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
The Princess Academy
The “Tearling” Series (do not know official title – first book is “Queen of the Tearling”
The Tomorrow series by John Marsden
Books that I loved as a young teen and have stuck with me-
Night by Elie Wiesel
Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack by M.E. Kerr
Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause (they made a TERRIBLE movie of this. It was ghastly, but the book is FANTASTIC. Do not judge the book by the movie)
Haunted Sister by Lael Littke
The Pack by Elisa Carbone
I probably have many more… but that is the top of my head
Among all the ones that have already been suggested here, which are all great suggestions, I CACKLED as a teenager to the Confessions of Georgia Nicholson books by Louise Rennison. Books go from #1- “Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging”, all the way to #10 – “Are These My Basoomas I See Before Me?”.
Full of weird british teenage slang and super-silly antics and a loveable but superficial main character. It made me laugh and felt genuinely related to. Not a lot of gay representation, but I chalk that up to it being 1999 at the first publication.
Cheers!
My mom was born in Germany in 1925. In 1931, when mom was only 6, her mom left her with relatives in Germany and sailed to Tokyo to remarry after her divorce. Mom finally rejoined her mom and new stepdad in Tokyo 3 years. Mom lived in Tokyo all through WWII, sailing to the US alone in 1948. Her biography is available on Amazon. It’s a great read about a young German teenager growing up in Japan during horrible times. There’s lots of world history included, so it’s educational, as well. When Mom was at reading/signing events, many parents bought the book for their daughters. I’d suggest you add Mom’s memoirs to Hayley’s list. Helga, A Memoir of Privilege, War and Family. https://www.amazon.com/Helga-Memoir-Privilege-War-Family/dp/0979135583
I haven’t scrolled all 383 posts above, so there may be some repeats here.
Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde ((NOTHING to do with that other book series with a similar name!) Technically I suppose this could be classified as Y/A Dystopia. In a world similar to ours, everyone is almost entirely colourblind. People live in a class system based on which colour(s) they can see and how much colour they can see. Each chapter is headed by a “quote” from a handbook that all citizens live by. My favorite quote: “The cucumber and the tomato are both fruit; the avocado is a nut. To assist with the dietary requirements of vegetarians, on the first Tuesday of the month a chicken is officially a vegetable.”)
Mr. Lemoncello’s Library series by Chris Grabenstein
The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex
Turtles All The Way Down by John Green
Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella (A big departure from her usual books, this one follows a teenager who suffers from extreme anxiety and agoraphobia.)
The Willoughby’s by Lois Duncan (I just discovered that it’s being made into a movie! The book is great, and the glossary and bibliography are equally entertaining.)
Counting by 7’s – Holly Goldberg Sloan (It’s about a 12-year old girl who is a genius.)
Gallagher Girls series by Ally Carter (Starts with I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You) (A boarding school for gifted girls that is actually a covert spy school where only the most gifted young ladies attend classes like PE (Advanced Martial Arts), Science (Chemical Warfare), and Computers (CIA code-breaking). Each of the girls is gifted, but they each have areas of strength and weakness.)
Artemis Fowl (series) by Eion Colfer (A 12-year old genius finds a way to hack into the Faery world and their far superior tech.)
The Mysterious Benedict Society – by Trenton Lee Stewart (A group of young people are invited to join an elite group with the message “Are you a gifted child looking for special opportunities?” I quite enjoyed this series, as did my niece who is 12.)
Wishtree – by Katherine Applegate (This is a kids/YA book, but resonated with me as an adult. There is a Wishtree in a small town, every year people write out their wishes and tie them to the branches in the hopes that they will come true. Told from the perspective of the tree as a new family moves into the neighbourhood, and it faces the prospect of being cut down.)
G. Norman Lippert’s James Potter series – (all online for free as they are technically fanfiction. Lippert wrote them in his spare time (he’s got a pretty awesome day-job) because his kids didn’t want the Harry Potter books to end. They follow Harry’s eldest son through his school experience. All full novel-length stories, well written, and feel like you’re still in the HP world. Obviously there are some inconsistencies from JK’s world, but for fanfiction books written out of love of the original series, they are amazing.)
Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I actually re-read it regularly when I need a literary palate cleanser.
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson was such a crucial book for me at that age.
Watership Down
The thing about jellyfish
At 14, my daughter fell in love with Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. and all of his books.
The Wind in the willows (my favorite book) All about friendship. Love it still.
To Kill a Mockingbird (My 2nd favorite book0
Here’s a thought: Last summer PBS had something called “The Great American Read.” They identified 100 novels from around the world, from 1600s to today, and they asked people to rank their favorites. Why not pick a couple from this list, read them, and then compare them to others she has enjoyed. Do the listed novels favorably compare to her favorites? Why or why not? What does she think made these books stand out to the point that they would make a list such as this? As mom, you’ll definitely want to preview some on this list. But it could be fun. PBS even filmed a few shows with people and authors discussing the books.
I have heard the Middle Falls time travel series by Shawn Inmon is good. I haven’t read them yet but I love the premise…a person dies and wakes up as a younger version of themselves with all of the knowledge of their previous life. A chance to do it over and get it right or screw it up worse.
I would like to think that I savored these books, but I am not sure because I devoured them!
– Uprooted and Spinning Silver- Naomi Novik
-His Fair Assassins Trilogy- Robin LaFevers —————Golden Compass Trilogy- Phillip Pullman
-The Parasol Protectorate and it’s sequel trilogy. Gail Carriger (not as a replacement to the books whose names you bandy about at a college coffee shop with your lit professor, but as the scrumptious crumpets to balance out the other fare. Wonderful romps through a supernatural steampunk Victorian England where the sexual expression spectrum is amply represented. She also has Finishing School series, where one learns manners and espionage and how to be an assassin in a school on a dirigible.) Have fun Halley!!!!!
Catcher in the Rye was on my summer reading list as an incoming freshman at an all-girls Catholic high school. I was 13 and didn’t know so many of those words
Between 13-15 I was reading everything my Mom was reading (unbeknownst to her) which included Danielle Steele, Sidney Sheldon, Harold Robbins, and ones I picked up myself by Stephen King, Dean Koontz & VC Andrews. It also included the dictionary because I had no idea wtf a clitoris was! (Mom was a single parent LOL)
I guess this is a list of what NOT to recommend, but I still turned out ok!
(Mostly)
THE HATE U GIVE – Thomas
RABBIT – Williams
ALICE IN WONDERLAND and THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS – Carroll
HEARTLAND- Smarsh
THE RAPE OF NANKING – Chang
TREBLINKA
Some of the classics by people if color. Some classics covered in high school classes.
Anything by John Steinbeck (oddly I did not like OF MICE AND MEN, but I have read many of his and loved them.
I Sing the Body Electric, by Ray Bradbury.
Honestly, anything by Ray Bradbury, but especially this book.
14-year-old girl here ready to share my book recommendations!
– Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone
– Heartless by Marissa Meyer
– Free to Fall by Lauren Miller
– Notes from a Public Typewriter
– A World Without Whom by Emmy J Favilla
Shakespeare might be really fun if there are any local theatre productions doing a play this summer..
Ugh I sound so rude. I hit return for formatting and was going to follow up with the agreements and recommendations but I thought it had all disappeared so I just quit. Now I see it and can’t figure it out how to delete. If anyone can delete these both please do. I am sorry.
Anything by Neil Gaiman (The Graveyard Book, Fortunately the Milk)
Harry Potter
Children of Blood and Bone
Skyward or anything by Brandon Sanderson
Are You There God? it’s me Margaret
Shel Silverstein
Abarat by Clive Barker
Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
The Hate you Give
Non-Fiction:
Salt
Cunt by Inga Muscio – I know the title may offend but it a great early feminist book
Cornelia Funke – Dragon Rider, Ink Spell, and its sequels. Although perhaps they are a little young for a 14-year-old? I still adore Funke’s writing. My mother introduced me to Mary Stewart at Hailey’s age. Moonspinners was my first. If she hasn’t read Jane Austen yet this might be a fun age to start. Not modern of course. Angela Thirkell if she liked Austen
I am post #413. My recommendation: all of the above.
“Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl and “Home Before Morning” by Lynda Van Devanter. Both were assigned reading in my freshman English class, and both have stuck with me for more than 30 years.
My son at age 14 (last summer) was engrossed in the Mazerunner series and the Hunger Games series. As for myself, I believe I was switching back and forth between Charles Dickens and Sweet Valley High around that age. Lol. It might be fun to read the original of something like Pride and Prejudice and then compre it to more modern versions of the book (and movies)….and do it together. My daughter and I did this and it was so enjoyable for both of us.
The summer I was 14 when I decided that I should try reading more serious books than the science fiction that I read voraciously before. I read “Gone With The Wind”, and some Hemingway and Steinbeck books. Steinbeck is the only one that I would recommend now. He compellingly captured the plight of people who had suffered major misfortune. I would start with “The Grapes of Wrath” or “East of Eden”, and if she likes either of those, she could explore his other works.
I recommend alternating “fun” books with “literature” books. It can’t be Steinbeck all the time. Balance!
A dystopian summer might be fun. 1984, Brave New World, The Handmaid’s Tale, etc. Don’t forget to read multiple genres. Throw in some poetry (Pablo Neruda’s Ode to My Socks is my favorite poem of all time, and we read it in freshman English!). Don’t forget biographies and other non-fiction. I’d highly recommend The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks!
