As a middle grades (MG) and young adult (YA) writer, I read a lot of MG/YA books, both new and old. Unfortunately, there are many inappropriate children’s books out there.
Publishing houses continually push the envelope of acceptability in children’s books, billing the material in middle grade and young adult books as “edgy”. Neglect, abandonment, addiction, homosexuality, and promiscuity are depicted as the norm, making these books confusing, disturbing, and depressing to read. Another trend I’ve noticed is the tendency to depict men as unnecessary, worthless, or bad.
Below is a list of books that I recommend for middle grades and young adult readers. The list is incomplete and contains more “girl” books than “boy” books, but it will give you a start, and I will continue to add to the list.
Fantasy
Amelia Atwater-Rhodes- Hawksong – fantastical tale of the leaders of two diverse peoples trying to overcome their differences to end a multi-generational war. The war violence is handled in terms of loss and sorrow. An enjoyable, if not entirely satisfying read. The sequel, Snakecharm, is unconvincingly told from the point of view of the rival leader and is not as good a read as the first book. Other Atwater-Rhodes books tend toward vampires, witches, etc. Author website: Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
Marianne Curley – The Guardians of Time series: 1) The Named, 2) The Dark, and 3) The Key – Time travel. Present-day teens become agents in a secret society charged with safeguarding the past to prevent another secret, evil society from messing it up and changing the present. While the families of the main characters are not ideal, they are caring. Author info: Marianne Curley
Jane Louise Curry - Dark Shade - mystery, suspense, time travel. Estranged through their middle and early high school years, cousins Maggie Gilmour and Kip Maclean find themselves visitors to the past - the pre-revolutionary war past - in between their summer American Lit tutoring classes. Unbeknownst to Kip, Maggie follows him through the Pennsylvania woods and stumbles onto his secret: a window to another time. Where Kip gladly goes and plans to stay, Maggie follows reluctantly. She worries that her presence in the past will mess up her present. But then it becomes very important to bring Kip home.
Dark Shade twines a story of overcoming uncertainty to find oneself and of compassion for others with a painless glimpse of an obscure event in American History.
Madeleine L’Engle - A Wrinkle in Time, An Acceptable Time – thought provoking time travel stories with female protagonists. L’Engle received the 1963 Newberry Medal for Outstanding Children’s Literature for A Wrinkle in Time, and has earned numerous other honors over the years. Author website: Madeleine L'Engle
Stephenie Meyer – Twilight and New Moon – Seventeen-year old Bella moves to a small Pacific-Northwest town to live with her dad when her mom remarries. Almost immediately, she falls in love with a vampire. Vampires and werewolves are not my favorite subject matter, but these books are hard to put down. Author website: Stephenie Meyer
Tamora Pierce - Song of the Lioness Quartet – 1) Alanna: The First Adventure, 2) In the Hand of the Goddess, 3) The Woman Who Rides Like a Man, 4) Lioness Rampant. Strong female adventurer. At age 11, Alanna rejects the restrictive female role of her (fantasy) middle-ages society. She pretends to be a boy and trains to be a royal page. Her abilities and determination are such that, even after discovery, she continues in her chosen role. She grows as a woman and a crusader against evil throughout the series. Author website: Tamora Pierce
Patrica C. Wrede - The Enchanted Forest Chronicles – 1) Dealing with Dragons, 2) Searching for Dragons, 3) Calling on Dragons, 4) Talking to Dragons. Princess Cimorene isn’t suited to palace life. She’s much too intelligent. So, on the advice of a talking frog, she runs away – straight into a den of dragons. Wrede has created strong, resourceful, humorous female characters who still maintain their feminine identities through a series of adventures and misadventures. Pure fun. Just go ahead and get all four. Author information: Patricia C. Wrede
Mystery/Adventure
Anthony Horowitz - The Alex Rider Series – in Stormbreaker, the first of this series, 14-year old Alex is blackmailed into working for an undercover agency after the death of the uncle who has raised him since infancy. This fast-paced adventure series continues with Point Blanc, Skeleton Key, Eagle Strike, Scorpia, and Ark Angel. The first four books left me gasping for breath; I haven’t gotten around to the last two yet. Author website: Anthony Horowitz
Frank E. Peretti - The Hangman’s Curse and Nightmare Academy – Teens Elijah and Elisha Springfield are members of a family of undercover investigators. Drawing on their intelligence, faith, and courage, the brother/sister duo solve mysteries made bizarre by natural and man-made science. The Hangman’s Curse aired as a made-for-TV movie in 2003, but the book is much better. Peretti also has many good reads for adults. Author website: Frank Peretti
Paul Zindel – Loch – danger, suspense – 15-year old Loch helps his father and sister search a Vermont lake for a mysterious sea creature. We got the recorded version and listened to it during our vacation drive. If we hadn’t finished the book before we reached our destination, we would have kept on driving until we did. Author website: Paul Zindel
Historical Fiction
Patricia Beatty – Jayhawker – before the Civil War started, battles were already taking place between Missouri, a slave state, and Kansas, a free state. Lije Tulley’s father is a Jayhawker, one of the people who helps smuggle slaves out of Missouri. When Missouri raiders kill his father and burn his home, Lije sets out to hunt the raiders down. Author information: Patricia Beatty
Karen Cushman – Catherine Called Birdy, and The Midwife’s Apprentice – tales of teen-aged girls in 13th and 14th century England, both get to the heart of life for those time periods. Cushman earned Newberry recognition for Catherine Called Birdy, her first novel, and the 1996 Newberry Medal for Outstanding Children’s Literature for The Midwife’s Apprentice.
