So Hailey will be starting online high school through UT next year, which is exciting and a little overwhelming and she just mentioned to me that she wished she had a summer reading list and I guess that’s the sort of thing I’m supposed to do for her now?
And technically I’m fine with that because I love making reading lists but I thought maybe it would be even better if I ask you for help. What are the books that every 14 year old should read? What are the books that changed you at that age? What are the books that your teenager loved? Leave them in the comments.
PS. We were at a bookstore yesterday and Hailey asked the owner if she had any books by the Shades of Gray lady because she’s her favorite author and the woman just sort of stared at me and I had to explain that she was talking about Between Shades of Gray (a book about Siberian prison caps during WWII) and not Fifty Shades of Grey (a book about adult spanking). These are exactly the kind of conversations I can’t wait to have when I have my own bookstore.
This may sound odd but as a young 14 year old boy, I loved sitting in front of the TV with a volume of an encyclopædia on my lap and read and learn facts.
Anything by Erik Larson, especially Devil in the White City, or Dead Wake.
When I was fourteen I discovered dystopian fiction and Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury was my introduction.
People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn?
Night by Elie Wiesel
If she hasn’t already read it, I recommend The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.
(She read it and loved it. ~ Jenny)
Maureen Johnson’s books, of course!
(She’s already read them all, I think. So good. ~ Jenny)
Ender’s Game and its first sequel.
Not a recommendation, but I think that was the year everybody was reading Flowers in the Attic.
It’s weird to think about it, but I don’t think I ever read within my age-group. Does Hailey, really?
(I’d say half and half. ~ Jenny)
I read The Once and Future King in high school…. definitely a must read at some point in your life 🙂
Good Omens, any of the Terry Pratchett Discworld series — but especially those with Tiffany Aching and the Wee Free Men, Jasper Fford’s “Tuesday Next” series, Catcher in the Rye, Diana by R.L. Delderfield, and believe it or not, some old Zane Gray or Louis L’Amour Old West novels about honor, dedication and perseverance.
The Hate U Give is great. Highly recommended.
Little Men was a favorite of mine around her age.
I had to read The Three Musketeers for a summer project in High School – and it was SO engrossing, my friends and I reading the book would call each other whenever we’d need to chuck the book across the room.
The Westing Game – Ellen Raskin
To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee
I started reading Heinlein and Asimov around this age. I would recommend Stranger in a Strange Land and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (warning, Heinlein was a bit of a sexist and his discussions of sex require some processing, but nowhere near as bad as Fifty Shades of Grey), and Asimov’s Robot Series with Elijah Bailey and R. Daneel Olivaw.
Discworld! Everything! Or more specifically, Mort, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, and Guards! Guards!
For grins and giggles, I’d go with Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. It was both terrifying and hilarious at the same time. If you’re looking for more serious content, Fahrenheit 451 and Animal Farm.
If you aren’t familiar with Rainbow Rowell… check her out! Her YA books are great! (Eleanor and Park, Fangirl, Carry On.)
ANYTHING by Holly Black was my ultimate YA goto. She’s kinda dark and gothy and writes a lot of faerie books. My into to her was “Tithe” (sequal is ironside)
A good contemporary book that I think EVERYONE should read is The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas. It should be mandatory reading for high schoolers.
I was obsessed with all things Tom Robbins at that age. Particularly Jitterbug Perfume, Skinny Legs and All, Another Roadside Attraction, and Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas.
I very much suggest Tamora Pierce’s books (especially the Magic Circle books- though Trickster’s Choice/Queen Duology is also good). Discworld…yes. All of it (maybe especially the Tiffany Aching books… but all of them). I have also been unable to stop reading Bujold’s Vorkosigan series since last October.. but they’re probably on the challenging side.
Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde. Absolutely made me think about my choices and consequences, while being completely creepy and entertaining
Anything by Sarah Vowell, I assume she’s read all the Terry Pratchett already.
Definitely Bradbury, as suggested, and also a recent trilogy that is already on its way to becoming a classic: the Broken Earth Trilogy, by N.K. Jemisin. All three books won the Hugo as they came out, a remarkable accomplishment, and totally deserved: strong female characters, inventive world-building, brilliant story-crafting.
The Summer That Melted Everything is spectacular.
Diary of a Young Girl, Huckleberry Finn, Flowers for Algernon, The Once and Future King, Door into Summer, Ender’s Game, all of Discworld.
Both of mine actually loved your books, and my 12 year old submitted Furiously Happy as his choice for the nonfiction book this year, and it was accepted. He also chose Fahrenheit 451 as his fiction choice.
My older one (almost 17) loved On the Come Up and The Hate you Give, both by Angie Thomas.
I wanted to read mostly Stephen King at that point, so not sure if that’s helpful.
Something by Toni Morrison…Sula perhaps?
Catcher in the Rye! I know its obvious but I related to it so much at that time. Also As I Lay Dying but thats much harder and might be for a future summer list. Crash Course on youtube does a great series on literature that you should check out!
Stranger in a strange land
The Princess Bride, by William Goldman. My favourite to this day. (Aside from The Thorn Birds, which I read at 12, subsequently being the most knowledgeable in sex ed class.)
Perks of Being a Wallflower is an amazing book about a high school freshman coming into his own and making some great new friends!
At 14?:
Are you there God? It’s me, Margaret
Witch of Blackbird Pond
Island of the Blue Dolphins
A Ring of Endless Light (and anything else L’Engle)
Dragonsinger series by McCaffrey
Phantom Tollbooth
Neverending Story
Inkheart series
Frankenstein
Treasure Island
Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, and other series
Anne of Green Gables
Little Women
Little House on the Prairie (whole series, in order)
Swallows and Amazons
Far Distant Oxus
Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
A Room of One’s Own
Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams
All enjoyable books that will also help stretch the mind and open up new ways of seeing things.
I enjoyed Curt Vonnegut. Cat’s Cradle stayed with me, as did Slaughterhouse 5.
Heinlein might be a bit old fashioned (and a bit sexy?)
Definitely Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy.
I loved the books by Billie Letts, particularly Where The Heart Is. I also loved Night Circus.
At 14 I went through a civil war phase and read Gone With the Wind, Scarlett, North and South and Roots.
Ender’s Game
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
The Diary of Ann Frank
Black Beauty
The Dancing Wuli Masters
My, Myself, and Why
Catcher in the Rye so she’s not an adult, like me, who’s friends are appalled that they didn’t read it as a teen.
Winger by Andrew Smith
I loved a Tale of Two Cities when I was a freshman, but I’m weird.
At 51, I can’t remember what exactly I was reading at 14. Most likely Stephen King and Bunnicula, Clan of the Cave Bear series, Color Purple, Sidney Sheldon books, Mary Higgins Clark books, Ed McBain books…mostly what my parents had around the house. OH! And a lot of Newbery books, Beverly Cleary, Judy Blume, VC Andrews, probably The Hobbit.
#OldLady 😀
My 17 year old daughter loved reading “the book thief” and considers this the best book she has ever read. This summer she plans on reading Markus Zusak’s new book called “bridge of clay”. I too will start homeschool my children this year. I wish you and Hailey the best of luck. I know you will have a blast because it is so fun and awesome being around our little people.
Can’t believe I forgot these two by the same author:
Westing Game
Figgs and Phantoms
Those are musts, really!
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn!! One of my faves!
Jane Two by Sean Patrick Flanery. And not just for 14 year olds, everyone should read that book.
A second vote for Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching series!
Every girl needs female role models, and if they come supported by little, Scottish speaking pictsies – what’s not to like?
1 – Franny and Zooey. Of course.
2 – A Separate Peace. 10th grade English, but I had to work hard not to get teary a few times in class.
All the biographies she can get her hands on. My library had a whole section of biographies aimed at YA. Yes they were formulaic, and probably whitewashed, but it gave me a solid background of who was a contemporary of whom and helped a lot when I started studying World Civ, etc. in HS.
Ooooo what a privilege! Maybe she’s already covered all of these, but here are some favorites (variety of subjects, some serious and some light, with a focus on inclusivity): ALL AMERICAN BOYS/Jason Reynolds, Brendan Kiely; THE HATE U GIVE/Angie Thomas; THE POET X/Elizabeth Acevedo; ONE OF US IS LYING/Karen McManus; SERAPHINA/Rachel Hartman; WHEN YOU REACH ME/Rebecca Stead; BROWN GIRL DREAMING/Jacqueline Woodson; LOVE AND OTHER FOREIGN WORDS/Erin McCahan; NOT YOUR PERFECT MEXICAN DAUGHTER/Erika L. Sánchez.
I love recommending, if you ever want more……. – Kalah
Here are some popular titles that are in my classroom library (Ninth grade English teacher)
Long Way Down – Jason Reynolds
Allegedly – Tiffany D. Jackson
Monday’s Not Coming – Tiffany D. Jackson
Interment – Samira Ahmed
One of Us is Lying – Karen M. McManess
Scythe or The Unwound Series – Neal Shusterman
I could go on and on…
As far as classics our PreAP students read
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
A Raisin in the Sun – Lorraine Hansberry
Funny in Farsi – Firoozeh Dumas
During the school year
Dear lord, when I was 14, I’m pretty sure I was binge-reading V.C. Andrews and passing around a dog-eared copy of Forever by Judy Blume. But 1984 was a very different world. I’m assuming she has read Neil Gaiman’s books, since she is your daughter? My son is working his way through them right now and is completely in love.
To Kill a Mockingbird
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
The Book Thief (my daughter’s favorite at that age)
I read a lot of Dickens around that age, and I was obsessed with Shogun.
If she hasn’t already read it, the Wizard of Earthsea series – fell in love with that series my freshman year of high school. Also The Scarlet Letter simply so she can say she’s read it, but you have to act out and overly dramatize the preacher’s sermons. My wonderful and gay high school English teacher did that when I read it, and made the experience 1000x better!
I read The Great Gatsby when I was 14 and it’s still one of my favorites at 43!
What I recommend: The Catcher in the Rye and To Kill A Mockingbird
What I was actually reading at 14: the North & South trilogy by John Jakes. So I learned about the American Civil War and 19th century sex.
I went to a Catholic boarding school for girls and the nuns had the nerve to send a package of summer reading to be done before coming to school. Ivanhoe. Damian the Leper. Con Tiki, The Little World of Don Camillo. Can’t remember the 5th one. Yes, 5 books to ruin my summer before 9th grade.
Ooohh! I love questions like this! So much teenager reading made me who I am now!
Obviously lots of people will have recommendations, but one of my favorite less common books (that I read about that age and still re-read almost every year) is The Beacon at Alexandria about a lady in ancient Greece whose family won’t let her study medicine so she runs off to Alexandria, pretends to be a eunuch, and wonderfulness ensues.
Others that had both enjoyable story and educational value for me at that age included
Mila 18, Leon Uris
Of Love and Shadows, Isabelle Allende
The Earthsea books, Ursula LeGuin
The Space Trilogy, C.S. Lewis
(some of those have some heavy- so take a look first)
Good luck to Hailey! I hope she finds fabulous new characters and stories to love.
Watership Down. I was about 12 but still re-read it regularly as an adult so I think it would be OK. Also, I second Fahrenheit 451. The Good Earth was another one around that age.
“Shades of Grey” by Jasper Fforde, “Uglies” by Scott Westerfield, “Caraval” by Stephanie Garber, “Life as We Knew It” by Susan Beth Pfeffer. I’ve reads all of these YA novels, and they are all good.
Harper lee of course. My dog is named scout after rhe girl in to kill a mockingbird.
The Pearl Diver by Jeff Talagrigo.