Or, maybe she could do a research project. Pick one subject she doesn’t know much about, and immerse herself in it for a few weeks. Self-directed research projects can be a great experience.
My favorite book, the one that came to me at that age and changed my world forever is by A.B. Curtiss, titled Children of the Gods. It’s magical and poetic and speaks to the soul. I gift it only to those that are near and dear to me, like my daughter on her 16th birthday. I hope you check it out, Jenny.
Tamora Pierce! All Tamora Pierce!
I Capture the Castle
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
The Art of Racing in the Rain
The Power of One
Far From The Tree by Robin Benway. Its main protagonists are 15-17, and it’s a rollercoaster of all emotions. Deals with teen pregnancy, weed, racism… but also therapy and making friends and when to share your secrets.
Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie (Jordan Sonnenblick) is brilliant for anyone about 13+. Hilarious, but stock up on tissues too
The World Without Us
Cat’s Cradle- or any other Vonnegut
Bill Bryson: A Short History of Nearly Everything
The Goldfinch: Donna Tartt
The book that changed my life: Go Ask Alice. I read it when I was about 14.
The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay. A young mans’ journey to finding his true self in post WW2, pre Apartheid South Africa. Adventure, history, overcoming obstacles. I read it for the first time at 14, and re-read it every year or so.
I was reading a ton of Stephen King the summer I turned 14, so I’m not a great guide. I asked my teenager and they recommended Becky Albertalli and Adam Silveri. (They wrote a book together but their own books are very good.) She’s also probably old enough for Rainbow Rowell.
The Giver, by Lois Lowry (distopian, deals with personal choice and emotion)
Time Zero, by Caroline Cohagan (same really!)
Cry the Beloved Country, by Alan Paton, about racial injustice in apartheid South Africa.
Such a Pretty Face, by Cathy Lamb, about self-image and mental health.
The Endless Steppe, by Esther Hautzig, about growing up in the USSR.
Good luck choosing!
The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison – so hopeful, lovely use of language
The Graceling books by Kristen Cashore. These can be a little bit of a tough read, because while they are YA, she pulls no punches in describing manipulative, abusive relationships. She also fully embraces coming through such relationships whole and hale, and helping others to as well. With a backdrop of glorious fantasy fiction.
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
for non-fiction, maybe Sarah Vowell? For looking at the big picture of history with a grain of salt and lump of sarcasm.
My 16-year old has recently been enjoying Clockwork Boys and Swordheart – both by T. Kingfisher (pen name for Ursula Vernon.)
Rumors of Peace by Ella Leffland
The House on Mango Street Sandra Cisneros
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
This was my favorite post. I love thinking of all my favorite books! 🙂
Madeleine L’Engle, Carl Hiasson, Heather Demetrios. And my kids loved the Dune series by Frank Herbert!
Have a wonderful bookish summer!
Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. Oddly weird and satisfying at the same time.
At about that age, I picked up Macbeth. To read for fun, over the summer. I was a weird child, and my parents gave us free reign of the book shelves.
While I didn’t understand all of it, it was helpful when I had to read Shakespeare in school. I had already read some and wasn’t intimidated. So, maybe something
I think it was also around that age when I read Wuthering Heights (still hate that book).
Orson Scott Card, Scott Westerfield, Scott Sigler…
A Prayer for Owen Meaney” by John Irving, or really anything else by him but especially this book. DO NOT SEE THE AWFUL MOVIE ADAPTED FROM THIS BOOK!
Also, I think that I remember that your daughter does not identify as straight. For me, that was very isolating when I was growing up and gay liturature made a huge mark on me. A classic like “Rubyfruit Jungle” by Ria Mae Brown would be good. I don’t recommend her cat themed mysterious though, you have been warned.
Mercedes Lackey has some excellent fantasy books (Valdemar series) that I devoured my first year of high school.
Anything by Diana Wynn Jones, especially the Chrestomanci books, Howl’s Moving Casstle (and the other 2 Books in the Howl series)
She could make her own list.
I think L’Engle’s books (not the Wrinkle in Time series, but the Austin-CanonTallis timeline) are perfect for that age. They were for me. Ray Bradbury, Patricia McKillip, Diane Duane’s So You Want to Be a Wizard series is perfect for summer, Tamora Pierce, Patricia Wrede. Yeah, there’s a trend here. I first read The Lord of the Rings at 14, but it wasn’t really that known back then. I also read Heinlein’s adult SF then – not something that’s uplifting, but good stories and challenging concepts. He’s so opinionated and wrestling with WHY he might be wrong or right is worth doing at that age.
Angelas Ashes
The Kite Runner
We Were Liars
The Giver
Enders Game
Milk and Honey
I loved Madeleine L’Engle at that age! I’m actually thinking about going back to read some of them again!
The Abhorsen series by Garth Nix! The first three are the real gems while the last two wrap everything up.
Rebecca, Little Women, The Hate U Give, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, The Hobbit, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Freaky Green Eyes, Persepolis, Greenglass House, When You Reach Me, Tell the Wolves I’m Home, Echo, Legend series . . . can you tell I’m a reading teacher??
Might she like Manga. There is SO much. My Hero Acadmia, Jojo’s bizarre adventure, etc. Does Manga count as reading? My son is teaching himself Japanese he’s so into it.
The quick and easy answer is to look at the AP Lit reading list. They’re all over online and it’s good stuff.
Wait, I have more!
Out of the Flames! by Nancy and Douglas Goldstone (it was an APUSH assignment but tremendous, advancements in publishing gave authors a platform much like, um bloggers today, to get their word out their and blow people’s minds. It doesn’t end well. Or does it?)
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (unless she’s already read, but it’s so moving I wept, I felt it should be called A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (but that was taken), there is a movie that isn’t quite as good)
Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan (about a bookstore, wizards, ciphers, coding, google, OK and NK–all my hot buttons)
Hey all my picks here are books about books and their incredible magic superpowers, yep that’s good.
Gonna round this out with some completely different types of books:
-The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell (really made made me think, nearly turned me vegan, there are others in the series but this is where to start)
-The Virgin and the Swine by Evangeline Walton (my dad knew her, her skin was blue, she’s written many books-fantasy, don’t piss off women)
-The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (the only book I ever read, drew me in too much, have stayed away, has problematic bits but made me want to be an architect)
Sadly after hearing too much about Orson Scott Card’s views on LGBTQ it has colored my enjoyment of books like Enders Game which I had previously loved as it spoke to my sons personality and experience. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
Husband the librarian recommends The Martian. I tend to read and reread books. Pilgrim’s Inn is one favorite. Pride and Prejudice is another.
Harry Potter … Read that series as an adult but I know I would have loved it as a teen! Also the Jean M Auel Clan of the Cave Bear series. Those were awesome!
These are not books I read at that age, these are books I now believe everyone should read by 13/14, I’d like them to be mandated in school. You may disagree and believe you have done such a good parenting job or whateve that they are not needed. No matter how strong you are, the subtle signs of abuse need attention before you end up caught.
“Gift of Fear” by Gavin de Becker (The main reason for this book is to reinforce trusting your ‘gut’ or intuition. Ignoring those feelings is a huge issue. Taught in school it should focus on that, some of his writing on abuse is problematic. Look up ‘second brain’, our guts have one…)
“Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men” by Lundy Bancroft (I wish he’d rewrite this to some degree because there are women who fit the pattern. However, abusers are overwhelming men despite MRA groups publishing inaccurate stats to the contrary.)
I want to add, I grew up with strong boundaries (before that word was even used). I am a woman that does not bow, and went into a male dominated field a long time ago. Just makin sure you understand this is not about weakness, it’s about how easy it is for abusers (sexual or otherwise) to manipulate those of us who have strong ethics and strong characters. For too long people blame the victims. ANYONE can be a victim of a manipulative, sweet and careful abuser. The problem is we don’t recognize the subtle signs until we are in the cycle, or we try to leave. The emotional can escalate to physical in a heartbeat and even if it doesn’t, either harms you.
PS: Bloggess, before you think, that I think Haley doesn’t understand logically about this stuff. I know you have done the things. I grew up strong, I got fooled along with many other women I have met. I recommend these for her future romances but also because Haley is kick ass and if she gets interested she might very well change the landscape of how the cops and the courts treat abuse victims, how to help fix a broken system. You do this every day with mental health, this is an area where she might want to help. Maybe get these books in every school, maybe more, who knows?
Jedi Hugs
Can I suggest a non-traditional book list? She’s your daughter, so I assume she has a LOT of great things to choose from, and the items in this thread are all really interesting. But how about a booklist that has 25 – 40 items that say things like: A book that’s older than your parents; a book that has a horrible cover photo; a book that talks about a place of which you’ve never heard; a book that sounds a little (but not too) scary; a book that the title fills you with hope; etc? This would give her direction, but also let her run with it – which I think is part of what you are hoping for the home schooling experience. PLUS, how much fun would it be to make reading lists like this for your new bookstore, and for your displays?
It’s such a shame no one could help…. The internet is fabulous. Thank you, I am stealing a few ideas for my daughter who is turning 15. Thanks for all you do!
Dark Angel, A Gathering of Gargoyles, and Pearl of the Soul of the World all written by Meredith Ann Pierce.
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series (Douglas Adams) and Howl’s Moving Castle, House of Many Ways, Castle in the Air (Diana Wynne Jones)
Anything by Margaret Atwood
My Em is around your daughters age and loves all kinds of books, here are a few that are all different:
Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series. The Summer of Jodie Perez by Amy Spaulding. Carry On by Rainbow Rowell. Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera. Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles series. Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher.