Rodzina - American history, 1881 orphan trains. Yet another of Cushman's unlovely characters leaps from the pages of this tale of orphans rounded up from the street of Chicago and shipped west on trains in the late 19th century. Rodzina and a carful of boys and girls, infants to nearly grown, ride from western town to town while indifferent agents from the Association of Aid Societies try to farm them out to anyone who will take them. Stop after stop, Rodzina climbs back into the orphan train, heading farther west. Is there no one in this vast country willing to love large, lumpy, glowering Rodzina? Author information: Karen Cushman
Frances Mary Hendry - Quest for a Maid – Danger, high adventure, witchcraft, family relationships, and a touch of romance fill the pages of Hendry’s fictional tale that was inspired by the mysterious death of Scottish king Alexander III and disappearance of his granddaughter, the Maid of Norway. When I read this aloud to my daughters, complete with Scottish accent, even my husband couldn’t be dragged away. An excellent story well told. Author website: Frances Mary Hendry
Gail Langer Karwoski - Quake! Disaster in San Francisco, 1906 - Disaster, mutli-culturalism, family ties. His dad told him not to, but 13-year old Jacob Kaufman kept the stray dog anyway. And that's why he lost his family. In the wee hours of the morning, the restless dog woke Jacob, and Jacob took him out for a run. Minutes later, the Great San Franscisco Earthquake struck, crumbling the world around them. By the time Jacob makes his way around fallen buildings and blocked and broken streets back to his apartment building, only rubble marks the spot where it stood.
In the course of searching the grieving city for his father, sister, and uncle, Jacob and the dog rescue a Chinese boy from a collapsed building. San also has been separated from his family, so the boys comb the refugee areas together. As they look for their families, they encounter people from many different cultures. Some greet the boys with kindness and offers of help. Others view them with suspicion or even hatred. Quake! is an interesting story and a quick read that opens the door for a peek into history and several cultures. At one point, I had to stop reading and go make myself a bowl of Ramen noodles. Author website: Gail Langer Karwoski
Annie Laura Smith - The Legacy of Bletchley Park and Will Paris Burn? - World War II. Smith packs a lot of story and a lot of well researched history into these slim novels. Evacuated from London to the relative safety of her aunt's home in in the village of Bletchley, 12-year old Gretchen Seabrook finds herself working with a top-secret team of British code-breakers in The Legacy of Bletchley Park. Geared toward a slightly more mature reader, Will Paris Burn? is the tense tale of 16-year old Pierre Dumay's work with the French Resistance during the German occupancy of France. Author information: Annie Laura Smith
Mildred D. Taylor - Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry - American history, depression, civil rights. This deep and moving story of the Logan family, set in 1930's Mississippi, is told from the viewpoint of 10-year old Cassie Logan. Like other families in the area, the Logans struggle to survive in a socially and economically hostile environment. Family devotion, strict standards, and caution help them through several realistically portrayed crises; nevertheless, tragedy strikes close to home. A large cast of well developed characters demonstrate the tensions between blacks and whites, the hardships of the Great Depression, and the dubious effects of government economic policies in this 1977 Newbery Medal novel.
The sequel, Let the Circle be Unbroken, is equally enjoyable and educational. The third book in the series, Road to Memphis, is less family focused and suffers from trying to be a stand-alone book.