There are other books with the same title, so be sure to get this one. It’s a quiet book about a young woman who is going to be a pearl diver (Japan) until she finds she has leoprosy. Pretty interesting book. Not your usual thing.
https://www.amazon.com/Pearl-Diver-Jeff-Talarigo/dp/1400034914
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
It can be a painful book to read, but I think it’s a very important book
Considering my Grandma let me read her old copy of The Exorcist at 14, I may not have great recommendations. I did also enjoy Holocaust memoirs such as All But My Life, I Have Lived A Thousand Years, and Thanks to My Mother and retelling of fairy tales with a ton of manga. A librarian at your local library can also help her find books based on what she has read and loved within her age group 🙂
Highly recommend I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson – it’s YA and SO GOOD!
To Kill a Mockingbird was a favourite high school read of mine.
True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle!
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
How to Hang a Witch by Adriana Mathers
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Stardust by Neil Gaiman
The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Fierce Fairytales by Nikita Gill
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
On The Western Front; the protagonists are high school kids facing the horrors of WWI.
Highly recommend I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson – it’s YA and SO GOOD!
Tamora Pierce’s Song of the Lioness quartet and The Immortals quartet were my favorites at that age. 20 years later, they’re still my favorites. Also, Tom Robbins. Even Cowgirls get the Blues blew my high school mind.
Ooh! Also, Dread Nation by Justina Ireland and I Am Still Alive by Kate Marshall.
Dhonielle Clayton. Nic Stone. Jason Reynolds.
Second vote for Rainbow Rowell. I read those as an adult not as a teen, though I know my teenage self would have devoured them.
Is she too old for Anne of Green Gables?
I read a ton of Bill Bryson books when I was a teenager, which is pretty funny to me now. But! Maybe she’ll be into it?
Check with local libraries! They usually have summer reading lists. I LOVED Beteeen Shades of Gray as well. Beautiful book! If she likes historical fiction I highly suggest Dreamland Burning by Jennifer Latham. And a book in verse title Audacity by Melanie Crowder. Can’t go wrong with Harry Potter if she hasn’t read those yet. Sarah Dessen has so many great light summer reads. Ellen Hopkins has grwat hard hitting, tough topic books in verse. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell and Eleanor & Park by then as well. Speak and Shout both by Laurie Halse Anderson. Anything by John Green is popular with this age group. I’m a school librarian and love recommending great books! Hope these are a good starting point, enjoy!
I really loved The Ghosts of Departure Point at about that age. It has always stayed with me. Probably old fashioned and lame by today’s standards. But I stand by it.
I read it in about 1982, but I think it’s scarier today.
The Cruel Prince and The Wicked King by Holly Black. The Raven Cycle series by Maggie Stiefvater. The Black With Cronicles series by Laurie Forest. the Witchland series by Susan Dennard are all amazing series for YA Fantasy books that are great reads.
I’m pretty sure I started my Anne Rice obsession around that age.
Bridge to Terbithia
The Pigman
Great Gatsby
Animal Farm
Lord of the Flies
Rilee says she really enjoyed “The Giver” by Lois Lowry. Also, “Simon vs. the Homosapien Agenda” and the Black Jewels Trilogy.
Happy Summer reading Hailey!
I teach 8th grade literature, so you definitely hit my soft spot with this request. My students read the Giver, the Outsiders, Black Ships Before Troy (a prose retelling is the Iliad), and the Hunger Games. I also have a thirteen year old daughter, so I make a lot of recommendations for her as well as students. Some books they have loved recently are Scythe, All the Bright Places, the Matched series, the Selection series, and any of the Ruta Sepetys books (the Shades of Grey lady 😍). My daughter also reads I Will Always Write Back about once every other month, so if she likes nonfiction, that would be a great option too. I would be happy to provide more information or suggestions as well!
Maybe come up with something that’s a mix of fun and classics? Not sure if you’re looking for her to just be reading in general, or if this is part of the whole homeschooling thing (and so should include stuff you’d normally read in school). I discovered Mercedes Lackey when I was 13 or 14, and have loved her ever since. Austen, Tolkien, Shelley (Percy and Mary, actually, if you want her to do some poetry as well) for classics? Percy Jackson is fun, Cassandra Clare is pretty good (less sad/dystopian than the Hunger Games books).
Has she read any Susan Cooper (The Dark is Rising)? I’ll suggest ‘Paradise Lane’ by William Taylor, though it’s out of print and you’d have to purchase it used somewhere. It still brings me to tears when I read it. I also loved ‘The Witch of Blackbird Pond’ by Elizabeth George Speare.
Tagging on to the flowers in the attic series, My Sweet Audrina by VCAndrews
was a total mind meld for me at that age. Maybe the subject matter wAs
a bit grim, but it was very entertaining. I did not see the ending coming, AT ALL!
wo off the top of my head are Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan, a beautiful YA novel about LGBTQ+ youth including two boys who are in a world record attempt for longest kiss and it’s narrated by the collective voice of the gay men who died of AIDS—it has some beautiful descriptions of first love. The other is the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman such is to this day one of my favourite series. A compelling fantasy story with rich themes and conflicts
14 is when I was introduced to Shakespeare, and how funny his writing was. So, Hamlet, then follow up with rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead because you just gotta.
I’m an indie author so I feel like I am going to just recommend my indie author friends – but really they have some amazing stuff!
Chantal Gadoury – Between the Sea and Stars, Blinding Night, The Songs in Our Hearts
Taylor Simonds – Collateral Damage
Candace Robinson – Quinsey Wolfe’s Glass Vault
RJ Garcia – Nocturnal Meetings of the Misplaced
Nicole Knapp – Hook and Crown
Taylor Hartley – She’s Powerful Trouble
Sarah Lampkin – To Dream is to Die
I feel weird recommending my own, so I will instead celebrate these amazing indie authors and highly recommend them!
The Giver by Lois Lowry is an excellent read.
Katherine Arden wrote a great trilogy which is steeped in Russian history (1380ish) and fairytales. Think Baba Yaga. “The Clockmakers Daughter” by Kate Morton. “Women Talking” by Miriam Toews. “Stone Angel” by Margaret Laurence.
Has she read Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein? It’s WWII historical fiction about two teenage girls who get involved in the war, and it’s FANTASTIC.
If she’s a horror fan (and I believe she is, though I could be wrong) Darren Shan is a great author for kids ^^ you got the series about the vampires (like proper vampires, none of your whiney Twillight here) The saga of Darren Shan and the one about the demons the Demonata series. I absolutely loved those when I was a kid (and secretly still do)
I see that people have already said Ender’s Game, but I have to say it again. It changed me. It really spoke to me as a “gifted” (whatever that means) child who didn’t have a lot of great friends. I have read it over and over. I’ve read it more than any other book I’ve ever read. It’s amazing. It’s captivating. It’s important.
When I was in high school,these were some of my favorites.
Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
Beowulf, Seamus Heaney translation
Lord of the Rings trilogy
Anything by Michael J Sullivan
Anything by the following authors: Amie Kaufman, Marie Lu, Nicola Yoon, Maurene Goo, Morgan Matson, Casey McQuistion, Kiersten White, Meagan Spooner, Ransom Riggs….
That was the year we had to The Outsiders, Perks of Being a Wallflower and A Seperate Peace. But at that age I loved Anne McCaffrey and Michael Crichton. Sabriel by Garth Nix was a favorite. The later books in the Wrinkle in Time series, Enchantment by Orson Scott Card. Good Omens and American Gods, all of Neil’s books.
Anything by Tamora Pierce (some of which show their age but are nonetheless worth reading) and I also really liked East by Edith Pattou, which is a quieter book but cool!
Two off the top of my head are Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan, a beautiful YA novel about LGBTQ+ youth including two boys who are in a world record attempt for longest kiss and it’s narrated by the collective voice of the gay men who died of AIDS—it has some beautiful descriptions of first love. The other is the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman such is to this day one of my favourite series. A compelling fantasy story with rich themes and conflicts.
I’m more of a classics person when it comes to reading lists for young people – if they don’t read them when they’re young, they probably won’t be motivated to read them when they’re older. Jane Eyre is my favorite book of all time, followed closely by Little Women and sequels as well as Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom, also by Louisa May Alcott. Love Wuthering Heights but it’s a little heavy for a 14-year-old. A Little Princess and The Secret Garden are below her reading level but they are wonderful books to get lost in. I still read them as an adult.
My high school reading lists were completely inadequate. Lots of good suggestions already, but I’ll add To Kill A Mockingbird. I think making sure she’s reading diversely is important and there are lots of lists out there. Here’s one https://education.cu-portland.edu/blog/classroom-resources/diverse-childrens-books/
John Green has a book club going that includes discussions, if I remember correctly. That might work really well for her.
It might also be worth looking at AP reading lists. That will give you a lot of the classics in one place.
Falling Hard: 100 Love Poems by Teenagers
The Absolutely True Story of a Part Time Indian
Island of the Blue Dolphins
The Wall: Growing up Behind the Iron Curtain (picture book)
To Kill a Mockingbird
Catcher in the Rye
Witch of Blackbird Pond
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Well, I loved Anne McCaffery
and David Eddings’s books, but I’d only recommend those if she likes fantasy/sci-fi, and even then it’s a maybe- I don’t know how well they’ve aged. Otherwise…
Mother Night, by Kurt Vonnegut
Small Gods by Terry Pratchett
Memory and Dream by Charles de Lint
OH MY GOD I FORGOT MAGGIE STIEFVATER
any of hers. all of hers. GAH so god.
this is the link to Santa Monica Library’s summer reading lists for the public schools here…
https://smpl.org/Recommended_Reading.aspx
(i use these lists every year to choose books).
p.s. thank you for posting this, i love book lists
At that age, I loved Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell and Watership Down by Richard Adams. Books that have really stuck with me have been The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson; Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy!) and Mark Carwardine and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.
Now I really want to read Radium Girls by Kate Moore after hearing her interview on NPR yesterday!
To Kill A Mocking Bird – Harper Lee. The audiobook of this, read by Sissy Spacek, is excellent.
Those Who Watch – Robert Silverberg
Animal Dreams – Barbara Kingsolver
The Shipping News – Annie Proulx
What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day – Pearl Cleage
Shogun – James Clavell
My Friend Flicka – Mary O-Hara
The Hate U Give – Angie Thomas
Endurance – Caroline Alexander
Democracy in America – Alexis de Tocqueville
Team of Rivals – Doris Kearns Goodwin – this is a 754 page book full of detail. I don’t know Hailey’s reading interests or level but my son read this at 15 (we homeschooled) and he enjoyed it. It is a ‘take your time with it’ book.
The Tiffany Aching books. Terry Pratchett.
my almost-17-year-old loved The Girl With All the Gifts and The Language of Flowers. right now she is reading “1Q84” and enjoying it. Some sex in there, but it’s pretty mild. Oh also some killing. But of just bad people, mostly.
The Power of One by Bryce Courtnay or April Fools Day by Bryce as well (which is a true account of the authors sons life as a haemophiliac, beautifully written)
The Westing Game by Ellen Rankin
I loved anything that I would include in the genre “horrifying non-fiction”. So books like “Into Thin Air”, and “Glass Castle” and “Nothing to Envy”, and “Brain on Fire”. So basically disease and disaster.
Loved everything by Elizabeth Peters – from her Vicky Bliss series to Amelia Peabody, archaeologist. I also really got into Agatha Christie at that age. And every Star Wars book written at the time. Oh and Jane Austen and Michael Crichton.
A Prayer for Owen Meany, The Neapolitain Quartet (ok, I wasn’t 14 but they’re really good books), Suite Francaise
My sweet Audrina by VCAndrews.
I loved Catcher in the Rye, although I realize the more I read it the less I understood at that age but it’s still one of my favorites. Flowers for Algernon was amazing to read and provided a lot of perspective that I never considered.