My daughter swears by The Outsiders changing her young life. (She’s 13).
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
I always recommend Tamara Pierce. She is one of my all time favorites in that age range. She has multiple series, and i adore them all. The book I had signed was from the Protector of the Small quartet.
She’s probably already read it but ‘It’s kind of an epic love story’ by Kacen Callendar was delightful as was ‘on the come up’ by Angie Thomas
The book thief! I’m a long way from 14, but I loved this “young adult” book. Beautifully written, and just a lovely story.
Any of the Discworld books by Terry Pratchett. War for the Oaks by Emma Bull (it seriously changed my entire reading trajectory and introduced Wee Me to the concept of Urban Fantasy). If you can find them, the first edits of Nancy Drew. Not gonna lie. Nancy was SASSY AF before they started hacking away at her in the later editions. Also, and I only rec this because she’s your daughter so she’s bound to already know a lot of this by osmosis… Dead Men Do Tell Tales by William Maples. It is one of the best, most personable, most respectful books of forensic anthropology that I’ve ever read.
No one is EVER too old for the Anne of Green Gables series, although the first book is wonderful and necessary, the rest follow Anne into her 50’s and World War 2. There are 8 I believe (including ones about her children).
The Once and Future King by TH White.
Cress Delahanty by Jessamyn West (I LOVED this book, about a girl coming of age and learning to be true to herself).
There are SO MANY wonderful books.
Everything Robin McKinley especially the Hero and the Crown and the Blue Sword.
As a librarian, I have so many I could recommend! but I will just say Annie on My Mind and Tales of the Madman Underground.
Oh, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard (a bit on the deep side but well worth it, especially if you love nature)
The Redwall series by Brian Jacques
I think at 14 I was reading The Lord of the Rings & The Silmarillion (I actually loved it); Gone with the Wind (I know, it has problems, but I adored this book–it’s remarkably well-written); the original Dragonrider & Dragonsinger series (Anne McCafferty); the Myth Adventures series (the graphic novels are awesome, too); and I know she loves theatre, so anything by Shakespeare.
Does she like audiobooks?
Audiophile Magazine does an amazing teen program every summer where they give out two free audiobook downloads per week for ten weeks. Here is the link- it is geared towards ages 13+
https://www.audiobooksync.com/2019-sync-titles/
You only need to download the Overdrive app in order to access the download. I’d also recommend saving the file elsewhere (hard drive, Dropbox, etc) since they do not save to your account if you upgrade your phone, for instance (I lost a couple of years worth this past fall because I didn’t know this). They curate the selections so that the two titles are related in some way, like by theme. And they offer a variety of productions – fiction, nonfiction, full cast productions of plays, memoirs, histories, etc. It’s at the tail end of the cycle but there are still a couple of weeks left and books she may find fun and interesting!
I love this idea! Our 14 year old switched to online school last year and it has been life changing for all of us. I can’t think of any particular books but I wanted to suggest asking your local public librarians. They’re a fount of resources and I think a lot of people forget how awesome they are! Libraries also tend to have summer reading programs that might be fun for any age.
I never really grew out of Young Adult Fiction, so if she’s into fantasy: the chronicles of Chrestamanci (Dianne Wynne Jones), Eragon, the Red Queen. I also loved The Princess Diaries series and Little Women, Little Men, and Jo’s Boys. The Princess bride is long, but a fun read.
My favorite book at that age was the Scarlet Pimpernel.
https://www.audiobooksync.com/
Free audiobooks for teens. 2 books each week. Mix of fiction and non. I read and recommend this week’s Heretics Anon. I downloaded and am looking forward to the other title this week.
I just read Dread Nation by Justina Ireland. Civil War and zombies. Pretty awesome. https://www.amazon.com/Dread-Nation-Justina-Ireland/dp/0062570609
Roger Zelazny The Dreaming Jewel. And of course the Chronicles of Amber.
Anne MacCaffrey Dragonriders of Pern trilogy plus the Harper Hall trilogy–the overlapping time line for the different stories blew my mind.
13/14 was my summer of Agatha Christie. As an older reader I’ll now throw Conine Willis onto the pile for variety… “To Say Nothing of the Dog” because the early murder mysteries are key to plot points. And Firewatch because it sets up the world for “Dog”.
And if I may add a movie… “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.” A very sedate older woman once confessed that she laughed so hard she nearly wet her pants.
In Other Lands by Sarag Rees Brennan. A magical other world with queer main characters. And man eating mermaids. Very meta. The funniest thing I’ve read in years.
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson! Read it at her age. Classic. Good conversational book too.
At that age I was reading a lot of Ann rinaldi (historical fiction) and Tony hillerman (native American mystery/detective). I would also recommend the born a crime audio book by trevor noah. Its a fantastic book about his life in apartheid and post apartheid south africa but with the audio book, you can really appreciate all the different languages, which I think is important.
Laurie Halse Anderson is a great author to go with!
Marc Acito’s “How I Paid For College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, and Musical Theatre” is a fantastic one as well!
Rose of No Man’s Land by Michelle Tea is also a fun one.
Or my book “You’re Doing It Wrong” (shameless plug :-p)
Oh! And two nonfiction books that I somehow overlooked. “If you could see what I hear” (which sadly isn’t in print anymore)
“Never Cry Wolf” by Farley Mowat.
Hold this one for school year history class: “The Good War” by Studs Terkel. (Followed by a chaser of zombie fiction because World War Z is patterned after Terkel’s oral histories. Not the movie, but book or full-cast audiobook.)
And Roots by Alex Haley. (The miniseries was so well done I’d put it on the video list. Don’t tell her who plays the young Kunta Kinte… see if she recognizes him.)
Is 14 too young for Steven King or Joe Hill? I’ve always loved Eyes of the Dragon by SK, and of course,The Stand is a classic. Joe Hill might be on the scary side, unless she’s into that. :).
Gary Paulsen books:
Hatchet is often taught in schools (Newberry Award winner) but I think you would all three love Winterdance (non-fiction) – JUST READ IT!!! And then there are the follow-on books to Hatchet. Also non-fiction: My Life in Dog Years, Dogsong, and Guts. And sorta fictionalized bio of his early years Harris and Me will have you dying. Angsty youth might relate to The Island. Paulsen’s greatest gift is mixing truth with gut-busting humor. CANNOT RECOMMEND HIGHLY ENOUGH. Seriously. Especially the Hatchet series and anything true about dogs.
That said he has written lots of other stuff that I don;t know if I would like or not. And many of these titles will be in your local library. Happy summer reading!
The Count of Monte Cristo
Frankenstein
Anything Sherlock Holmes
Robin McKinley. Deerskin is intense, but awesome.
Sharon Shinn’s Angel series,and/or 12 Houses series
I was really into mysteries at that age and ate up Agatha Christie and Martha Grimes.
Thomas Holt
Sharon McCrumb, especially her Appalachian Ballad series and the ones that explore real history.
I read a TON of YA, and my top three that I’ve read recently are:
In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan – a meta tale about getting everything that you dreamed about, and realizing how complicated any world is. Two of the main characters are queer, and there a trolls, mermaids, harpies, and murderous unicorns.
A Gentleman’ Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzie Lee – an interesting take on how the issues we face growing up remain much the same regardless of when, that being ourselves is often not easy, and there’s a thrilling adventure.
Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor – stunning prose and both a coming of age story and a discussion of what makes one a hero or a monster.
Life of Pi
I well remember accompanying my 7- or 8-year-old to make her first independent purchase at our local book store (I was just there as back-up). She politely asked for “The Secret Garden” and the salesgirl showed her to “My Secret Garden”
“The Revealers” and “True Shoes” by Doug Wilhelm. Might be a little young for her (geared more towards middle-schoolers) but the first one is about bullying in school and what happens when some kids try to find out why bullies act the way they do. “True Shoes” is the sequel.
I always universally despised whatever was on my actual assigned reading list with a few exceptions. A day in the life of ivan denisovitch(?sp?) was one of those exceptions (and since she already has an interest in siberian camps that may be a good one for her- can’t even recall if I read it for english or history class now. Some of my favorites from that age was The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay and Tracks by Robyn Davidson and West with the Night by Beryl Markham )these last two were big for me because as a Outside magazine/arm chair adventure kind of reader there wasn’t much available about or by women. also around then I discovered Ursula K La Guin.
A Separate Peace – John Knowles
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, A Thurber Carnival, Dragonwyck, Where the Red Fern Grows, All the Black Stallion books, Secret Garden and The Shuttle (lesser known, but great) both by Frances Hodgson Burnett.
I still have a great fondness for anything by S.E. Hinton. I think “Rumble Fish” was the first one I read.
What about My Awful/Awesome Popularity Plan by Seth Rudetsky, A Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzie Lee and Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Aliere Saenz. Also the Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily Danforth.
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, Abarat by Clive Barker, or The Thief of Always by Clive Barker.
14 was a very long time ago. I think I was reading Agatha Christie. Dorothy Sayers though is possibly better, try Gaudy Night. C.J. Cherryh is good too, all her books are basically about trust. Steven Brust and P.C. Hodgell are solid, but with Hodgell start with the stuff that Baen is putting out now because she’s gone through a number of publishers and they’ve reprinted the same book under various versions of the title. The new Baen printings are going to have consistent titles, and you’ll get all her books that way in order. Patricia McKillip should be better known than she is, try for The Forgotten Beasts of Eld or her other books. She has a way of staying in your head.
