Let's Talk About Y.A. Tittle, Um, I Mean YA Novels

what am I leaving out? who's read any of these?

never read any Aiken, Scott, I don't think. Those Great Brain books fetched a pretty fake penny at our book auctions every week in 5th grade; me and Tim P. loveded them things.

Me too! I don't really remember them except that the protagonist was always a misunderstood kid (new in town, new in school, whatever) who was eventually and improbably redeemed on the field of play.

For Young Adult Fantasy, I like:

1. His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman
2. Sabriel, Lirael and Abhorsen (3 separate books) by Garth Nix (a tale about a female necromancer and other special people. really fantastic.)
3. Abarat by Clive Barker (all the artwork in here, by Barker himself, is super and really helps you imagine the fantasy word that the main character sails to.)
4. The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer (boy, who is a clone, down in mexico. more sci-fi than fantasy.)
5. Stardust Neil Gaiman (star falls from sky (and hurts her ankle) and boy goes out to get her. more like a fairy tale than anything else.)

For misc. Young Adult:

1. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson (a girl stops talking because something bad happened to her. very sad.)
2. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous (you have to read it to believe it.)
3. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky (teen boy is a wallflower.)
4. I Am the Cheese by Robert Cormier (boy rides his bike to see his father in Vermont... or does he?)
5. Monster by Water Dean Myers (african american boy on trial for murder.)
6. A Step from Heaven by An Na (Good book about Korean immegrants)

And my current #1 selection is:

The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud (first in the Bartimaeus Trilogy, still in hardcover. i thought this book is way more original and funny than the HP series.)

she scratched herself to bits, thinking that there were bugs in her skin after she had been "dosed" by the bad drug crowd (while babysitting for a neighbor!).
jesus. that book is really something else.

Ellen Conford! Uh, I have forgotten titles, but they were good.

And now's the time to mention Encyclopedia Brown.

yes! and the sequel to the cat ate my gymsuit. what was it called? the main character lost a ton of weight and became a counselor at the camp her hippie former english teacher started. i think her distant, verbally abusive father even mellowed out a bit.

I should go reread it, cause it's set in Woodstock, and I think I'm going there this spring.

The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
From the Mixed-up files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, and Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth, E.L. Konigsberg
The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster
James and the Giant Peach, The BFG, and The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More, Roald Dahl
Down a Dark Hall, Lois Duncan
The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Elizabeth George Speare
My Side of the Mountain, Jean Craighead George
The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis
The Dark is Rising, Susan Cooper

So many more...

Also, "An Old-Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott"--nowhere near as famous as Little Women but a better book IMO. About a country girl's interaction with a wealthy city family and how she changes their lives throughout childhood and young adulthood.

Another favorite-- "Say Goodnight, Gracie" by Julie Reece Deaver (sister of fantabulous mystery author Jeffery Deaver)--sad book about boy and girl who are best friends and the girl's utter grief after his sudden death. This was pubbed in the mid 80s--not sure if it's still in print.

Great new (last couple years) girly, coming-of-age YA:
Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty
Sarah Dessen's novels (all of them)
The True Meaning of Cleavage by Mariah Fredericks
Confessions of a Drama Queen by Dyan Sheldon
Millicent Min, Girl Genius by Lisa Yee

It was so sweet.

Ones I have fond memories of:
Caroline Stevermer - River Rats (post-apocalyptic kids on a Mississippi paddle boat)

John Bellairs - The House With A Clock In Its Walls (Edward Gorey illustrations)

There are a few Christopher Pike ones (sadly) - one where a girl and her friends are the onky people left on Earth, she's pregnant/having an abortion

and let's not forget Zilpha Keatley Snyder, esp. the one where the kid grows wings and then has to hide them from everyone. what a great metaphor for burgeoning sexuality--and yet when I read this as a kid I was just like "dude! wings would rock!"

Lots of my favorites have already been listed up-thread, so I'll try not to repeat them ...
The House at World's End by Monica Dickens (and the rest of that series)
The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge
Good Night, Mr. Tom by Michelle Magorian (this is the one book that I think everyone should read)
The White Witch of Kynance by ...?
Heinlein's Y.A. books (Red Planet, Have Spacesuit, Will Travel etc.)
Wrinkle in Time and the rest of L'Engle's stories about the Murrays ... and the Austin family series through when they hook-up/intermix with the Murrays and everything gets all convoluted.
The Little House on the Prarie original books (not all the stuff that's been published after The Happy Golden Years)
Beware the Fish!, etc. by Gordon Korman
The Bobsey Twins mysteries
Yay for The Phantom Tollbooth and From the Mixed-Up Files ... and Anne of Green Gables and The Bridge to Terebithia. And all of the other books, too. What memories!

I have an addition to make - Forever by Judy Blume. I named my guppies David and Kathrine - and then Kathrine ate David and I became disillusioned.

You totaly suck. lets go girls

No, but seriously, Loise Rennison is a fucking genius, she makes Georgia seem so NORMAL -- I think it's clear that underneath the hilarity is someone who's going to be a very cool adult. Granted it's all kind of cartoon-ish and not that gritty realist YA stuff, which I mostly dislike.

Seriously, everyone, seek out The Teddy Bear Habit and Rich and Famous. Georgie Stable is one of my favorite narrative voices.

Taking a grad course on queerness and disability in children's/YA lit. I've remained proudly ignorant of YA fiction ever since the whole Twilight/Hunger Games deluge, so it's nice to see that there are other things going on in the genre (even if some of these might be older texts). Anyway, here's what we're covering:

JUNIOR READER BOOKS:
Susan Coolidge, What Katy Did
Marguerite De Angeli, The Door in the Wall
Brian Francis, Fruit
Astrid Lindgren, Pippi Longstocking
R.J. Palacio, Wonder
Rodman Philbrick, Freak the Mighty
Bill Richardson, After Hamelin

Y/A BOOKS:
Catherine Atkins, Alt. Ed
Beth Goobie, Hello Groin
Julie Halpern, Get Well Soon
Brett Hartinger, The Order of the Poison Oak
Terry Hesser, Kissing Doorknobs
Ron Koertge, Stoner and Spaz
Susan Nussbaum, Good Kings Bad Kings
Francisco X. Stork, Marcelo in the Real World

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/13/gene-kemp-obituary

I didn't know Gene Kemp had died in January. RIP; I loved Tyke Tiler for reasons the obituary dwells on (though I think it would be a good book apart from that, despite the article's assertion that it "hinges" on this one point), read as much of her other work as the local library stocked, remember getting in trouble for reading a little-too-adult one from the young adult section when I was 11...

(no particular adult scenes but the protagonist says something about his girlfriend on the first page that got me banned from the YA end of the children's section for a few months. I was pretty annoyed at the time as it seemed innocuous but iirc the ending is depressing and I didn't really understand it age 11, so yeah, I probably shouldn't have been reading it.)