Laura Anne Gilman’s Devil’s West trilogy (features a young woman protagonist in an alternative old west), Seanan McGuire’s The Wayward Children series, Michelle Sagara’s Chronicles of Elantra. That is a LOT of books cumulatively, but all of them are just magnificent. And I love supporting women fantasy writers.
After I “graduated” from Nancy Drew, I dived into classics and loved many of them. Probably A Tale of Two Cities was my favorite.
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo
Any Jasper FForde novel (The Nursery Crime series, Shades of Grey, Thursday Next series)
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
The Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
The Diviners by Libba Bray
Going Bovine by Libba Bray
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
I hope your daughter falls in love with whatever books she decides on!
Love Rainbow Rowell and Tamora Pierce’s Lioness series. Also recommend Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson.
As a companion to them once and future King, The Mists of Avalon is fantastic! Tells the story of Camelot from the wotch’s perspective.
There are the classic I was force to do as summer reading list: A Separate Peace, Catcher in the Rye, Crime and Punishment, To Kill a Mockingbird, A Tale of Two Cities, 1984, Animal Farm, Slaughterhouse Five The Grapes of Wrath, Great Expectations, Heart of Darkness, Any Shakespeare, a Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Beowulf, the Illiad, Brave New World and Oedipus Rex.
Pre HS: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, A Wrinkle in Time
On the humor end, I lean towards Kurt Vonnegut, other Sci Fi – Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov and Larry Niven.
Fiction – Hemingway, Jane Austen
Depending on her interest in YA fantasy fiction:
The Winners trilogy by Marie Rutkoski
The Illuminae Cycle (3 books) by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
The Legend series (3 books) by Marie Lu
The Raven Cycle (4 books) by Maggie Stiefvater, one of my fave YA writers. Her “All the crooked saints” and “Scorpio Races” are also great.
Any book by Leigh Bardugo
When I was starting high school, we had to read the following books related to world history/world literature:
Exodus (Old Testament)
Mark (New Testament)
Siddhartha
Whale Rider
Things Fall Apart
The Poisonwood Bible
If I think of the other books we had to read for high school, I will let you know. I’m pretty sure there are a lot of public lists posted if you do a google search. I know that further in high school (junior year? senior year?) we read Catch 22 and Catcher in the Rye. When I was 15, I hated the former but loved the latter. Now, 15 years later, it’s 100% reversed.
Discworld series, I discovered Neil Gaiman about that age (still in my top 5 fav authors), pretty much anything in the fantasy genre. My mom wasn’t a reader so I got away with reading a lot of stuff that I probably shouldn’t have been reading. I never really read YA then (do now).
The Exact Opposite of Ok by Laura Stevens
Diana Wynne Jones – not challenging but very very good. Author of Howls moving castle and the 2 sequels, as well as many others. dogsbody makes me weep every time. Some romantic stuff happpens, but it’s not the PLOT.
Thirteenth child series’s by Patricia Wrede is amazing. It’s an alternate Wild West history, and has quite a bit of diversity in characters.
The blue sword by robin mcsomething is also quite good.
Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell was, is, and forever will be one of my favorite books.
These are all such good suggestions! Bookriot.com has some great recs in all sorts of categories, YA included. Is she interested in a particular subject? My mind is overflowing with suggestions.
Anything by Anne McCaffrey, Mercedes Lackey, and JRR Tolkien.
I LOVED Between Shades of Gray and it took a long time to convince my mom it wasn’t related to the OTHER shades of grey.
This made me laugh. I would give the same look to adults who wanted the sex version books. They so needed editing still they sold big.
The Well at the World’s End, by William Morris
As a former English teacher and librarian, many titles come to mind. First of all, I would check to see what she will be reading next year so you won’t repeat.
To Kill a Mockingbird
Night by Elie Wiesel
Grapes of Wrath
Of Mice and Men
The Cinder series by Marissa Meyer
Brown Girl Dreaming – anything by Woodson
The Absolutely Trye Duaryof a Part-Time Indian- Alexie
Jenny Han books – especially to all the boys i’ve Loved before
***** Every Day by Levithan ****** absolutely wonderful
Parrotfish by Wittlinger
Ok – need to make myself stop!! I could go on and on …
I REALLY enjoyed Katherine Cushman’s books at her age. I always devoured them in a few days.I also really loved the Dear America series because I was already a history nerd and loved reading things from historical perspectives. I remember The Lovely Bones and Running with Scissors had a big impact on me.
Dated, but so am I… At that age I was reading, and loving, The Blue Adept series by Piers Anthony, the Dragon Riders of Prern series by Ann McCaffrey, and Heinlein in general.
SO MANY good suggestions here! I also loved A Tale of Two Cities at that age, and second Good Omens, The Graveyard Book, and the Broken Earth trilogy.
Like others here, I was reading a lot of VC Andrews around that age. Funny story – My mom now works at a small town library. A patron asked her for a recommendation for her 14ish year old daughter. My mom told her that her daughter (me) liked the VC Andrews books at that age. LOL. My mom obviously had no idea what was going on in those books. My mom is not that cool!
Having no kids of my own – I’d totally recommend them to a niece/nephew or cousin of that age.
I agree with Rebecca by Du Marier
I also went through a gothic romance phase at that age and read a lot of Victoria Holt and Mary Stewart. Recommend a number of those. Moonspinners. Touch Not the Cat. Great books.
more modern: Artemis Fowl series is good fun.
Tiffany Aching series by Pratchett and if she likes those then the Discworld books starting with the witches and night watch segments probably (or read in order as I did)
I read the book Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns around that age…still love it to this day. I also started The Clan of the Cave Bear series by Jean M. Auel around that time, too.
I absolutely love The Secret History by Donna Tartt. Every time I read it, which is often, I fall in love with it again. These are not your typical characters who you root for. These are flawed people who know they’re flawed and really don’t give a crap. They do monstrous things in the name of history. Crazy good!!
The trilogy by Ferrol Sams was required reading in my ap english classes. I was engrossed. Great southern depression era literature.Run With The Horsemen is the 1st book.
Sarah Dessen. Always.
2001: A Space Odyssey. Never too young to take a crack at that masterpiece.
Lord of the Flies
Catcher in the Rye
To Kill A Mockingbird
The Giver
The Raven
Of Mice and Men
Scarlet Letter
Beowulf
Just a suggestion from me/my boyfriend on our time in high school and what we had to read!
The Progeny and First Born by Tosca Lee, Graveyard Book and Stardust by Neil Gaiman (if she hasn’t already and I know you’re a fan 😉 ) The Circle series by Ted Dekker-those also have a slew of tie in books and there are even graphic novels available as an option for the Circle Series for a change up. Dekker writes as detailed as Stephen King but slightly less gory 🙂
I think that’s about the age I started reading Pride & Prejudice, Mansfield Park, and then every other Jane Austen or Austen-related book there was. I was a hopeless romantic, I guess! (And escapist?)
And I’m kicking myself for not remembering:
To Kill a Mockingbird
Tale of Two Cities
English major, avid reader. I love recommending books!
And my 15 year old daughter is reading and loving The Book Thief. She is not an avid reader but shes really into it.
AGH! How did I forget about A Tree Grows in Brooklyn?! My absolute favorite book as a young teen. I reread it recently and fell in love with it all over again, only this time I understood the mother so much better than I did as a 14 year old girl. (I’m not a mom but of the right age). It was almost like reading a different book.
A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan. I’ve been recommending this to everyone because it’s officially my new favorite book series. It’s a five book arc and it’s about a woman who lives in a Victorian-style fantasy world who bucks tradition and becomes a dragon naturalist. It’s well written, imaginative, and just utterly fantastic. It’s in the style of her memoirs.
Honestly reading everyone e else’s recommendations was a bit overwhelming, bc it was a lot of information, bc I didn’t know if we should lean educational or silly, bc I always think of Hailey as slightly older than she is, & though I am not proud of it, bc I felt judgy about done recommendation
The Hate You Give
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton had a huge impact on me at 14. It made me really see how powerful writing about what you know could be and how extraordinary average people can be.
Around that time I read all the Daphne du Maurier books (Jamaica Inn, Rebecca, etc) and “Yoga, Youth, and Reincarnation” by Jess Stearn. That book changed my life.
At 11 I was reading ‘Lord of the Flies’ and ‘Angelique’ at 13, ‘The Scarlet Letter’ at 14; I highly recommend ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ by Dumas which I still read every few years as well as ‘Brave New World’…
Anything by Kurt Vonnegut
Anything by Kurt Vonnegut
Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones. The “dog-star” Sirius is wrongfully convicted of a crime. His sentence is to be sent to earth as a real dog.
The Girl With All The Gifts
I love “Wuthering Heights” by Emily Bronte. The first chapter is hard as hell to get through, but once you do it’s smooth sailing. “Sophie’s Choice” by William Styron. It’s a painful, but beautifully written book.
If I’m not mistaken, Hailey just recently came out, so she should definitely read “Rubyfruit Jungle” by Rita Mae Brown. It’s a fictionalized version of Rita’s youth growing up as a young lesbian. I’m a gay man, but it was the first book I read before I came out, when I first began realizing I was probably gay, and it helped me IMMENSELY. It’s sad and beautiful and funny!
Gregory Maguire’s book, “Wicked”, is great. It’s the book the musical is loosely based upon. The book is darker, but still a great read.
What On Earth Have I Done? by Robert Fulgham.
I wrote a YA novel and talked about it at schools this year. It’s called FEEDER, and it’s about teenagers with superpowers feeling like they don’t fit it.
These are new books, but Theodora Goss has published 2/3 YA mystery books about monster’s daughters (think Mary Jekyll, Diana Hyde, etc) in the same era as Sherlock Holmes (who is also part of the story) and they are thoroughly charming. They’re called The athena club
This is an English teacher’s dream!
Haroun and the Sea of Stories + Luka and the Fire of Life- both by Salman Rushdie
The Lovely Bones- Alice Sebold
The Hate U Give- Angie Thomas
Copper Sun- Sharon Draper
Children of Blood and Bone- Tomi Adeyemi
Neverwhere and The Graveyard Book- Neil Gaiman (you’ve probably already had her read those though)
The Outsiders
Perks of Being a Wallflower
Go Ask Alice
Speak
Stargirl
The Uglies series
Ms. Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children series
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Universe
Everything I Never Told You (and Little Fires Everywhere, same author)
YES! The Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin is amazing. I’d read anything she’s written. Also, The Dancing Wu Li Masters. It’s out of print last I checked but absolutely worth getting a used copy of. I agree with the above assessments of Heinlein and Stranger in the Strange Land, absolutely worth reading but context is essential. I think I was 15 when we read I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. That has stayed with me all these years later. Oh, and a +1 to The Princess Bride like someone else said above.
For me, age 14 was a long time ago. I don’t remember a lot of what we read then, though I remember some of the things we read around that age that I didn’t like: Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre Dame and So. Much. Victorian. Stuff. There’s too much white European stuff to read as it is, if she hasn’t already read Austen, etc. I’d skip it for now. Help her find diversity.
A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan. It’s a fantasy book written in memoir style, where the main character lives in a Victorian-style world and bucks convention to become a dragon naturalist. They’re fantastically well imagined and the writing is wonderful. I would highly recommend all five of them.
I love Roshani Chokshi’s books.
The Changeover by Margaret Mahy (and any of her other YA books because she was fab especially The Catalogue of the Universe). The Obernewtyn Chronicles by Isobelle Carmody which she began writing when she was in high school. The Juniper Game by Sheryl Jordan which I read in my teens (and my rabbit liked the cover).
Anne Mccaffrey’s dragon riders of peen and Garth Nix Old Kingdom series
I feel like Nancy Pearl, superhero librarian should be able to help you with that.