Akata Witch (the Nigerian Harry’s potter) by Nnedi Okorafor
Love love loved it and it’s sequel, Akata Warrior. Strong, female lead. Great kids. Some non-American, nonBritish culture for a cool change. Lots of different magic (juju). Kids/teens saving the day. What more could you ask for?
Just finished “The Astonishing Color of After” and my heart is still hurting from the beauty of it. My favourite book when I was 14 was Uglies by Scott Westerfeld (and still is). Also recommend John Green’s books, especially the underappreciated “Abundance of Katherines”
I’ve been having a lot of thoughts and feelings about this list: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/entertainment/books/100-books-for-the-ages/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.674271654989
Two other lists worth exploring:
https://grassrootscommunityfoundation.org/1000-black-girl-books-resource-guide/
https://www.imyourneighborbooks.org/category/age/ages-14-and-up/
(Not that I would read anything that anyone suggested at age 14, I was too busy methodically working my way through the SF section of my local library….)
I didn’t read these at 14, but I love them and I think they’re supposed to be read at 14. Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy! And by my friend, Julie Reece Deaver, Say Goodnight, Gracie.
When You Reach Me.
Birdbox.
Caravale Trilogy.
The Night Circus.
Anything by Christopher Moore or Stephen King.
Does she have a Goodreads account? I just set my 14 y.o. up with one.
Tell the Wolves I’m home
I’m not your typical Mexican Daughter
Elinor Oliohanr is completely fine
Lili De Jone
Diary of Marie Antoinette
We have always lives in the castle
If she wants to throw a fun series in, I absolutely love the Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher. It’s not YA but it’s a fun read about a wizard in modern-day Chicago. Great world building and hands-down my favorite series.
John Jakes books. They are historical fiction and I loved them, but the books about the Revolutionary War and the Civil War actually helped me in American history class in high school.
If she liked Ruta Sepetys, she might also like Melina Marchetta and Elizabeth Wein. Books I read at 14 were tons of what passed for urban fantasy at the time (L.J Smith and Melinda Metz), which I’m still a fan of to this day (the genre, not the actual books.) I wish I had had The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things by Carolyn Mackler, and I am overjoyed that there’s more books like that now than ever. Further, if graphic novels are her thing, I can’t recommend the new Jem series enough. It is the Jem I wish I had had in the 80s. Also, Ms. Marvel, because Kamala Khan is adorable.
I really loved the Uglies trilogy by Scott Westerfeld and more recently The Lunar Chronicles series by Marissa Meyers. They are two of the more creative dystopian YA series I’ve read with really kick ass heroines and rich world building. For meatier reading, maybe I Am Malala or Pride and Prejudice for the Classic That All Women Should Read
Anything JasonReynolds has written is happening with the kiddos here. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. Our freshmen read Night, Of Mice and Men (pop culture references alone make this a must) , Speak, Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, sometimes Frankenstein, Romeo and Juliet.
https://possumscatsthingsgnawingatme.wordpress.com/2018/07/04/a-psa-from-w-charles-marmota/
https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/9th-grade-summer-reading
It may be kind of a safe answer but that’s when I finished reading Shakespeare’s works. That’s the age where you really start to emotionally connect with a lot of what Shakespeare wrote about.
Not gonna kid here, I did not comb through the previous 510! comments to be sure this isn’t duplicated elsewhere (though I did read quite a lot of great stuff!). Try this: https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=15570 Lots of good stuff there, but that link should take you directly to the books/stories of young women who worked for the allied forces in some pretty powerful ways.
At that age I loved Garth Nix’s ‘Old Kingdom’ series. Some other Australian authors I’d recommend are Kate Forsyth, Isobelle Carmody’s ‘Obernewtyn Chronicles’ and Juliet Marillier. Mark Haddon’s ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time’ is great too, and ‘The Chrysalids’ by John Wyndham for a sci fi classic. On the topic of classics, ‘Jane Eyre’ by Charlotte Bronte is brilliant and all of Jane Austen’s novels are essential reading for the witty, snarky observations of character. I echo the people who recommended ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower,’ by Stephen Chbosky – it’s got one of the best closing paragraphs ever. And everything that Margaret Atwood has ever written. I could go on for ages, but I think that’s enough for now!
I totally agree with the recommendation of I Capture the Castle. I would also suggest Goose Girl and Summers at Castle Auburn for fantasy-type YA. We Have Always Lived in the Castle is delightfully creepy. Marina is a lovely gothic story. Also Special Topics in Calamity Physics and something by Tana French – maybe The Secret Place, or even The Likeness. Enchanted, Inc is a fun story about magic.
A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews and Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger
Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger (on a dirigible! Note – this series is kid safe. Her others are… less so but not bad)
13 Reasons Why (Do NOT Netflix this!!!)
The Help (better than Mockingbird)
The Marrow Thieves
The Hate U Give
The Princess Bride
Everything by Rick Riordan
And Cassandra Clare
And Holly Black
Squirrel Girl
#Not Your Princess (multiple authors)
And Amelinda Berube’s first novel… um… The Dark Beneath the Ice.
maybe i didn’t read much at that age, maybe i have a poor memory for what i read. i’m just happy so many people have specific suggestions. my input to this is only that she might choose a few things that are outside her normal interest. i suppose getting a reading list from your blog readers will do that for her naturally!
what a great question for her to ask.
I recommend checking Dr. Debbie Reese’s blog, Americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com
I think she might enjoy “Heart’s Unbroken” by Cynthia Leigh Smith. For textbook type reading, I recommend “An Indigenous Peoples History of the United States for Young People” and “Rethinking Columbus the Next 500 Years”.
Also, I’m almost finished with library school and I’m working on a list of recommended books by and about Indigenous peoples for children to adults. I’m happy to share if you’re interested.
I cannot recommend the Secret World Chronicle series enough, especially if sci-fi/fantasy is her thing. If not, then I really like anything by Jennifer Niven.
For me it was Tree Grows in Brooklyn, It maybe feels old fashioned now but man, I loved that book in my early teens.
I had a terrible experience with English classes generally, including my freshman year that was taught by a woman who I’m positive was solidly into her dementia (she didn’t do anything anyone would object to…but she didn’t do much at all). Basically, we just sat in class and read books. Four of them. For a high school English class. Four books in a year.
That’s terrible! But! She did introduce me to one of my favorite books of all time (and one that, now that I think of it, I really should revisit) — ‘Cry, The Beloved Country’. As I remember it 30ish years later, it was my first introduction to the radical idea that white people weren’t always the protagonists of every story.
If you need more evidence it’s great, here’s a 1-star Amazon review:
I really did not want to give it even 1 star. I was thoroughly bored with it and finally ended up just skimming through the last part of it because we were to read it for our book club and I wanted to be able to say I at least got through it. It seemed to have no problem with girls living with guys and having babies and I did not approve of some of the language. I would not recommend it to any one who wants good Christian literature.
My friends and I all read Gone with the Wind in 8th grade. This was decades ago, but would spark some conversations.
The Clan of the Cave Bear series and my all time favourite… The Mists of Avalon.
Perks of being a wall flower (if she hasn’t read it already). Same with Catcher in the Rye. The colour purple was/is my absolute favourite which I read about that age, but may be too intense for her.
Haha! My 14yr old daughter recently asked for that same book, she said she had been reading it on her phone in her language arts class, but her teacher preferred they read an actual book (I agree). So, I said, can you show me the cover… and breathed a huge sigh of relief when I realized it wasn’t the Shades of Grey I first assumed. Whew. I immediately ordered her a copy!
“Among Others” by Jo Walton so good and a great source of book recommendations in itself.
“All the Birds in the Sky” by Charlie Jane Anders
“I am Princess X” by Cherie Priest
Bloody Jack series by L.A.Meyer
Lockwood & Co. Series by Jonathan Stroud
Dang, I love lists of books!
I picked up Vonnegut’s “Welcome to the Monkey House” from the school library at 14 and found world-expanding stories and a friend whose words have comforted me since then.
I hated reading at that age, particularly books that were assigned reading where I had no choice. But there were two that I really did enjoy. I’m probably the 100th person to recommend Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury but it is an excellent book, as is Lord of the Flies by William Golding.
My teachers all conspired to shove John Steinbeck down our throats; The Old Man and the Sea, East of Eden, and The Grapes of Wrath — one after another, leading to a lifelong revulsion of his work. Please, give students a list but let them choose what to read!
So a few to Read for Fun…
Castle Hangnail by Ursula Vernon
A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazney … narrated by Jack the Ripper’s loyal dog Snuff (Note this is not the book of the same name by Richard Laymon)
A Fistful of Sky by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
Any of the Navajo mysteries by Tony Hillerman, though the later ones are better
I enjoyed Ender’s Game as a teenager, but I have since thrown away all my Orson Scott Card books over his incredibly distressing homophobia.
Donalyn Miller is an amazing person who writes about teaching reading. She has a blog called the Nerdy Book Club https://nerdybookclub.wordpress.com/ that would be a great resource!
Everything by Paul Zindel.
We were Liars
Little Women
Last Chance to See
Good Omens
Discworld
anything by John Green (I like the older stuff, e.g an Abundance of Katherines, Looking for Alaska)
My Antonia by Willa Cather. It was my fave for a long time. Lakota Woman (about Native Americans in the 70s) and Women of the Silk were two others where I still have my copy.