Growing Up
Phyllis Renolds Naylor - Shiloh - right and wrong, truth and lies, honor and respect. "What's right?" eleven-year old Marty Preston asks his dad. What if doing what's right will cause harm? Shiloh is a poignant story of true love - between a boy and a mistreated runaway beagle. Determined that he won't return the dog to its owner a second time, Marty hides the dog, builds a stack of lies, and causes trouble for his family. But Marty accepts responsibility for his actions and works - literally - off his debt, gaining self-respect in the process.
Growing Up/Humor
Tom Bodett – Norman Tuttle on the Last Frontier: a novel in stories – Bodett shows a thorough understanding of teen-age boys as he grows Norman from age 13 to 15 through a series of episodes from life on his father’s fishing boat and in his small Alaskan community. I read this aloud so that my husband could laugh, too. Author website: Tom Bodett
Louise Rennison – Confession of Georgia Nicholson series – continuous bursts of laughter rolled from my younger daughter’s room when she brought home the first book in this five part series, Angus, Thongs, and Full-frontal Snogging. She passed it to her older sister, on whom it had the same effect. I didn’t laugh quite as much, but I confess that I was impatient for my turn at the other four. British teen Georgia Nicholson records the trials and terrors of growing up in short, hilarious diary entries. Rennison includes a glossary in the back of each book to help make the British slang intelligible to Americans. I’d say these books are for girls only. The British titles seem to be different that the American titles for the subsequent four books. Author information: Louise Rennison
Contemporary Life
Watt Key – Alabama Moon – drama, survival. This is not your typical troubled kid story. For as long as he can remember, 10-year old Moon Blake has lived off the land, hiding out from the government with his father. When his father dies, sure enough, the government labels Moon "property of the state" and the constable picks him up, roughs him up, and locks him up. But living in the Alabama woods, Moon learned to hunt, trap, think, innovate, and survive. As a result, he is hard to hold, and the state has a tough time keeping Moon "in the system."
Kathe Koja – Straydog – drama, animals, community service, harsh reality. Rachel works to tame a feral dog at the animal shelter where she volunteers. This is not a fairy tale. Keep the tissues handy. Straydog won the Humane Society’s KIND Book Award in 2003 and the ASPCA’s Henry Bergh Award in 2002. Author website: Kathe Koja
Joyce McDonald – Swallowing Stones – drama, unintended consequences. 17-year old Michael MacKenzie can’t wait to try out the heirloom Winchester rifle he got for his birthday, so he heads out to his backyard and fires one shot. A few blocks away, Jenna Ward’s father is struck by the descending bullet and falls dead. A moving story of guilt and acceptance. This book was recently named the 2006 Young Adult Selection for One Book New Jersey. Author website: Joyce McDonald
Gary Paulsen - Hatchet - adventure, survival. Self-dependence comes to 13-year old Brian Robeson swiftly, unexpectedly, and unwelcomed when the small plane he is traveling in crashes in the Canadian wilderness. He is alone and injured, with a hatchet as his only tool. Written as Brian's thoughts, often incomplete and disjoint, the story takes on a personal reality.
Susan Beth Pfeffer - Life As We Knew It - Disaster, survival, family bonds. It seems like just another routine astronomical event: and asteroid making its way through space and expected to crash on the moon on Wednesday night. On the good side, 16-year old Miranda might get to see the birth of a new crater. On the bad side, all of her teachers want reports on different moon-related topics on Friday.
But the asteroid turns out to be much denser than the star geeks estimated. ". . . the moon wasn't a half moon anymore. It was tilted and wrong and a three-quarter moon and it got larger, way larger, large like a moon rising on the horizon, only it wasn't rising. It was smack in the middle of the sky, way too big, way too visible. You could see details on the craters even without the binoculars . . . It was still our moon and it was still just a big dead rock in the sky, but it wasn't benign anymore," Miranda writes in her journal the night of the impact. The event triggers cascading natural disasters. Through journal entries, Miranda chronicles her altered world and her family's struggle to survive without modern conveniences and with a dwindling supply of survival necessities. Prepare to stay up all night reading. Author's Blog: Susan Beth Pfeffer
Ghost Stories
Mary Downing Hahn – Wait till Helen Comes – blended families. A good spooky story that won too many awards to list. Author website: Mary Downing Hahn
Book List/Required Reading
S.E. Hinton – The Outsiders – drama, group rivalry. Low-income, low-expectation “Greasers” strive with privileged-yet-troubled “Socs” for territory and respect. Told from the point of view of 14-year-old Ponyboy, the story contains tragedy, violence, bloodshed, and death. It is also a compelling story of humanity written with simplicity and a genuine voice. Author website: S.E. Hinton
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