The Forbidden Game (3-part series) by LJ Smith
Dark Visions (3-part series) by LJ Smith
His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman
Inheritance Series (Eragon, etc) by Christopher Paolini
The Lunar Chronicles (Cinder, etc) by Marissa Meyer
Percy Jackson books by Rick Riordan
May Bird series by Jodi Lynn Anderson
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore
Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings by Christopher Moore
Dune by Frank Herbert
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
If she’s mature enough, I highly recommend ANYTHING written by Peter Clines. 14, The Fold, The Ex-Humans series, Junkie Quatraine… all of them are phenomenal.
That’s just a few of them. Really I recommend anything on my Goodreads list. Feel free to friend me there and look at my shelves. https://www.goodreads.com/friend/i?feature=friend-invite-url&invite_token=MTA4NjU4MDItNzk1Ni00M2UyLTk2MjYtMGYxZTVmZTk4NjZi
Dreamhunter, by Elizabeth Knox. She’s an NZ author, who wrote The Vintner’s Luck, (which she may also enjoy). I LOVED the Dreamhunter books.
I will be following the comments for suggestions, as I love books written for middle school/high school age (they’re usually well-written and quick reads). I have read “The Giver” by Lois Lowry more times than I can count since first reading it in 7th grade (I’m 37 now and was just recently thinking that it’s time for another reread). Lowry’s book “Number The Stars” may be a lower reading level than Hailey is now, but it’s still a great book about how the resistance in Denmark helped smuggle thousands of Jews out of the country to safety during WWII. I also recently reread the Anne of Green Gables series, expecting it to be kind of cheesy after having not read it in so many years, but man, I still love that Anne Shirley.
Some others:
The Westing Game
A Series Of Unfortunate Events
To Kill A Mockingbird
Bridge to Terabithia
Diary of Anne Frank
A Wrinkle In Time
I was weird I read classics Shakespeare, to kill a mockingbird, edger Allen poe and my mom’s medical books from school. My fav was her psychology textbook. I know I’m weird
Please share the compiled summer reading list. I want to read along.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Night by Elie Wiesel
Finding Your Feet by Cass Lennox (a trans boy falls in love with an asexual girl and everything ends happy. We all need queer stories with happy endings)
The Kite Runner
Winnie the Pooh (which is really about how life is never what you plan for but be kind to everyone anyway as you go). Supposedly a children’s book but noooooo….
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott (which explains how “bird by bird” gets you through life).
An “adult” book but I suspect Hailey is really already a grown-up hiding in a young person’s body.
I think that’s when I read my first Stephen King, Misery. Time to learn about hobbling!
I remember enjoying Cold Sassy Tree, Mythology by Edith Hamilton, and The King Must Die when I was that age.
The Progeny and First Born by Tosca Lee, Graveyard Book and Stardust by Neil Gaiman (if she hasn’t already and I know you’re a fan 😉 ) The Circle series by Ted Dekker-those also have a slew of tie in books and there are even graphic novels for the Circle Series. Dekker writes with the detail of Stephen King but slightly less graphic 🙂
I was reading Stephen King, Mary Higgins Clark and Clive Cussler at that age but there weren’t many options for YA that were more advanced than Goosebumps or Fear Street.
I work in a library and these are a few of my recommendations:
1. The Finest Hours: The True Story of a Heroic Sea Rescue
2. Case Closed?: Nine Mysteries Unlocked by Modern Science
3. No Better Friend: A Man, a Dog, and Their Incredible True Story of Friendship and Survival in World War II
4. A Wrinkle in Time
5. Kavik the Wolf Dog
6. The Running Dream
7. Child of the Wolves
8. The Indian in the Cupboard
9. Blackjack: Dreaming of a Morgan Horse
10. Hatchet (Brian’s Saga Book 1)
11. The Girl Who Drank the Moon
12. The Book Thief
13. Code Talker: A Novel About the Navajo Marines of World War Two
14. Hey, Kiddo
15. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
16. The Code Book: The Secrets Behind Codebreaking
17. High Sierra
18. The phantom toolbooth
19. This One Summer
20. I Am Malala: How One Girl Stood Up for Education and Changed the World
21. The Giver
22. Maniac McGee
23. Wanderers: A Novel
24. They Called Us Enemy
25. Breakout
26. What Am I?: A Collection of Traditional Word Riddles
27. The Big Easy
28. If I Was Your Girl
29. The Rule of One
30. All Out: The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens throughout the Ages
31. When the Moon Was Ours: A Novel
32. We Are Okay
33. Island of the Aunts
There are so many great recommendations here so I just have one more to add:
Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia. A YA novel about a high school girl who is the creator of a very popular webcomic series that she publishes under a pseudonym. I read it as a 39 year old and loved it.
Speak- Laurie Halse Anderson (or any of her books)
The Night Circus
An Absolutely Remarkable Thing- Hank Green
Space Opera
LITERALLY my area of expertise (school librarian)!
See if any of these sound good to her:
Things I Should Have Known by LaZebnik
A Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
Bloom by Panetta
Legend series by Lu or The Testing series by Charbanneau (sp?)
Anna & the French Kiss series by Perkins
The Goodbye Days (don’t remember that author)
There’s a new one I just got called The Seven and a Half Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle…haven’t read it yet but it sounds amazing!
Check Junior Library Guild’s website…they only offer books that they read & approve for quality (not censored for content…just judged for quality).
Feel free to email me if you need more specific suggestions for her tastes!
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. The Good Earth. Edith Hamilton’s Mythology.
anything by EL Konisberg
A British List
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Read
The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater.
Have Hailey sign up on BookRiot.com. Jenny, you will want to, too.
As a used book bookseller, it’s a great website for all genres, especially YA and LGBTQ+.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!
So if she doesn’t like fantasy or science fiction, this list will be USELESS. That being said,
N.D. Wilson – 100 Cupboards series
Cory Doctorow – Little Brother
Tessa Gratton – United States of Asgard series
Catherynne Valente – The Fairyland books, starting with The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
Laini Taylor – Daughter of Smoke and Bone series and the Strange the Dreamer series
Katherine Addison – The Goblin Emperor
Julianna Baggot – The Pure series
Rae Carson – The Girl of Fire and Thorns series
Kristin Cashore – Graceling and Bitterblue (there is a 3rd book between these two but these are the best)
Elizabeth Bunce – StarCrossed and Liar’s Moon
Megan Whalen Turner – The Thief series
Julia Golding – Dragonfly
Diana Wynne Jones – Chrestomanci books
Robin McKinley – Spindle’s End
Sarah’s Key. Tough but worth it.
I loved all of Isaac Asimov’s non-fiction about the sciences, as well as his science fiction. My family had years of old American Heritage magazines (it was in hardcover then and is now softcover, but still being published) – I’d just pull one off the shelf and pick an article at random, anything from colonial history to Lizzie Borden to the Civil War. Also the Hobbit and The Ring trilogy by Tolkien; A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court; To Kill a Mockingbird; LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness; Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock; The Diary of Anne Frank; 1984; Brave New World; Lord of the Flies; Farenheit 451; Slaughterhouse Five; Catch-22. Books that weren’t in print yet when I was in high school but I would have loved: Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror (history of the 14th century with its parallels to the modern era); Frankfurt’s On Bullshit; Molly Ivins’ books; anything by Carl Sagan.
I’d throw in the complete boxed set of Monty Python while I was at it, even though those aren’t books. My favorite TV show in high school.
If Hailey likes comedy and audiobooks, I also recommend Martin Short’s audiobook of I Must Say, if you approve of it that is. I’m recommending it beyond it being a (mostly) fun escape sort of book because of a section in which he details how he has always organized & kept track of his life and goals. I wish I had thought of, or known of, something similar to his method when I was a teenager.
His stories about his life run the gamut from hilarity (particularly one childhood Thanksgiving) to great sadness and loss. All throughout though, he maintains his optimism and sense of life’s preciousness and absurdity.
Fahrenheit 451
Code Name Verity, by Elizabeth Wein. Teenage female spies in WWII and secrets, loyalty, and friendship.
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Watership Down by Richard Adams
Might as well start with A’s
Which brings in Louisa May Alcott and the Little Women series, I liked Eight Cousins best. Totally different track and maybe too young?
If she’s ready to move into C’s, Michael Crichton is great for this age range. Smart, well presented science and great thriller reads.
Elie Weisel’s books “Night” and “Dawn”
Anything by Anne McCaffrey – the Dragons of Pern series, the Crystal Singer series. Her short stories. Loved them all.
They weren’t around when I was that age, but I think 14-year-old-me would have appreciated Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children books (Every Heart a Doorway and etc.).
Otherwise at that age I was super into John Grisham novels.
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Watership Down by Richard Adams
Might as well start with A’s
Which brings in Louisa May Alcott and the Little Women series, I liked Eight Cousins best. Totally different track and maybe too young?
If she’s ready to move into C’s, Michael Crichton is great for this age range. Smart, well presented science and great thriller reads.
Ok, I’m going to go with Bradbury, Asimov, and other classic scifi.
And I’m making my own list from this post. <3
I see someone recommended The Book Thief but my favorite my Markus Zusak is I Am The Messenger.
The Fault in Our Stars (and any others by John Greene)
We Were Liars
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (my boys LOVED this)
The Giver
The Curious Incident of the Dog at Nighttime
At 14 – Pride & Prejudice, Northanger Abbey – I was suddenly old enough to realise they were satire (I don’t know how widespread Jane Austen is in the US).
One fun (or weird) thing I used to do was to choose a new country every month and try and read a couple of different examples of literature from each of them. It’s a great way to discover new cultures, points of view and experiences. I still do it actually (although not quite as obsessively), but as a teen, it would have been great to have people help me identify what to try…
Scythe by Neal Shusterman, and its sequel Thunderhead. The third installment is due out this fall and I. CAN’T. WAIT!!
Anything and everythig by DIANA WYNNE JONES. Especially the Chrestomanci books, but Howl’s Moving Castle is a classic by her (especially known because of the anime made of it). I read her in college, not at age 14, but the 14-yr-old in me was taken in especially by FIRE AND HEMLOCK, which is a modern retelling (very slanted, very dark and wonderful) of the Tam Lin story. If you haven’t read it, you’re missing out.
If she likes WWII historical fiction, Beneath a Scarlet Sky is one of my absolute favorites..
Wow! Some great suggestions going on here!
I agree with most….if she hasn’t read “The Thirteenth Tale ” and “The Night Circus”, those are magical.
p.s. I love Ruta Sepetys — Hailey has great taste!
I loved Richard Peck’s Blossum Culp books,and Searching for Shona by Margaret J Anderson,and The Pigman and the Pigmans Legacy,by Paul Zindel and of course Harry Potter which I’m sure she must have read already!
I’m a big geek, so I highly recommend Cory Doctorow’s work. Little Brother is one of my favorites. I recommended it to a teacher friend, and she put it on her students’ reading list. (It’s even endorsed by Neil Gaiman, so you know it’s good!) https://craphound.com/
This is my high school’s summer reading list (you had to pick like 4 books from the list and read them). 15 years later I still have my printed copy and use it to pick out what to read next!
Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein is fantatstic!
Pearl S. Buck, anything she wrote. S.E. Hinton – The Outsiders. Some Steinbeck has been mentioned. My favorite of his is, Tortilla Flat.
Anything and EVERYTHING by Guy Gavriel Kay.
ABARAT series by Clive Barker.
The Harper Hall trilogy of Pern novels by Anne McAffrey! I found them very empowering as a young teen girl. They taught me to ignore everyone who said “You can’t do that, you’re a girl.”