Since you seem like a Neil Gaiman family, I might recommend Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart. It’s fun fantasy.
The others I remember reading around 7-9 grades were Midsummer Nights Dream, The Crucible, Winesburg Ohio, The Bluest Eye, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, the Bell Jar… good god late 90s teachers were emo.
“The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry” is one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read.
Not the official classics, but definitely YA must reads!
-all of the John Green books (really, Looking for Alaska is my favorite, but the others are amazing too). Really. Read those. They’ll leave you crying and laughing and happy and sad.
-an absolutely remarkable thing by Hank Green
-the hunger games series
-did I mention the Hank and John Green books yet?
Wow. I was 14 so many years ago that I can’t remember all that I read that year (1980). I’m pretty sure about The Once and Future King and Clan of the Cave Bear, though those might have been 13. Or even 12.
My high school had a book list and freshmen were required to read at least 1600 pages for book reports, at least 800 of which had to be from the book list. I made a post on Facebook looking to see if anyone still has theirs. I figured that if nothing else it would jog my memory about what I read. The school was religious pretty socially conservative, so it’s a lot of classics and books on religious themes. I know I read 1984, because I was comparing notes with a friend who transferred to another school the next year. Was The Hiding Place that year? So Big, by Edna Ferber, which was on the list because the school was located near South Holland where So Big is set.
Ooh! Not from the reading list, but my mom saw Richard Peck give a talk (she was a youth services librarian) that year and I went on a Richard Peck kick as a result. Ghosts I Have Been, Amanda/Miranda, Secrets of the Shopping Mall,and Through a Brief Darkness. Hangin’ Out With Cici, by Francine Pascal, which I recommended to my mom and she loved, too.
I’ve been battling writer’s block lately so maybe I’ll free-associate on this topic on my blog, like, tomorrow.
Salt ~ A World History
Check with your local library. Our library system (Prince William County, VA) has a great program that not only breaks down reading suggestions by grade, but also by genre. It was so good that most schools in the area just started using them for suggested reading.
back then I read a lot of high fantasy (Eragon, Lord of the Rings, etc) but THE books I still really love from that time are the Hunger Games Trilogy, the Book Thief and the Fault in Our Stars 🙂
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, if for no other reason than the sheer delight of the writing.
Another Roadside Attraction or Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins.
For the quintessential example of magical realism, Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
For a sweeping historical epic complete with layered symbolism and immense heartbreak, Doctor Zhivago.
If she has any interest in Australia and its (colonial) history, The Fatal Shore.
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking.
If she is interested in the beginnings of the environmental movement, the seminal book is Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. Also anything by the charming and amazing E.O. Wilson.
Someone above recommended Howard Zinn’s work on American history – I’d not necessarily go with Zinn unless Hailey reads it very very critically. Zinn has a white POV and can be pretty racist. Not overtly so, which is why you have to read his work with a jaundiced eye.
Oh! And!: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond. How different societies leapfrogged over others due to sheer geographic luck. Fascinating book.
Goldfinch by Donna Tartt or The world according to Garp by John Irving
Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds: very provocative
If y’all will be looking at British history at some point, I can’t recommend Sharon K. Penman’s books enough. She writes historical fiction about Wales and England from the time of Henry and Eleanor and Llewellyn Ffar. She’s recognized as one of the most historically accurate writers of genre and her books are absolutely fascinating. Her books didn’t exist when I was a teen, but she spawned an obsession with all things medieval Brisitsh history for me. Some sex (but not “lace and lust” book type. Completely necessary for the story) and as much violence as there was in those times. Her dialogue is extraordinary and as real as she can do for what is known about the person. As an example….in one part of her book Henry II is meeting Eleanor of Aquitane. He is pacing and fidgeting and she finally snaps at him to be still. I only found out later that Henry was very hyperactive as reported by writings from the people who actually knew him. She makes the people REAL to me.
Grapes of Wrath
Of Mice and Men
Prodigal Summer
The Poisonwood Bible
The Cold Sassy Tree
The World According to Garp
Five Quarters of the Orange
Oh my, how does one even choose, so many good books out there!
To Kill A Mockingbird and Paper Moon. Of course.
Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier (I recommend this for Hailey times a million)
The Once & Future King – TH White
The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The Scarlet Pimpernel – Baroness Orczy
Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
Night – Elie Wiesel
The Art of Fielding – Chad Harbach
Station Eleven – Emily St John Mandel
All the Light We Cannot See – Anthony Doerr
The Bean Tree, Animal Dreams and the Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Waiting for the Galactic Bus by Parke Godwin.
I would recommend anything by Matthew Quick…he’s the guy who wrote Silver Linings Playbook, which is actually not my favorite by him (but I did like it!). He has some YA books (Sorta Like a Rock Star and Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock are two I just read and loved) and “adult” books that are just wonderful. I particularly loved The Good Luck of Right Now. The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker is also one I bet she’d like!!
Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
Obernewtyn Chronicles by Isobelle Carmody
Alanna: The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce
Ash by Malinda Lo
Queens of Geek by Jen Wilde
The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth
Don’t forget the classics! The Odyssey, Beowulf, Gilgamesh. Also will open up some good conversations about classics and foundational texts being dude-centered. Could also then read Circe for Greek Mythology told from a woman’s perspective. Check out the Athena Club series by Theordora Goss for some fun historical mysteries.
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman.
When I was a teenager, I loved Ellen Raskin’s novels and So You Want to Be a Wizard by Diane Duane.
These days, I might recommend Jaclyn Moriarty’s books, especially The Year of Secret Assignments, Feeling Sorry for Celia, and The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone.
Also: The Adventures of a Girl Called Bicycle by Christina Uss and maybe the Alcatraz Smedry books by Brandon Sanderson.
Watership Down. Changed everything for me
It’s Like This, Cat
Ribsy
Black Beauty if she hasn’t read it
The entire Black Stallion series
Anything by Asimov
As she’s your kid, Christopher Moore, especially the Second Hand Souls and Blood Sucking Fiends series
Catcher in the Rye.
I’m sure it’s already been mentioned but The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a must. I didn’t read it until college and it’s the #1 book I wish I had read as a young teenager.
Maybe mentioned but a must read I think is ‘His Dark Materials” Trilogy by Philip Pullman. Writing superb and the richly imagined world with much to think about is marvelous. Maybe banned in some places in USA as it has a strong anti religous or antil religous organisations theme
Any Classics..many of which have already been listed. Also, the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis.
The book thief, Schindlers List, American Gods, Tom Sawyer, Frankenstein
I loved Two Against the North by Farley Mowat, he’s a Canadian author so he may not show up on most American reading lists, but I read it over and over again.
I would think that Hailey is as “weird” a reader as I was. So I would say anything by Christopher Moore. (I was never consistent about reading within my age group -and I still am not.)
The Good Earth, Pearl S Buck. Started my love of historical fiction!
Any of the Seanan McGuire Wayward Children series.
Ender’s Game – Orson Scott Card
Beggars in Spain – Nancy Kress
Challenger Deep – Neal Shusterman
Maybe people have posted this, but the Silo series (Wool, Shift, Dust) by Hugh Howey.
Maybe people have posted this, but the Silo series (Wool, Shift, Dust) by Hugh Howey.
The marrow thieves
From wiki
The story is set in a dystopian future in which most people have lost the ability to dream, with catastrophic psychological results. Indigenous people, who can still dream, are hunted for their marrow to create a serum to treat others. Frenchie, the protagonist, tries his best to avoid the Recruiters who are capturing Indigenous people to extract their bone marrow. Along the way north to safety, he falls in with a group lead by an older man, Miigwans
I generally read my kids’ summer reading. One book that we all found to be quite powerful was “The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates” by Wes Moore.
And there’s also Jasper Fforde’s “Shades of Grey” to further confuse the market. Maybe not entirely suitable for a 14 year old.. although not too racy.
There is also “Shades of Grey” by Jasper Fforde, which is about neither Siberian prison camps nor BDSM. Instead, it is a delightful, age-appropriate dystopian novel by the author of the Thursday Next series.
Alive! That book about the soccer team who ate each other after a plane crash. I read it when about your daughters age. Though now that I think about it, it probably contributed to my obsession with zombies. Regardless, it’s a great read.
The book thief.
The His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman. It changed my life and does again every time I reread it.
Madeleine L’Engle’s lesser known fiction (The Other Side of the Sun, Ilsa, A Winter’s Love, etc) and The Perks of Being a Wallflower by… Stephen Chbosky? (I probably slaughtered his last name, sorry!)
The Binti novels. I didn’t read them at 14, but they are Ya and excellent.
The Book of the Dun Cow.
“The River of No Return” by Cleveland Sellers (really fascinating history of a period of the civil rights movement and SNCC) and after a sad/hard read like that, fun fantasy “UnLunDun” by China Meiville (contains carnivorous giraffes – my favorite book when I was 14 <3)
Some books that I loved around that age:
East by Edith Pattou – it’s about a girl struck with wanderlust who is taken by a Polar bear to live in a mansion with it. Its a really good fairytale that most people haven’t heard of.
Anything written by Robin McKinley – She takes fairytales and re-works them. I particularly liked the Blue Sword series and retelling of Sleeping Beauty. Blue sword was also read by my friend in a college young adult literature class, so clearly, someone else thought it was good.
