ton of other stuff though. I loved Rudyard Kipling and the Little House on the Prairie series and the Boxcar Children I was a really huge Scott O'Dell nerd for awhile, and then I discovered Jim Kjelgaard, who basically wrote Jack London (I loved Jack London) for teens, and I read all his books in which a fox or an Irish setter were protagonists, but if you don't like outdoorsy stuff you'll pretty much hate it. One outdoorsy book I have to recommend though is The Island Keeper, which is about this fat spoiled rich girl who is frustrated with her family so she strands herself on an island that her family owns and has to survive the winter there ( ... )

con'td skopparakringla February 23 2008, 15:42:44 UTC

young adult 'lit':
Chronicles of Narnia: OK, don't let anyone bias these for you. They are awesome. Also, skimming over what you're already planning to read, you might like Lewis' (not YA) Till We Have Faces, a retelling of the Psyche myth.
The Jungle Book I & II: the Mowgli stories are good, but the other stories are amazing. Sample it here.

general:
Who Ran My Underwear Up the Flagpole?: Jerry Spinelli; great story of four close friends and their middle school adventures, ex. having a fondue party and dipping salami in the chocolate and how they deal when one gets depressed and cuts all his hair off - definitely brings me right back to middle school.
There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom: Louis Sachar; a troubled boy meets regularly with a counselor to work through his problems, etc. very funny.
Good-bye, Pink Pig: a girl with no friends trying to escape the harsh realities of her life invents a secret world populated by her collection of miniatures, which come to life. then she loses one and everything falls apart.
My Darling, My ( ... )