The Endless Steppe by Esther Hautzig, No Greater Love: The Gripping Story of Nurse Clara Maas by Mildred Tengborn, The Sound of Wings: The LIfe of Amelia Earhart by Mary S. Lovell
If not suggested already:
Wolf of Shadows by Whitley Strieber
A mother and daughter navigate the aftermath of a nuclear explosion alongside a wolf pack. The story is told from the alpha wolf’s point of view.
Throwing my support behind anyone mentioning Angie Thomas’s and Jason Reynolds’s books.
Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie
The Odyssey by Homer
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
chomp by carl hiaasen
For me, it always starts with Where The Red Fern Grows. That book destroyed me, and made me feel less alone in the world.
For light reading that makes you feel less alone in the world as a teen with a complicated life, there’s Judy Blume, especially Deenie and Tiger Eyes. For something more academically relevant there’s Jane Austen – Pride & Prejudice and Emma have good feminism themes as well as social commentary. Oh and she may find George Orwell Animal Farm and 1984 useful in the context of current world politics.
Joan Aiken’s The Wolves Chronicles (The Wolves of Willoughby Chase; Blackhearts in Battersea; Nightbirds on Nantucket – there are more but I’d start with those three), also her book The Whispering Mountain is amazing
Check your library to see what reading programs they have this summer and go from there. They tend to even give prizes! From there I recommend to stay away from classics with the exception of Anne frank. If Hailey is looking for specific books like Between Shades or Gray I’d happily do a readers advisory for her! (And any of y’all really. Librarian with a large YA knowledge)
chomp by carl hiaasen
The Harper Hall trilogy of Pern novels by Anne McAffrey! I found them very empowering as a young teen girl. They taught me to ignore everyone who said “You can’t do that, you’re a girl.”
UT online high school doesn’t have a summer reading list? Our friendly neighborhood high school does. https://sites.google.com/site/lionsreadlhs/english-i-gifted-1
There are some books on the higher grades reading lists that our adult book club has done in the last year or two. They are making an effort to include more diversity in reading – branching out from the English Lit classics.
I am a little disturbed by all the sad or disturbing books on many of these lists. I enjoyed “Life of PI” a few years ago but I was profoundly disturbed by it. I don’t know how I would have handled that as a sensitive young teen. Everything affected me profoundly then – even to things like sunsets.
I read lots of Arthurian stuff in late elementary school – The Crystal Cave series, the Once and Future King.
I still re-read L. M. Montgomery books all the time to un-disturb my brain – the Anne of Green Gables stuff is just the beginning. The Emily series is a good one. I like stories of the early 20th century because they remind me how easy we have life- no baking in wood or coal stoves, etc. The Blue Castle is a good one too, A Tangled Web. Those were written for adults, not children. Many of them are available on http://gutenberg.net.au/ and also in Kindle inexpensive editions.
Sherlock Holmes stories were fun when I was a kid, and give an impression of life in those times. So you get a fun story, and an idea of how people traveled and led their lives in the late 19th/early 20th century.
I think I read “I Capture the Castle” at about 14, the protagonist is 16 or 17 in the story. It’s not literature, but it makes one grateful for modern comforts.
I read “Gone with the Wind” in 6th grade, it was a fun escape.
Shakespeare – I know we read “Romeo and Juliet” in 9th grade. The comedies are more fun.
The more modern things that people have mentioned are good – I read many of them when my child read them in school but I find many of them depressing. I am an escapist reader, not a reader to improve my mind. Our book club has decided to read “Ulysses” by James Joyce for August, and I’m trying to gather my courage to tackle it.
Roots, Alex Haley
A good dictionary, keep a thesaurus handy
Anything covering State and American history
Find histories of foreign lands written by people of those lands
Just don’t do normal and smart
Librarian here with two teen daughters 🖐🏻 My youngest just turned 15 and loved Summer of Salt by Katrina Leno. Anything by John Green or Cassandra Kass is usually a hit with our teens. Also, Every Day by David Leviathan is incredibly cool and a great book for teaching empathy and perspective.
My favorite young adult book ever is Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein, which is about two teenaged girls during World War II. These might be on the edge of being too adult but I think a young person could learn a lot from Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
by Matthew Desmond (about poverty in America) and Irena’s Children: A True Story of Courage
by Tilar J. Mazzeo (about Irena Sendler’s rescue of children during the Holocaust). My favoite book that I actually read in high school was A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. I am definitely using this thread to get reading recommendations for me.
Throne of Glass series also catwoman by Sarah Maas
Wonder Woman warbringer by Leigh ardugo
Marian by Ella Lyons (Robin Hood with women)
Once and future by Capetta and McCarthy (the sheer diversity in this made it awesome)
Red Queen series by Victoria Aveyard
Weregirl series by CD Bell
Maximum ride series by James Patterson (easy reading)
Huntress by AE Radley (Lesbian vampire comedy)
The awakening trilogy by Kelley Armstrong her Aftermath book was also good
Also, here’s a good list of brand new YA books. https://www.readbrightly.com/ya-books-2019/
O’Henry is good, The gift of the Magi, and he has Austin connections.
Another group is Jack London Books. White Fang, etc.
The Remarkable Inventions of Walter Mortinson
The children of time by Adrian Tchaikovsky blew my mind.❤
At 14 I was reading To Kill a Mockingbird (loved it), Fahrenheit 451 (loved it in a disconcerting way), and Flowers for Algernon (broke my heart but I still consider it a very important read). At least as far as ‘classics’ those are my recommendations. (Please don’t make her read Grendel. That’s one of the only books I’ve ever read that made me hate my existence the whole time I read it. Read Beowulf, skip the pain that is Grendel.)
The main book I remember reading when I was exactly 14 is Gone with the Wind. I cried my eyes out. I hadn’t seen the movie at that time and was sorely disappointed when I did. The book is much better.
Other things I enjoyed around that time include:
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Grapes of Wrath (pretty much anything by John Steinbeck if I’m honest)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
The Member of the Wedding
… probably lots of others but those come immediately to mind.
I’ve always been a literature nerd so these might not be Hailey’s style but I offer them for your consideration. Best of luck to both of you as you proceed!
Turtles all the Way Down by John Green was such a lovely book!
God, how old was I when I first read Tamora Pierce?
Not sure if my comment posted, so please forgive me for any duplication. When I was 14, I discovered Jane Eyre. I was also in love with Joan Aiken’s The Wolves Chronicles (The Wolves of Willoughby Chase; Blackhearts in Battersea; Nightbirds on Nantucket – there are more, but I’d start with those, and also her wonderful stand-alone work The Whispering Mountain). I’d also recommend Richard Peck’s Ghosts I Have Been and The Ghost Belonged to Me. And I love all of Cynthia Voigt’s Tillerman novels and Izzy Willy-Nilly. Finally, although I could go on and on, the delightful epistolary novels of Jean Webster (Daddy Long-Legs and Dear Enemy) with the author’s drawings, are a lot of fun.
The hate you give, Darius the great is not ok, Dante and Aristotle discover the universe, before I fall, butter, anything by David leviathan. Anything by jacquline Woodson, Toni Morrison, John green,
Dracula – unabridged
Hamlet or Macbeth. Much Ado about Nothing or Othello are also great choices.
Anything Gaiman
Dragonlance Chronicles
I agree with the Three Musketeers suggestion.
Hubby says Enders Game, The Giver, and Odd Thomas. He also recommends Stephen King’s The Stand if she has time and Battlefield Earth.
I really enjoyed “Old Kingdom/Abhorsen” series by Garth Nix, also “The Wheel of Time” series by Robert Jordan.
May I also suggest GoodReads.com and BookRiot.com. With Good Reads, it allows you to track what books you’ve read (they have a yearly reading challenge – where you set your own book goal – like I want to read 3 books this year), suggest other books (if you like this one, other readers have enjoyed reading _________ “. With BookRiot, what’s nice is that they have good suggested reading lists for all ages and interests. What’s nice, is the Wheel of Time book club tries to do their “Read Harder” challange, where they give you a list of topic/subjects, book format, etc to encourage you to read outside your comfort zone, or to consider reading something that you may not think of on your own.
Here are a couple examples from this years “Read Harder” list:
A book by a woman and/or AOC (Author of Color) that won a literary award in 2018
A book published prior to January 1, 2019, with fewer than 100 reviews on Goodreads
A book of manga
A book by or about someone that identifies as neurodiverse
An historical romance by an AOC
A children’s or middle grade book (not YA) that has won a diversity award since 2009
A self-published book
The full list for this year’s challenge can be found here: https://bookriot.com/2018/12/12/2019-read-harder-challenge/
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Bradbury is literary gold.
Sounds like a Catcher int he Rye moment. A Prayer for Owen Meany for adolescents ain’t a bad choice either.
catcher in the rye, wonder, lisa bright and dark, go ask alice, uglies ( a series), the diary of anne frank, no arms no legs no worries, lord of the flies, night, 7 habits of highly effective people, the fault in our stars… these are all wonderful books that i hope she will like…
Based on the “shades of gray” comment I would highly recommend One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenytsin – though I didn’t know about it as a teen so I can’t speak to whether it would be good on a teen reading list. It’s incredibly good. Also Everything Flows by Vassily Grossman.
https://www.amazon.com/One-Day-Life-Ivan-Denisovich/dp/0451531043
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003K15IE4/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
It’s great that people are providing links to sites with reading lists, too. Also, Goodreads is a great resource – book recommendations, reviews, reading groups on just about all topics, and a way to connect with people with similar interests all over the world. My best friend from grade school tracked me down via Goodreads decades after we lost touch and now we’re in frequent touch via email and get together whenever he’s back in this state.
For anyone suggesting Ender’s Game series, the author is very homophobic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orson_Scott_Card#Views_on_U.S._homosexuality). There are much better books to read by now! Asimov’s Foundation ad Robot series and Pratchett’s Discworld series are amazing, but I’ve started reading almost exclusively women and POC. Gail Carriger’s Finishing School series are hilarious and age appropriate. Binti trilogy. The Giver quartet. The True Confessios of Charlotte Doyle. The Westing Game.
SF/Fantasy suggestions from me, as that’s what I read as a teenager. I’ll start with Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom series — Sabriel, Lirael, Abhorsen and Goldenhand (plus the prequel Clariel) — which I discovered as an adult but which make great fairy tales for teens. I particularly favour Sabriel, as it’s always nice seeing a female hero rescue a prince.
Larry Niven’s Known Space stories and almost anything by Diana Wynne Jones are good and I’ve always loved Anne of Green Gables. The Illustrated Man and some of Ray Bradbury’s other collections offer real food for thought, as do Ursula Le Guin’s Hainish cycle (I love Earthsea too, but I think there are more interesting ideas explored in the former).
My all time favs:
Classic wise: Journey to the Center of the Earth or really anything by Jules Verne
Fantasy-ish: Six of Crows, Graceling, Percy Jackson
Social issue type books: John Green books, David Levithan books,
short stories/collections: Thé Opposite of Loneliness
Science: the elegant universe by Brian Greene, Physics of the future by Michio Kaku
“To Kill A Mockingbird” “This Is How it Always Is” and anything from the banned books list!
http://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/classics
(I’m from UT! She has a place to stay if she needs to come ‘on site’ for any work. 😜)
I am terrible and am one of ‘those’ people who don’t LOVE a majority of what is deemed ‘classics’. Where there are some I do enjoy, Catcher in the Rye, Gone with the Wind and The Great Gatsby, among others, are not my favs.
I am also abnormal in the fact that Stephen King is my favorite author. The Green Mile, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption and The Body are some of my favs (as well as mostly appropriate for 14).
I also enjoyed Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, the Anne of Green Gables series, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (John Boyne), The Hiding Place (Corrie Ten Boom), My Sister’s Keeper (Jodi Picoult), A Train to Potevka (Mike Ramsdell, also from UT), The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd) and The Color Purple are good ones to pick from.