Anything written by Tamora Pierce – these are all stories what strong female leads who tend to follow untraditional “career” paths. Most of her books are in the same world. I particularly liked the Beka Cooper series about a girl who becomes essentially a police officer in the city’s roughest area. I also really liked the Tortall series- about a girl who becomes a knight, and particularly liked the follow-up series to Tortall, Daughter of the Lioness.
Other books and series of notable mention: Ender’s Game and Ender’s Shadow (the rest of the series are rougher to read at that age because of reading level, but equally good), Star Girl, Scott Westerfeld’ The Uglies series.
C.S. Lewis – Chronicles of Narnia, the Space trilogy (especially Perelandra), The Screwtape Letters. His essays are great tooMadeline L’Engle, especially A Wrinkle in Time of course (not the movie, please). Best good vs. evil stuff before Harry Potter. And even if she’s read some of them, she’ll get more nuance now.
The Last Samurai by Helen de Witt is really good.
I had to start reading Charles Dickens in 7th grade/ 14 years old and although I have always read above my grade, I did NOT get it until college – then I loved it. So you could try older classics, but be careful not to let her get put off by cultural references and language style. For that sort of thing, I would say to study some history, culture, etc. at the same time. Or watch a good movie (say my all time favorite, Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth & Jennifer Ehle on PBS and NOT the Keira Knightley one which makes me want to shoot the screen out), and then read the book. And then you can discuss the differences too!
There is so much “coming of age” crap out there, just try to make sure she (a) gets the better ones in the mix, and (b) at least 3/4 of her overall reading is not that. Yes, I can relate easily to things about people like me, but hmmm, the world is not full of only people like me! (sorry for the preaching, I’ll stop now)
Warrior Marks by Alice Walker and p. Parmar. Nonfiction. Honestly changed my mindset, linked myself to females everywhere. There’s a documentary now.
“The Night Circus” is a gorgeous piece of fiction, it’s even great on audiobook if everyone wants to listen. The “Red Rising” series is phenomenal, actually even better on audiobook due to the assigned narrator. I couldn’t get enough Sarah Dessen when I was her age and lots of reconstructed fairytales from Robin McKinley as well as the “Trickster’s Choice and “Trickster’s Queen” by Tamora Pierce (anything written by her is usually great, lots of awesome heroines to choose from). Happy reading!
Please post the book list you decide on for Hailey so we can all join in!
This time will be different (new release)
Laura Dean keeps breaking up with me (new release)
The People’s History of the United States
Carrie
Anything by Canadian author Kit Pearson but particularly the Daring Game, Awake and Dreaming, and the Guests of War Trilogy.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Cress Delahanty, The Chosen!
Genevieve Cogman’s series
The Invisible Library, v1; The Burning Page, v2; The Masked City, v3; The Lost Plot, v4 — OMG THERE’S A FIFTH ONE — The Mortal World, v5
As a librarian, I can confirm that these are accurate portrayals of how I imagine myself on a daily basis.
My daughter has chosen Challenger Deep for her Summer Read. Her school has an approved list that she ‘must’ choose from. She’s 14 going into 9th grade if that helps.
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler. Also, I was about Hailey’s age when I discovered magical realism and the crazy, awesome world that Gabriel Garcia Marquez inhabited.
Finally unlurking to say that she’s at the perfect age to start reading the classics for fun. Austen, Hemingway, Dickens, etc. Tell her to go for unabridged versions, but it’s okay to skim the dull parts (some of those folks got paid by the word!). Then if she has any classes that analyze the same books later on they’ll be a lot more enjoyable. I read Les Miserables twice in high school, along with a bunch of others (and pretty much everything else I got my hands on) and grew up to be a school librarian!
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Cress Delahanty, The Chosen
Martha Grimes’ “Emma Graham” series: Hotel Paradise, Belle Ruin, Cold Flat Junction and Fadeaway Girl.
Watership Down. Got an A+ for a book report I did for that book, loved it that much.
F.scott Fitzgerald “beautiful and the damned” (might be heavy for a 14yr old.)
Hemingway “A moveable feast.”
When I was 14, I was reading horror novels and anthologies. I kind of remember reading Thief of Always by Clive Barker around this time. I found the Redwall novels by Brian Jacques later on in life, but I think most people would enjoy them at any age (light fantasy series about animals in lieu of humans. Unfortunately rats and ferrets are the bad guys, but fortunately you can read them in practically any order like Discworld novels)
Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore! I didn’t read it at 14 but I loved it and think any 14 year old would (it isn’t super adult or anything like that, just FUN!).
Mortal Instruments Series is what I read from as a 14 year old!!!
it’s old, and not at all YA, but I read it around age 11 and am not too warped as a result – not to say I’m not warped, just can’t blame it all on the book. anyway – Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank; as far as I know, it was one of the first post-apocalyptic novels, and still one of my favourite of the genre.
Teenage Me (and, frankly Adult Me) enjoyed the Harper Hall trilogy – Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, and Dragondrums – by Anne McCafferey, and the Heralds of Valdemar (Arrows of the Queen, etc.) really rather a lot.
My 14 yr. old granddaughter loves mythology. Any. I just finished reading Where the Crawfish Sing and I think someone that age would love that book as well.
Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
The Wizard of Earthsea (Ursula k. LeGuin); Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood); Earth Abides (George R. Stewart); The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking – Patrick Ness); Circe (Madeline Miler) – and if you want to introduce her to some critical but hilariously fun (and sometimes a bit explicit) thinking on religion – Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal (Christopher Moore).
When I was 14, I was reading mostly Stephen King (Dark Tower is still one of my faves) but I had to read Siddhartha (Herman Hesse) in class & it had a profound effect on me.
For fiction, I recommend:
The Imperial Radch trilogy by Ann Leckie (Ancillary Justice, Sword, Mercy)
Deanna Raybourn’s Veronica Speedwell series
Possession by A.S. Byatt
Pride and Prejudice (on the off chance that she hasn’t read it)
Anna Karenina (and, if she likes Russian novels, Dr. Zhivago, which I obsessed over at that age)
Anything, and everything by A.S. King, especially Dust of 100 Dogs, Ask the Passengers, Please Ignore Vera Dietz, and Reality Boy…plus all the others!
My 15 year-old obsessive reader loves anything by Sara J. Maas. She says “There are mostly straight ‘ships, but hey they’re still good.
She’s CatgirlE 1 on Instagram if she wants to discuss good fiction and odd moms.
I think around her age I read Jane Eyre with two other friends in the summer. I really can’t remember much else from that time frame.
I wish I’d read Putting Makeup on Dead People maybe not at 14, but certainly by 16. It looks at sex and peer relationships in a very clear-eyed way. The heroine figured out that yeah, sex is a thing that she can do, but she doesn’t have to put up with being treated badly by a boy. Also that she can have a career in a field that’s not widely acknowledged or popular. It’s pretty cool. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/9577750-putting-makeup-on-dead-people
Don’t know if any of these have already been recommended or not, but some of the ones my kids and / or myself enjoyed around that age (keeping in mind we all tend to read outside our age-level, and much prefer a series):
Darkest Powers trilogy – Kelley Armstrong
Vampire Chronicles – Anne Rice (this is my strongest recommendation!)
Flowers in the Attic series – V.C. Andrews
Edgar Allen Poe
also, try listening to Alan Parsons Project album: Tales of Mystery and Imagination for a great, musical take on a few of Poe’s best-known stories
All Creatures Great and Small series – James Herriot
Perks of Being a Wallflower – Stephen Chbosky
Flowers for Algernon – Daniel Keyes
Rot and Ruin series – Jonathan Maberry
Maximum Ride series – James Patterson
In Death series – J.D. Robb (with over 40 books in the series, this will keep anyone who enjoys them busy)
Out of My Mind – Sharon M. Draper
A Child Called It – Dave Pelzer (sad and dark, but compelling and well-written)
Stephen King is a favorite in our house from young teen on up, and Dean Koontz also.
Also, don’t forget to look up any biographies of favorite musicians.
Homer Hickam: Rocket Boys
Christina Dalcher: Vox
The Hate U Give
Night by Elie Wiesel
The Night Circus
Someone else mentioned Tamora Pierce, and I would like to second that. Also:
Dingo by Charles de Lint
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
any of John Green’s books
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman is technically an adult book, but there’s only one “naughty scene” that isn’t very explicit, so it might be okay.
Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell (already mentioned, but I’m seconding it)
Fahrenheit 451 (again, already mentioned, but I read it for the first time last year and wonder why I waited so long. I was homeschooled, so I didn’t really have “required” reading for English.)
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Does My Head Look Big in This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah (Australian Muslim girl starts wearing the hijab full-time at her private high school)
Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer
If I Stay by Gayle Forman
The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
I recently read a YA book called The Love & Lies of Rukhsana Ali, which is about a lesbian of Bangladeshi heritage whose parents try to marry her off to cure her “gayness”. This one might not be quite okay for a 14-year-old because there are themes of marital rape, incest, and hate crimes against the LGBTQ+ in Bangladesh, so it might be one you would want to pre-read before Hailey does. It’s a beautiful, heartbreaking book, though.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower might also be a bit mature for her, but idk what the 14-year-olds are reading these days 😛
Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver might be okay, but it does have some mature themes – underage drinking, references to sex, a scene where a character seduces a teacher, etc. But the overall theme is good.
(whoa, this comment is long, lol)
Eric Flint’s Ring of Fire series. 1632 is weird and smart all at the same time. Also great is the Marvel 1602 graphic novel by Gaimen. 14 year old me just wanted to read, I seldom went to the youth section to choose a book.