AI agree with Ray Bradbury –anything! Also Isaac Asimov–The Ugly Little Boy and Twiglight are great. More contemporary YA novels–Hairstyles of the Damned, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, Counting by Sevens by Holly Goldberg Sloan (my older brother declared this one of the best books he’s ever read, and he reads a LOT!), Perks of Being a Wallflower–all great, fun reads. For more academic reading, maybe something by Pearl S. Buck if she hasn’t read any already–The Wave or The Good Earth. Maybe some Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker series, or Vonnegut, depending on her sense of humor (but knowing you, those would be great!).
Tamora Pierce!! Song of the Lioness quartet to start. And then ALL OF THEM.
Has she read anything by Sarah Dessen? I think her books are always the perfect summer reads. I’ve read all fourteen of them, and would recommend The Truth About Forever or The Rest of the Story. They both take place in the summer as well, as do most of the author’s books!
Also Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia and The Chaos of Standing Still by Jessica Brody.
I hate to be Captain Obvious, but doesn’t the home school association have book lists for her age group? That said, I loved The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas at that age. Plus, I was so impressed with myself for reading a book with that many pages!
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. Both my kids read it as young teens and loved it (boy and girl). For years I’ve been saying this should be recommended reading for all teens.
I remember reading night by elie wiesel around that age. But I loved reading Sarah Dessen books.
The Girl with All the Gifts
M.R. Carey
It is nice to read a book that is not so formulaic.
Prey
Michael Chricton
Kept me on the edge of my seat.
Both the City of Ghosts series and the Monsters of Verity duology by Victoria Schwab are sooooo good. But warning – the Monsters books, ‘This Savage Song” and “Our Dark Duet” have intense violence.
Do NOT confuse her other series’ under VE Schwab as suitable for young adults. They are also awesome but contain ADULT adult subject matter.
I would also recommend Andrew Rowe’s two book series ‘. The first one, The War of Broken Mirrors, is more serious than the second, the Arcane Ascension series, which is reminiscent of Harry Potter while being its own original thing.
Anything by Neil Gaimen, Terry pratchett, john greene and the Throne of Glass series
False Hearts by Laura Lam – I read it recently but would have loved it at 14.
I would definitely recommend The Thing About Jellyfish, The Secret Horses of Briar Hill, Cinder, In Other Lands, Nevermoor, The Fault in Our Stars and Inkheart. I also seem to remember reading The Book Thief at that time and feeling very deeply about it. 🙂
An oldy but goody – The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper. I just listened to them on audio and they help up really well (the first was written in 1965). I imprinted on that series so hard at about 13, that to this day at 42, I can still recite the prophecy poems from memory.
I really loved The Outsiders at that age, but it could be because it was one of the movies we always rented for sleepover because of (well way back then) it being packed with cute boys…I suppose I started my journey to become a ‘basic bitch’ early on lol. I’ve loved the Red Rising series which is pretty current in terms of publishing date, but I prefer the audio version so I can walk/drive and listen.
I read all of Stephen King’s books when I was in high school! I recommend The Talisman the most. I also adored John Steinbeck. His book The Red Pony was short but amazing and meaningful. I think it would make a great book to write down your thoughts about after.
Hey Dollface by Deborah Hautzig was one of my favourites as a not out gay teen. I have no idea if there’s any more LGBTQ books for teens, it’s pretty isolating reading stuff where there’s nobody like you. I found books about people who don’t fit in with ‘normal’ quite good though.
Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer (and apparently there are more in the series). The St. Mary’s chronicles by Jodi Taylor are a good read, it has minimal sex scenes in (average one scene every couple of books). Nicholas Fisk’s Trillions And others, Susan Cooper’s Dark is Rising series. Never ending Story.
Incoming freshmen at my daughter’s school are reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in Night Time – one of my favorite books!
Oh! I saw someone mentioned Holly Black. Her other book, ‘Doll Bones’ is awesome. It’s a coming of age story that includes a creepy doll.
I loved the Old Kingdom books by Garth Nix. Sabriel being the first. To this day they are my favorite series. I also like His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. I was super big into fantasy books too. Around that age I did get into the Dragon Lance books.
We live in a golden age of YA fiction and there’s so much to choose from.
In addition to the ones I’ve seen mentioned here, I’d recommend Cathrynne M. Valente’s “The Girl Who…” series, and China Mieville’s “Un Lun Dun.”
The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars, by Steven Brust.
I’m adding my support for Jasper Fforde (Jenny, f you haven’t read The Eyre Affair, you must! But Jane Eyre is kind of a requirement first).
Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series (early books can be read out of order, so I recommend Reaper Man and Equal Rites).
I loved Anne McCaffrey’s Harper Hall trilogy: Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, and Dragondrums. I re-read them a couple of months ago (30 years after the first go-round) and I thought they’ve aged nicely.
To Kill a Mockingbird changed my life. I know it gets some criticism now but I’ve re-read it almost every year since I was 13, and it still makes me think.
It’s out of print, but if you can get your hands on a copy, Fletcher Knebel’s Seven Days in May is terrifying in a political, it-can’t-happen-in-America-but-are-we-sure? kind of way that still gives me goosebumps. I was 15 for that one, I think.
Quality sci-fi because there’s so much to think about, talk about, in there. You can read Herbert’s intro to Heretics of Dune and hear from him all he was trying to incorporate. At 14, and still really, I was heavily into the original six Dune books. It was formative, as so much is at 14.
One of my summer reading books was Gone with the Wind. When I reported on it, I compared how our school taught the Civil War unit in history classes and asked a really awkward question about why no one talks about how heinously the wartime impacted the physical landscape and economy of the South. LOL. I grew up in New Hampshire. You didn’t ask those kinds of impertinent questions in school. But I still got an A. 😀
Argh. My go-to when I was that age was ‘The Mists of Avalon’, but since MZB got outed as a not-so-great human being, I am reluctant to push it… If Hailey likes the whole WWII scene, there’s ‘I Never Saw Another Butterfly’ which is a compilation of the poems and art of children in the Terezin concentration camp. ‘The Gulag Archipelago’ is ponderous, but wonderful, and I wish I had known about it at that age. I also read Umberto Eco, which was wildly inappropriate age-wise but it pushed me, and revisiting it later I was able to glean so much more from it. Maybe some of the ‘easier’ Steinbecks like ‘Cannery Row’ or ‘The Winter of Our Discontent’?And since Hailey likes drama, there’s always plays like ‘Inherit the Wind’, or ‘Proof’, or ‘The Waiting Room’.
I always read above my age group and it worked out well because my mother was an avid reader. I really enjoyed all of the Dune series books and later in my life, the Dragons of Pern series by Ann MacAffrey. I may have spelled her name wrong, but I really loved them.
Hamlet, The Secret Garden, A Ring of Endless Light.
For disability rights themed, nothing’s better fiction wise than Accidents of Nature, by Harriet Mc Bryde Johnson. As an autistic person, I didn’t like Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime — found it very very stereotypical.
Can’t go wrong with re-reading Harry Potter, though (assuming the series has been read previously).
An oldie but a goodie: That Quail, Robert by Margaret Stanger.
I teach middle school English/Language Arts. Here are a few recommendations from students, the school media specialist, and from what I myself enjoyed as a teen:
A Wrinkle in Time
We Were Liars
We are all made of molecules
What Made Maddy Run by Kate Fagan
The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B
Call Me By My Name (Bradley)
Code Name Verity (Wein)
Rose Under Fire (Wein) read after Code
Bittersweet by Miranda Beverly-Whitemore
Famous last words (alender)
The Only Thing to Fear
Unfriended (Vail)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Still a Work in Progress (Knowles)
Scar island (Gemeinhart)
To All atheBoys I Used To Love (Henny Han)
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. A great book that allows every 14 year old see the world in a different light & teaches compassion & love. It was my favorite at that age & still is (now in my 50’s). My daughter read it also at that age & I still remember her coming to me as she closed the back cover with tears in her eyes & thanked me for recommending it to her. I lost her 2 years later due to leukemia. I’m glad she developed the level of compassion & acceptance that many people never reach in their lifetime.
A few real classics will help with allusions, figures of speech and such as she reads throughout her life: Aesop’s Fables, the Iliad and the Odyssey, Greek Myths, the Bible, Shakespeare.
THE DARK IS RISING Sequence by Susan Cooper. There are five titles and should be read in order: Over Sea, Under Stone; The Dark is Rising; Greenwitch; The Grey King; Silver on the Tree. Welsh fantasy series based on Arthurian legend, this is the set of books I send to every young reader in the family. More information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Is_Rising_Sequence
The Flavia de Luce series by Alan Bradley is so much fun.
I dunno about your 14 year old, but my 14 year old already read most of the recommendations I’m seeing here.
This is a time to explore.
Suggest she look for books by nnedi okorafor. Really interesting sci Fi and way more contemporary.
People’s History of The United States by Howard Zinn
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe is a beautiful coming of age story.
The House of the Scorpion deals with many complex issues, border issues, the drug trade, cloning, the existence of an underclass, etc.
Hunger Games
Have a look at The last Samurai by Helen DeWitt.
I have no idea if it would fit her, but I found it fascinating.
Same goes for Buddha Da by Anne Donovan.
“Alive”, “Alight” and “Alone” by Scott Sigler. Sort of “Divergent” meets “Lord of the Flies”.
Robin Hobb’s The Rain Wild Chronicles!
I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson for a contemporary YA. The Bear and the Nightingale if she is in to fantasy, or Six of Crows. I teach English and my first question is usually “what was the last book you read that you enjoyed?” And that helps me give recommendations, but these all are well liked by the teens I work with. I would also recommend Every Day by David Levithan. Three out of the four books I listed have LGBTQ representation.
But if she is looking to prepare specifically for high school classes, I’d say read How to Read Literature Like a Professor and take notes. She won’t get all the references to classics, but it will help her prepare for the novels she’ll read in school.
That was around when I discovered Anne Rice and Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre is still one of my all time favorites.
I also read a lot of classic gothic horror in high school: Dracula, Frankenstein, The Phantom of the Opera, Jekyl and Hyde, etc.
Little, Big by John Crowley – magical realism, about a not-quite-normal family and their not-quite-normal lives and houses. It’s my family’s favorite. And if she’s interested in WWII, Maus is a fantastic and unique story, because it is a graphic novel and is a mouse instead of a person.
The Outsiders by S.E Hinton. I read that when I was young and it became one of my favorite books.
Summer of My German Soldier was the first book that popped into my mind
Doesn’t look like my comment posted, so I apologize if this is a duplicate. I’m adding a GREAT nonfiction book I consider a must read for everyone–Endurance:Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage. After I read that, I searched out and read every book I could find about that journey! Amazing story and well written. My earlier list echoed reading Bradbury and Asimov (especially The Ugly Little Boy and Twilght–both are novels based on earlier short stories). Also loved the series on Merlin by EB White after she’s read The Once & Future King. Echo recs for Dragon Riders of Pern, Enders Game, and the Earthsea Trilogy. Maybe Dune if she’s ready for that. Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker series and Kurt Vonnegut if she likes that kind of humor. I taught high school and found that some kids loved it, while others were left cold. More recent, great YA books that I haven’t seen mentioned– Counting by Sevens (my very critical older brother declared this was one of the best books he ever read!), Hairstyles of the Damned along with other YA already mentioned. I’d stay away from the academic ones mentioned or definitely check the school’s reading list. Might as well get in some fun reading while she can! I love the suggestions fo read Dumas–love them all! SO dramatic and engaging. It warms my English teacher heart to hear a kid wanting a summer reading list!
The books I loved in High School were, The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Anne of Green Gables (all of them), and Are You There God It’s Me Margaret. Other books I read (or was supposed to read) Catcher in the Rye, Romeo & Juliet, Lord of the Flies, Diary of Anne Frank, and Their Eyes Were Watching God.
For a 14 year old, I HIGHLY recommend The Finishing School Series by Gail Carriger.
The main character, Sophronia, starts the first book as a 14 year old, and her mother sends her to finishing school to help her become a “proper” lady. Only her mother unknowingly sends her not to a finishing school as in manners and decorum, and instead sends her to a “finishing school” where young ladies learn the fine art of assassination and sabotage.
The genre is Young Adult Steampunk (it takes place in Victorian England), and there are 4 books, following Sophronia from ages 14 to 17.
Look on the English curriculum for UT and she can start reading those books. And/or you can go to the AP website and view the freshmen books they have posted.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Flowers for Algernon, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Sarah’s Key, the Flavia de Luce series, The Storyteller (Jodi Picoult).
Terry Pratchett’s (well anything) but specifically his Tiffany Aching series. And if Haley does audio, I can’t recommend the audio enough. Hearing the Nac Mac Feegles is a treat.
I highly recommend the Wayward Children series of novellas by Seanan McGuire. The first one is called Every Heart a Doorway.
Also I have not read the Temeraire series, but my friend who homeschooled her teenager recommended them highly; she and her kid read the books together and got a LOT of interesting learning and lesson material out of discussing the alternate history.
I loved SE Hinton and Ray Bradbury when I was 14. I also read a lot of my grandmother’s novels – Portrait of Jenny was a favorite. I read Between Shades of Gray – what a powerful account of a harrowing story – it does take a minute to explain to people.
CS Lewis
When I was 13, I read “The Sword of Shannara” by Terry Brooks. I hated reading but read it because my best friend had read it and I wanted to emulate him (he was signifantly academically better than me).
That book was tiny print, well over 800+ pages and i read the entire book. Then, I started reading more and more fantasy adventure books. The habit kept up for me ever after….
More of my testimony instead of a recommendation because it sounds like she has no issues reading books.
“Farewell to Manzanar” by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston & James D. Houston. It’s a first-hand account of the interment of Japanese Americans, which gets glossed over far too often in US History classes. Along those lines, “The Samurai’s Garden” by Gail Tsukiyama is also a great for teaching/learning how to effectively use figurative language. It centers around a young Chinese man who is sent to Japan and his interactions with the Japanese while there is a war occurring between the Japanese and Chinese. It’s full of complex relationships and forbidden romance.
The book I read at fifteen that made the biggest impact on me was Jacqueline carey’s The subverting duology, the first book being banewreaker with godslayer following. It’s a retelling of sorts of lord of the rings, but it is a story of how if you shift the point of view, the story takes on a whole new meaning, a whole new perspective. That there’s always three sides of a story. Yours, theirs and the truth, which is always somewhere between
The Magicians trilogy by Lev Grossman; all of Tiffany Aching / Wee Free Men books in the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett; any and all Christopher Pike books (I LIVED for those at that age)
When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green and Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng.
I recommend Celeste Ng books to everyone, whatever the age.
When I was her age, I was a huge nerd (still am). I read Pride & Prejudice repeatedly. I also loved The Daughter of Time (it’s a mystery), and anything by Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie. I discovered fantasy fiction around that age, too, with The Dragonriders of Pern series becoming a favorite. The Once and Future King, The Fionavar Tapestry Series by Guy Gavriel Kay, and The Mists of Avalon were also high on my list. I think that was when I first started swiping my mother’s more smutty books, too, but I’ll leave those off the list. Except for Scruples, because that is a fantastic book.
The Westing Game is such a fun book!
Does Hailey have a favorite genre? I have five kids and we are a family of readers. My youngest is 14 now, but his tastes are super eclectic. He’s currently reading something by Stephen Hawking. My daughters loved The Sun is Also a Star and Everything, Everything. I’m not being dramatic when I say that books saved my life as a kid and I read anything I could get my hands on. The Cat Ate My Jumpsuit by Paula Danziger may be dated these days, but was so empowering for me as a young, fat, brainy, introverted kid. If you can find a copy of John Steinbeck’s account of King Arthur, get it. It’s such a good read but was never finished before he died so it ends with lots of questions unanswered and so much room for fun speculation. It’s called The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights, and if you can find a copy with the letters he wrote back and forth to his publisher you won’t be disappointed. I could babble all day about books but I’ll stop now.
Following up on my testimony about Terry Brooks, Christopher Hitchen had a talk with an 8-year old girl and they created the following reading list.
https://radicalreads.com/christopher-hitchens-favorite-books/#comments
Some books listed are definitely old favorites (and I understand that love), but some of these offer really problematic representations of [race, ability, etc.] Of course, one solution is to talk about the problems in these books (which can be good, especially if you’re not buying them), but another is to support living writers who are doing good work. I teach YA and some favorites include Nimona and Lumberjanes (comics), Through the Woods (illustrated), The Hate U Give, and Fangirl. Good books can be found here: https://diversebooks.org/resources/where-to-find-diverse-books/ (See, for example the website”Diversity in YA Lit.”) Note that Kidlit can also include YA books. Happy reading–there has never been a better time for YA literature!
I have a list for my niece and it’s divided into age ranges so I know which books to buy for which birthday. I looked up 14:
A Wrinkle in Time – Madeleine L’Engle
The Story Girl – L. M. Montgomery
The Princess Bride – William Goldman
Phantastes – George MacDonald
The Collected Short Plays Vol 2 – Thornton Wilder
Failure is Not an Option – Gene Kranz
1776 – David McCullough
Because I read so much and so quickly I spent the cash on Kindle Unlimited. Worth it the way I go through books, my current read is – Soul Stone Mage Complete Collection Boxed Set: by Sarah Noffke (author), Martha Carr (author), Michael Anderle (author)
My daughters are 13 and 15 and I formally worked in a library.
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
The Parable Series by Octavia Butler
(My 15 year old is on a Butler kick)
Animal Farm
Farenheit 451
The Sun is Also a Star Nicola Yoon (fluffy and fun not everything has to be about the world ending)
My daughter loved all the Alanna books by Tamora Pierce.
Ursula Le Guin! Any and all. She is especially gifted with short fiction. Start with The Birthday of the World and then decide if you want to devour the rest of her short fiction or read some of her novels. Earthsea being the most notable for YA. Left Hand of Darkness the most notable period. My favorite at her age was the Lathe of Heaven. I also read a lot of Bradbury, Asimov, and Heinlein as noted. Tamora Pierce’s books set in Tortall are still my favorite of all time. Naomi Novik’s Temeraire books are extraordinary and she has written some great fantasy lately too.
There is this amazing author – James Oliver Curwood. He writes books about wolves, bears, nature as he was one with nature. His books might seem a little boring to a teenager now but maybe your daughter will find them as beautiful as I did. The best one, in my opinion, is Kazan and the next book Baree.
Favorite classics….Wuthering Heights, To Kill a Mockingbird, Animal Farm and one of my favorites that I just reread, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden by Joanne Greenberg.
Enjoy!
I really enjoyed Julie Moffett’s The White Knight and her other series about Lexi. (Yay for Geek girls who love computers and math!)
The Lord of the Rings trilogy
John Carter, Man of Mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Little Women
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
i Robot
The Once and Future King
I had a teacher in High School who told me that I read too many serious books and needed to stop for some brain candy every once in awhile. My 13 year old loves any of the Cassandra Clare novels that I feel fit firmly into the “brain candy” category. Haha
I was reading a lot of Stephen King at that age. Which may sound horrible but my reading material was never censored. I am grateful for that. But still… I told my mom all my issues are her fault.
At that age I loved One More River by Lynne Reid Banks (about an Israeli girl in the 1960s) and The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper.
Ann Leckie: Imperial Radch Series, Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Sword, Ancillary Mercy
a fresh exploration of what constitutes ‘personhood’ in a society that includes self-aware AI ‘beings’
I was obsessed with Arthurian legend and The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley was amazing because the legend is told through the perspective of the female characters. My more traditional summer reading list recommendations would be One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Ayn Rand’s We The Living, also about Russia, and Robert Massie’s Nicholas and Alexandra.
Hi,
What is she currently reading, or has just read, that she LIKES? And, as importantly, what does she NOT like? Is she fond of a certain author? genre’? time period in history? setting(s)? type of character(s) she seems to read about more often? Are there things she re-reads because she loves them SO much that they resonate with her? I am a school librarian, and to better serve the reader I always start at where they are in their reading life. BTW, the recommendations above have many, many good choices already. Also, your local librarian should have copies of the local school’s required reading lists that can be a starting point too. I would be happy to recommend some titles and authors based on your daughter’s preferences as a reader. mts
March is a series of graphic biographies about Rep. John Lewis’ participation in the civil rights movement. They are gorgeous powerful works and I reccomend them to everyone but particularly that age. Graphic Novels need more love! (Lumberjanes are also recommended but just for fun!)
Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
March is a series of graphic biographies about Rep. John Lewis’ participation in the civil rights movement. They are gorgeous powerful works and I reccomend them to everyone but particularly that age. Graphic Novels need more love! (Lumberjanes are also recommended but just for fun!)
Little Women, The Hobbit & Lord of the Rings trilogies, Invisible Man, The Illustrated Man, The Princess Bride, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Girl Interrupted, Wild, The Bell Jar. When I was her age I used to try and read everything there was a good movie for, before seeing the movie. That was a lot easier back then…
What does she like to read? By the age of 14 I was reading Dickens ( my favorite was A Tale of Two Cities), George Orwell, Jane Austen, I was heavily into the Classics. I also loved The Once and Future King. I also loved science fiction. I’m a literary snob, but I also LOVE Stephen King. Go figure.
If she likes world war 2 books
She might like The True Story of Handel and Greta’s
By Louise Murphy
Briar Rose by Jane Yolen
My Antonia – Willa Cather
The University School of Nashville always has excellent summer reading lists on their webpage. This year’s lists are at https://www.usn.org/curriculum/summer-reading-lists
Eva Luna by Isabel Allende – I read it at 14 and have been hooked on her books ever since.
I was a weird kid, so take this with a grain of salt:
Robert A Heinlein –
Selections from the Future History series (in no particular order, but probably close to publishing order)
The Roads Must Roll
The Man Who Sold the Moon
The Green Hills of Earth
Time Enough for love
The Cat who walks through walls
Orphans of the sky
To sail beyond the sunset
Also
Job: A Comedy of Justice
Friday (though maybe too much sex for a 14 year old – though these days, who knows)
Piers Anthony
Incarnations of Immortality (7 books)
Xanth (Lost track of how many books)
Apprentice Adept (3 books)
I STRONGLY recommend PA’s Incarnations series as a start to his work – It was one of my favorites growing up.
(I have a letter written by PA to me when I was in an inpatient center as a teenager where he apologizes to me because OBVIOUSLY it was his writing that caused my breakdown – one of my prized possessions)
For fun? The Beholder by Anna Bright is new YA and very enjoyable (it’s a “there and back again” story that incorporates elements of a lot of beloved fairy tales and mythology). For school? The “Top 100 American Literature Titles” reading list has a ton of great suggestions! A lot of which I remember reading in high school.
Lunar chronicles. Sci fi take on fairy tales.
Mercedes Lackey is an awesome prolific author! I love her! Also I think reading lists should include every genre, not just the ones we like. So give her sci fi, horror, mystery, biography, classic fiction, random poetry. Keep a list she read & next year pick different authors. Required reading lists should be all about trying something new for the sake of something new.
Ruta Sepetys is indeed amazing, and she’s got a new book coming out later this year! I work at a bookstore and have a young patron about Hailey’s age who just loves her.