I just read Terry Pratchett’s Going Postal – which is incredibly funny. I’m delving into the other Moist books now. 😉
My daughter will be 21 soon, but she started Rick Riordan’s mythology series then. He’s done series of different mythologies like Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Nordic, she still re-reads them today. She said 39 Clues series, too.
Although I have always been a voracious reader, it wasn’t until I was in my 50’s that I FINALLY read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I LOVED it but was dismayed that no one had recommended or assigned this book to me back in high school. I mean, I was hooked from the very beginning when the narrator describes herself as A GIRL WHO LOVES BOOKS!!
A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton Porter
The Shell Seekers by Rosamund Pilcher
Marian Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover Series, Jane Eyre, Mary Stewart’s Merlin trilogy.
Greatest hits from my own high school summer reading lists:
A Prayer for Owen Meany
The Bean Trees
Books I loved as a teenager and still love now
The Poisonwood Bible
The Joy Luck Club
Looking for Alaska (John Green)
Bel Canto
Summer of my German Soldier
I agree on the front of the Terry pratchett suggestion. I loved the guards and rincewind series the most.
Inkeeping with fantasy, I loved Aurian by Maggie Furey, The Magicians Guild, Black Trillium (all with female protagonists), Cinder is interesting as it’s a twist on Cinderella, but steampunk…The golden compass was good. I was meant to post one specific one, but now I’ve forgotten.
I give SPEAK and Catherine, Called Birdy to every single gal in my life right before they start high school. Those two books changed me.
Poppy – Rhiana Lucas, ixia series,
Ooh Hitchikers guide…
Hatchet by Gary Paulsen.
Lord of the Rings trilogy!
Is Updikes Rabbit series too mature?
Anything Edith Wharton
Also Main Street – Sinclair Lewis
In no certain order, some of my high school favorites (covers falling off I read them so much): I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Jane Eyre, The Once and Future King, A Prayer for Owen Meany, A Tale of Two Cities, I Am the Cheese, The Joy Luck Club, Their Eyes Were Watching God, The Jungle, The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird
Little Women
Everything by Farley Mowat!
Caddie Woodlawn
Island of the Blue Dolphins
Bridge to Terabithia
Ender’s Game
To Kill A Mocking Bird
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn
The Golden Compass
Ready Player One, and of course The Graveyard Book
I loved The Juniper Game at her age.
The neverending story and Momo by Michael Ende.
The wee free men by terry pratchett, the brothers lionheart by Astrid Lindgren,… and I seem to remember developing a fondness for Stephen king novels at fourteen… starting with let sematary and IT 😉
The red queen series. It is my all time favorite.
I remember Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse had a profound effect on me in high school. I’ve been meaning to pick it up again.
These will probably be easy reads for her, but enoyable: Anything and everything by Tamora Pierce. Especially her Tortall Universe books. Her heroines shaped who I am as a feminist and an independent powerful woman.
It’s been many years since I was a kid, and don’t really remember what was popular. Based on my daughter’s reading (she’s almost 24) anything by John Green, and Rainbow Rowell. My sister and BIL were both HS English teachers. I will ask them for recommendations of what kids should read before starting HS.
ANYTHING by Robert Heinlein!
I looooved the True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle
Fat Angie by: Charlton-Trujillo; The False Prince by Nielsen: The War That Saved My Life by Bradley. (probably easy but important) Eleanor and Park by:Rowell ( I love her)
There is a cool award given by American Library Association called the ALEX award which is a list of books written for adults that teens will enjoy and the Printz award given for the best Young adult fiction of the year.
I was maybe closer to 12 when I read it for the first time, but Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell was unforgettable. The themes about friendship and family and loneliness are much more mature than you might expect from a book aimed at children and I always recommend it to friends with kids around that age.
East of Eden by John Steinbeck was transformative for me. There’s history, some very funny scenes, and a moral about personal responsibility. Plus the most wicked, bad-ass woman in all literature in Cathy Ames.
I have nothing to add to Hailey’s reading list, but I loved your “P.S.”!!!
The Hobbit and LOTR changed my life but I figure she probably already read those.
Can I add The Mists of Avalon?
If she likes ‘Between Shades of Gray’ then she’ll like:
Forgotten Fire by Adam Bagdasarian
Like Water on Stone by Dana Walrath
The Boy on the Bridge by Natalie Standiford
Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein
Prisoner B-3087 by Alan Gratz
Breaking Stalin’s Nose by Eugene Yelchin
Torn Thread by Anne Isaacs
Copper Sun by Sharon Draper
Daniel’s Story by Carol Matas
On a personal note, I recently read a series by Ryan Graudin called Wolf by Wolf and Blood for Blood. It’s historical fiction with a SyFy twist set in Nazi Germany.
I’m a Librarian, so feel free to contact me for any more recommendations. Reader Advisory is one of my favorite aspects of my job.
I first read Winter of Fire by Sherryl Jordan when I was about her age. It’s still my favorite book and I’m 37 now.
Oh, and anything by Terry Pratchett is a given, obviously.
Wow! I love you guys! I didn’t read through all of everyone’s recommendations, but I’d like to put in a big plug for any and everything by Isaac Asimov. Also-Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card and Wizard’s First Rule. by Terry Goodkind. I am Malala, by Malala Yousafzi, The Hobbit, by JRR Tolkien. (Maybe wait until Hailey is 15 or 16 and suggest Catch-22, by Joseph Heller) BUT FOR GOODNESS SAKE-Tell Hailey that if a book hasn’t caught her interest by Chapter 5, don’t feel obligated to finish reading it. There are so many Great, Wonderful options I’ve seen listed here, that she will find a lot to love even if she doesn’t love the first few she tries. And visit your local library-They know everything, and can get most everything-either for FREE! or nominal fee.
Others have mentioned “Flowers in the Attic” and I started that series around that age… super dark and twisted but it was very appealing! My own daughter read “The Hunger Games” trilogy around that age and many other dystopian novels. Maybe there’s something about 14 and a fascination with the dark side of life? On the other hand, I also discovered Jane Austen and D.H. Lawrence as I entered 9th grade, so maybe that made up for the “Flowers in the Attic”… it’s like junk food and fresh fruit maybe? You need both!
Night by Elie Weisel
We read the Odyssey in 9th grade and I loved it.
My teenage daughter absolutely adored:
Scorpio Races Maggie Stiefvater
Raven Boys Chronicles Maggie Stiefvater
Tell Me Three Things Julie Buxbaum
For me, it was Lord of the Rings (literally the summer of 1999 and I was 14!), a year before that it was A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (it inspired me so much when I was struggling) also I was into philosophy and didn’t know where to start, so Sophie’s World was the perfect starting book for me. Also the character in Sophie’s World is actually a 14 year old. It started as a mystery then it comes up with fantastic themes. It is so good!
My son is 15, and his summer read from school is Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds. He hasn’t read it yet, but I have, because I’ll read anything…. great book. Easy read.
Not a book rec, but I heard a great piece on my local NPR affiliate yesterday about the value of local, independent bookstores. I thought it might be of interest to you.
https://thekojonnamdishow.org/shows/2019-07-01/every-trick-in-the-book-how-local-bookstores-build-community
The 7 Most Important Things
The War That Saved My Life
One of the great things about homeschooling is the freedom! You can make her a reading list, or have her come up with her own and call that part of her English and research assignments 😉 Also, I have to say – I’m so happy your family will be homeschooling!! I was thinking man, with Hailey’s voice and musical talent what an amazing thing it will be to be able to spend as much time as she wants on music if she chooses to! What a gift.
Troll the library shelves and grab any book that she has heard of!
I definitely read a ton of Judy Blume around that age. And Nancy Drew. They probably seem kind of cheesy now, but I liked them. I also went through a spy novel phase – John LeCarre, stuff like that.
For both my kids, out of their required reading in school, Brave New World really stood out for them as one of their favorites. I think they found it really relatable.
And then there’s Animal Farm, while you’re at it. Couple that with a history segment on the USSR and other totalitarian regimes. Throw in One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich for good measure.
A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore, or Lullabies For Little Criminals by Heather O’Neill.
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton or anything by this author. Idk how many times I read those.
Sabriel (actually entire Old Kingdom series) by Garth Nix. Dragonsong by Anne McCaffery
Amanda Kay, Thanks for recommending The Parasol Protectorate pentalogy. Although I am well out of the intended audience (male and over 60), I started reading “Soulless” yesterday, and finished it today. Her other series look as though they might be a lot of fun too.
Anything by John alvinde lindqvist ( let the right one in)
The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner. There are 5 books in the series and she will love them. They are wonderful.
I have so many favorites, but sometimes we forget that one of the best resources for stuff like this is a good public librarian. 🙂
I always like to recommend My Life of Adventure by Norman D. Vaughan, he was a fascinating explorer
when i was fourteen (which was not that long ago) my favorite books i read were the ones in my actual age group: a tree grows in brooklyn, the flight anthologies (edited by kazuo kibuishi– vol 3 is particularly good), the wild girls by pat murphy, the graceling trilogy, and blackout/all clear by connie willis. i definitely recommend books at a more adult level here and there, but i can’t tell you the value i got out of books that were written for my emotional age, not my reading one!