I’d also heavily recommend Avi’s The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, Little Women, Anne of Green Gables (having discovered a bunch of my children’s department coworkers haven’t read this one, I’m on a Mission!), and Jane, Unlimited, by Kristin Cashore.
Anything by Libba Bray, especially The Diviners and A Great and Terrible Beauty. I also thought The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue was great!
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok (one of the most profoundly human books I ever read in high school. Still resonates with me today and beautifully highlights the struggle between family, obligation and pursuit of personal truth and how to reconcile your choices)
His Dark Materials Trilogy – Philip Pullman
This Is All: The Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn – Aiden Chambers
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole – Sue Townsend (very British, very funny!)
I read a lot of Greek tragedies for high school English (Sophocles, Euripedes, only uplifting gentlemen lol)
Gulliver’s Travels
Contact – Carl Sagan
My friend’s 15 year old is also very into feminist dystopias at the moment:
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
Red Clocks – Leni Zumas
Vox – Christina Dalcher
An Ocean of Minutes – Thea Lim
When She Woke – Hillary Jordan
The Abbarat- Clive Barker young adult weird fantasy. I read it as an adult and loved its weirdness
Refugee by Alan Gratz
The art of racing in the rain by Garth Stein
Killers of Flower Moon
Check out the Texas Library Association website for the Yalsa award winning books for teens
“Born a Crime” by Trevor Noah is on my 14 year old granddaughter’s summer reading list.
“Born a Crime” by Trevor Noah is on my 14 year old granddaughter’s summer reading list.
Everything by Diana Wynne Jones. For sure. And Margaret Mahy. And Ursula LeGuin, but maybe hold off on Left Hand of Darkness for a few years.
How about. Into the Forest. By Jean Hegland
This book about about two teen girls made me think differently about my belief in the future.
The Armored Saint by Myke Cole.
This may not be considered a “required” reading book but if she likes the genre of magical realism then I recommend All the Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater. I enjoyed the author’s writing style and how she transports me to another place and feeling. And even though there are for too many owls for my taste, I sometimes find myself thinking about this book long after I read it.
OK, how about The Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman? dang, I ‘had’ to read all the suggestions too !! UT, you GO gurl!!
I second the Ursula Le Guin recommendations, but I’d say the trilogy Powers, Voices, Gifts, as it’s YA and really good (I enjoyed reading them as an adult, but I think the young protagonists make them probably more relatable for a teenager than her other books).
Don’t remember what I was reading at 14, except that it included beloved children’s books and adult fiction, so my suggestions are what I have most begged people to read in the last few years: The Murderbot series by Martha Wells – EVERYONE I ever met loved them.
For a complicated but satisfying adult book, Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. I didn’t like his other things, but this one is one of those books that make you feel like you have lived an extra life by the end. Read a Kindle sample and see if it grabs you.
My now 20-year-old’s faves from her early teens are:
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Enders Game
Divergent (series)
And my faves (I’m a school librarian)
Susan Neilsen has several great YA novels, The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline, Code Name Verity by Elizabeth E. Wein
The Hate You Give. For fun: Fred, the Vampire Accountant series by Drew Hayes.
The entire series of Anne of Green Gables. Narnia. John Green has good young adult fiction.
Has she read Persepolis? Or Maus? They’re graphic novels, they’re nonfiction, but they are also literature. I just checked my 19 year old’s bookshelves to remind myself what she was discovering a few years ago: The Awakening, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Orwell, Bradbury, Austen.
Okay, so my parents were English Literature professors, and I just read from their bookshelves, so maybe these are a little too much. But I was reading them at around Hailey’s age:
Oliver Twist (Dickens)
Great Expectations (Dickens)
Pride and Prejudice (Austen)
Sense and Sensibility (Austen)
Wuthering Heights (Bronte)
Villette (Bronte)
Jane Eyre (Bronte)
1984 (Orwell)
Catcher in the Rye (Salinger)
Lord of the Flies (Golding)
A Room with a View (Forster)
City Boy: The Adventures of Herbie Bookbinder (Wouk)
Alice Through the Looking Glass (Carroll)
Books I found on my own:
Anything by P.G. Wodehouse
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Age 13 1/2 (Townsend)
On the Road (Kerouac)
Anything by Dorothy Sayers
Anything by Agatha Christie
Anything by Edith Nesbit (Many of her books are available free online)
The Once and Future King. Richard Mattheson’s spooky short stories (my daughter LOVED them at that age. As well as his novel “What Dreams May Come.”) To Kill a Mockingbird. Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke. The whole Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. (But for Gawd’s sake keep her away from that wretched movie version!)
The Thief of Always (Clive Barke… it wasnt earth shattering or anything, but very fun and imaginative and I connected with it as a teenager. I still read it every once in a while now..
Also, you might try Aleksandr Solshenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich or The Gulag Archipelago.
Eleanor and Park. My daughter is an artist and loved it so much she drew a picture of them and posted it. The author saw it and gave her a shout out.
Books are my jam! Some recommendations for Hailey:
“Salt to the Sea” – Ruta Sepetys
“Out of the Easy” – Ruta Sepetys
– RS is also one of my faves!
Anything by Rainbow Rowell
“Night” – Elie Wiesel
“To Kill a Mockingbird” – Harper Lee
“Peace Like a River” – Leif Enger
Anything by Marissa Meyer
“The Lorien Legacies” – Pittacus Lore (series)
Anything by Amie Kaufman (most are series)
“Arc of A Scythe” – Neal Shusterman (series)
“The Darkest Minds” – Alexandra Bracken (series)
“March” – John Lewis (graphic novels)
“Warm Bodies” – Isaac Marion (series)
I could keep going, but this should give her some good brain fuel 🙂 Happy reading, Hailey!
I also spent a summer reading as many books as I could from the most commonly banned books list… that was epic… so many great books that I was never exposed to otherwise!
I don’t see anyone else mentioning “The Girl Who Owned a City”, so maybe there is something wrong with it that is obvious today but was not obvious to me at the time, but I was obsessed with it in late-middle school.
Other thoughts, mostly echoing others:
-A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
-Jane Eyre
-most Jane Austen (but not Persuasion, until she’s older…hard to appreciate at 14.)
-Princess Bride, if only to see if she asks you about the “unabridged version” as I did when I first read it (I didn’t pick up on the satirical aspect of the fact it was an “abridgment” at first…)
-The Fountainhead – not that I buy into Ayn Rand’s whole schtick, but would be an interesting discussion starter about individualism and conformity.
The Magicians by Lev Grossman. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
I was just cleaning my old stuff out of my mom’s basement, and found my old college application which reminded me how blown away I was by Peter Hoeg’s Borderliners. Beautiful book, and if she likes it, there’s so much more he’s written.
Queer reads!
These Witches Don’t Burn (lesbian), Pulp (lesbian), Every Heart a Doorway (LGBTQ+), Song of Achilles (gay/historical), Silver in the Wood (gay), Annie on my Mind (lesbian), The Dark Wife (lesbian retelling of Persephone and Hades).
There are so many more but those are my big recs for teens! (I’m a librarian.)
The Bean Trees and Pigs in Heaven (in that order) by Barbara Kingsolver
Wild by Cheryl Strayed
Fun Home, Are You my Mother and Any of the Dykes to Watch Out For comics by Alison Bechdel.
Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown
Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
When I was in high school I got really into John Steinbeck. Started with Of Mice and Men and then Grapes of Wrath. By junior year I was writing my big Junior Year Essay (it was a big deal in my school) on Steinbeck. I also discovered Horatio Alger and liked him, admittedly I picked up the first book because the title Ragged Dick made me giggle.
John Marsden’s ‘Tomorrow’ series was very popular when I was about that age. It begins with ‘Tomorrow When the War Began’
Anything by Tamora Pierce if Hailey likes fantasy stuff.
Ted Dawe – Into the River
Malala Yousefzai – I Am Malala
Jim C Hines – Stepsister series, Magic Ex Libris series
Fiona Wood – Cloudwish
Chris Hadfield – An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth
Cath Crowley- Words in Deep Blue
Rainbow Rowell – Fangirl
Benjamin Alire Sáenz – Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments Series (and all her additional series as they tie together). Entertaining and engulfing, almost as much as your books. 😁
Homecoming, by Cynthia Voigt
Between the Lines by Jodi Picoult
Monster Walter Dean Myers
These are on my reading list but I haven’t gotten to them yet. It’s a series called ReVisioning American History. Stories of history are told through the lens of a marginalized group. Don’t know if they would be too adult or not. The publisher is working on YA series too. The first one is A Queer History of the US for Young People. There is also a YA version of Lies My Teacher Told Me released in April.
Highly recommend any collection of Paul Celan’s poetry,
– Children of Men by PD James,
– Any/All of Oscar Wilde’s Plays (As well as the Picture of Dorian Gray)
– The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
– I am Malala by Malala Yousafzai
– I am not your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika Sanchez
i assume she’s read annie on my mind and the miseducation of cameron post.
When I was 14, I discovered “Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors” by Piers Paul Ried. Also The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings were favorites.
Anything by daphne du maurier
The classics I read around that age and loved were To Kill A Mockingbird, And Then There Were None (I still love Agatha Christie), and Pride & Prejudice. I also read Harry Potter around that time, but it was just becoming big and only 4 books were out. Other YA books I’d recommend are Anna Dressed In Blood by Kendare Blake, The Hunger Games, The Dust of 100 Dogs by A.S. King, Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell, My Lady Jane, and Denton Little’s Deathdate by Lance Rubin. I have several other YA recommendations, but many would depend on her comfort level sexual and darker content (not that Anna or HG are light by any means).
Magician by Raymond E Feist, or anything by Terry Pratchett, but you might as well start at the start with The Colour of Magic. Both absolutely brilliant writers of their kinds.
Anything by Kwame Alexander and Jasper Fforde. Pretty disparate but both interesting and accessible.
A Fistful of Sky by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/473869.A_Fistful_of_Sky
I didn’t learn about it until I was more like 20ish, but anything by Christopher Moore.
My daughter recommends the Warrior series by Erin Hunter & Wolves of the Beyond by Kathryn Lasky
At that age, I was into the Spellsinger series by Alan Dean Foster and the Xanth novels by Piers Anthony. Those were my summer reading.
As far as more intellectual fare… Fahrenheit 451, Animal Farm, Bless the Beasts and the Children, Flowers For Algernon, and–I read this for an AP English class my senior year, so it may or may not be above her level–Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston. 20+years later, it’s still one of my favorite books.
This may sound like an odd recc, but 90 Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary was absolutely fantastic for expanding my vocabulary.
So many books I want to list! Not for nothing is my handle Fictionfiend!
If she likes historical fiction the best series of books is the First Man in Rome series by Colleen McCullough. Vivid, vibrant and absolutely brilliant.
“Educated a memoir” by Tara Westover. This lady was sort’ve homeschooled mostly self taught until college. Now has a PHD
Susan Kim. Wasteland series. She’s written YA and also plays and tv. Emmy award winner. And she’s a cool person too.
Goodreads…co out Susan kim.
Try Robin McKinley! I fell in love with her books at that age (and still love them now)
If she hasn’t read Naomi Novik, try “His Majesty’s Dragon” or “Uprooted”
I am reading all the recommendations and writing down book titles for myself and I am 60. I was a teacher and worked in the library, but reading anything great was not in my wheel house unless prescribed by a teacher. This is the one that stuck that I did choose for myself and still bubbles to the top of my brain, “The Hiding Place” by Corrie Ten Boom. Talk about perseverance, bravery, forgiveness and mercy!!! WOAH.
One More River by Lynne Reid Banks
Lyddie by Katherine Patterson
Summer Sisters by Judy Blume