I know you probably won’t make it down here to the bottom of this list but just in case no-one else mentions Ursula K. Le Guin. The EarthSea trilogy was a game changer for me at about Haley’s age but honestly I’ve never read anything she’s written that I didn’t really connect with.
Someone mentioned Connie Willis. All of her books have interesting and emotional parts, but for me, her best is “To Say Nothing of the Dog”, which is interesting and emotional, but also very funny. While it is not strictly necessary, reading “Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)” by Jerome K. Jerome would increase the enjoyment of the book.
I just finished an adult book (technically) but with main characters who are mostly teens. Would make for very discussion and very accessible.
Litte Fires Everywhere
Does anyone want to take on the task of transcribing all the book recommendation here? No, I didn’t think so.
Lord of the Rings, all of Discworld, Ray Bradbury (he was my first love as a teen reader) ; Madeline L’Engle, Daphne DuMaurier (Frenchmans’ Creek and Rebecca especially), A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Gone With theWind. Harry Potter. Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, (which is fun and you learn stuff at the same time) and if she likes spooky stuff, “Ghost Story” by Pete Straub. Maybe Calvin Trillin. Anything by Calvin Trillin. Farenheit 451, Bradbury.
Damn this isn’t a reading list, it’s a life list. I have a hunch she’s a wide ranging reader, as I was, and am, so…
WaPo just did a list of best books for every age from 1-100!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/entertainment/books/100-books-for-the-ages/?utm_term=.2e23130833e8&wpisrc=nl_books&wpmm=1
The Catcher in the Rye. I was a big reader as a kid but hadn’t read anything for a while when I came upon this book in my brother’s room. I loved it and totally related to Holden.
Now I’m a librarian. 🙂
I’d like to add some fascinating non-fiction to the list.
The Hidden Life of Trees, by Peter Wohlleben
The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, by Steve Brusatte
Eye of the Shoal, by Helen Scales
Every Tool’s a Hammer, by Adam Savage
Another fun grey book – Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde. Also recommend any of his other books. They’re fun, quirky, totally weird and amazing.
That year was sleepaway camp, and books were devoured during “rest hour” and after dark, then shared with bunk mates. I recall Forever by Judy Blume making the rounds (the “good parts” being dog-eared). Also Go Ask Alice and Sybil (it was the 70’s). Have Hailey go to the store and play Bookjacket Bingo – find a book you’ve loved and see which authors have written blurbs – then go find one of theirs.
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi (brilliant Sci fi set using African traditions and stories)
Dorothy Must Die series by Danielle Paige is a hoot. (teen gets sucked into Oz and must defeat a demented Dorothy)
Dread Nation by Justina Ireland (zombies during Civil War era, African-American heroine)
anything by Gail Carrier, start with Soulless
The Passage by Justin Cronin (dark, vampires running amuck)
Boy Who Harnassed the Wind by William Kamkwamba
Murderbot series by Martha Wells (security AI goes rogue but nicely)
Small Spaces by Katherine Arden (
Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn (challenges of writing a letter when various letters are being outlawed)
I was reading my parents books by that age. I love Michael Creighton, Robert Ludlum, and biographies about interesting women. Now I’m reading YA and loving it (list 676)
There are so many great suggestions here. My recommendation is for any of the series by Neal Shusterman.
I taught 8th grade English for eleven years and 9-12th for nine. Here are authors/books I think Hailey would enjoy:
The Outsiders, S.E. Hinton; Chris Crutcher books; Drums, Girls, And Dangerous Pie – Jordan Sonnenblick; Rainbow Rowell; To Kill a Mockingbird.
The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza
by Shaun David Hutchinson
Darius the Great Is Not Okay
Book by Adib Khorram
I’m trying to get a list together. I’ll post when ready.
Flavia de Luce by Alan Bradley.
Flavia de Luce
When my daughter homeschooled as a 14-15 year old, we paired classics with a similar themed contemporary book. Her favorite pairing was Lord of the Flies and Beauty Queens by Libba Bray. She so loved Beauty Queens that she ended up writing her own 10 episode Netflix style screenplay adaptation of it!
My husband, king of sci fi, recommends Fuzzy Nation and Red Shirts by John Scalzi. I put Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime at the top of every must read list. It’s amazing he survived his childhood and the repercussions of apartheid can be used to understand some of the crazy going on in the US now. Listening to it on Audible is even better, he speaks eight languages and his accent and comedic delivery really add to the experience.
Dorothy Gilman’s THE TIGHTROPE WALKER. It’s about becoming who you’re meant to be, wrapped up in a fantastic mystery, because it’s Dorothy Gilman. It’s a confidence builder. For something a little more thought-provoking, THE CLOWNS OF GOD by Morris West. Yeah, it’s about Catholicism but as a non-Christian, I read it every year. Human interaction in the face of disaster is amazing, and the end-of-the-world aspect is intriguing.
Recent homeschool graduate here! For fun, anything by Cornelia Funke! I don’t know her reading levels, but they are definitely y/a. I’m into books about overlooked women- Rise of the Rocket Girls and Code Girls are both great. Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver is a great read that will make you want to immediately go off grid in the mountains.
oh my gosh, I’d forgotten about Witch of Blackbird Pond until someone else recommended it here. I LOVED that book.
I wish I could go back and point my 14-year-old self to good books, instead of just reading the junk that was available to me at the time. Oh, to have grown up in the Age of the Internet!
My recommendations:
fun and interesting non-fiction, like books by Sarah Vowel, Mary Roach, Oliver Sacks
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short stories (superior to his novels, in my opinion)
Frankenstein
Hidden Figures
Between the World and Me
1984
anything by Ray Bradbury
Flowers for Algernon
The Speed of Dark
But I really like Annette Varcoe’s recommendation above – make it a bit of a research project to find good books in those categories. Teaching research skills as well. I’d add to her categories already suggested: a book about a culture extremely different than mine, a book that’s been translated into English, a book about a place I never knew existed.
Whatever she reads, start getting her to apply some critical analysis skills to it. Not a book report, per se, but concepts like unreliable narrators, themes, protagonist/antagonist, conflict/tension/resolution, narrative structure, etc. it’s good to keep such things in mind when you’re reading, even for fun, so it becomes mental-muscle-memory for classes.
also
Hidden Figures
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
Ever by Gail Carson Levine
Kiki Strike
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks
Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett
Emily the Strange The Lost Days by Rob Reger and Jessica Gruner
Are you looking for reading for fun or reading to learn? I think for fun Neil Gaiman is always a hit. Good Omens, Neverwhere, Stardust…maybe even American Gods and Amansi Boys. Definitely Ocean at the End of the Lane. I had started reading Stephen King by then, The Shining and It were my first loves. Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies is a good one. As an old lady in training I LOVED the Cat Who series by Lilian Jackson Braun.
OH and Art Spiegelman’s Maus
Anything by SE Hinton (you might exclude Hawkes Harbor, it’s good but strange and I still haven’t figured out of its in a good way).
The Princess Bride
I read a lot of Sherlock Holmes at that age.
To Kill a Mockingbird. A Wrinkle In Time. The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe series. So many good books. Maybe throw in some Marion Zimmer Bradley (wonderful fantasy books) as well.
Have You Seen Luis Velez? by Catherine Ryan Hyde Very heart warming and introspective. Made me want to volunteer with senior citizens.
5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman. There are several different versions but all have the same concept. That book was such a life changer for me and one that I wish I would have read when I was her age bc it would have saved me from a lot of hurtful mistakes bc I just didn’t understand. The other life changing book for me was the happiness factor. It helped to teach me how to create my own happiness which to this day has been a lifesaver. Both are easy reads. Not sure if that is what she was looking to read but have to give credit to the two books that helped me change me life for the better and I still reflect on 10+ years later.
“Breakfast of Champions” and “Slaughterhouse Five” by Vonnegut
The Hate U Give
Snow Flower And The Secret Fan
The Language of Flowers
The Track series (4 quick reads) by Jason Reynolds
some of my favourite books growing up was Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, Who Has Seen the Wind by W.O. Mitchell, or anything by Philip K Dick. As you can tell I was 14 about 100 years ago.
Uglies by Scott Westerfield (I think?). And the Unwind series is a good one, too!
Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson
Between Shades of Grey is being republished under another title these days LOL
As a language arts teacher, I get a lot of my ideas from the Nerdy Book Club blog 🙂
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. I’d also recommend the movie, though getting a kid to watch a black and white movie might be difficult.
My freshman year of high school summer reading was Speak and The Secret Life of Bees. The Secret Life of Bees is one of my favorite books to this day!
1984 and Animal Farm – very appropriate for today’s climate anyway. Brave New World? I think I’d love fulfilling this request of hers!
The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint Exupery. It really should be read every five years, I think.
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak are my two favorite historical novels. I would add The Clockmakers Daughter by Kate Morton to the list although it nothing to do with war.
I’ll ask my 14-year-old, but recently she read The Wicked Deep and declared it the best book she’d ever read and she reads A LOT.
My kids had to read Born A Crime by Trevor Noah and I’m glad they did. Brilliant.
Literally anything by Tamora Pierce (Fantasy). Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson (darkish fantasy sci-fi). I think she might like ‘The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet’ by Becky Chambers (sci-fi). If she wants to dig into some classics: definitely Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass. Also Dracula and Frankenstein are both amazing… although it took me until I was an adult to really appreciate those ones, but they are a nice challenge.
The His Dark Materials Series by Phillip Pullman.
To go a different direction my AP History teacher has us read Centennial by Michener as well as Killer Angels. Great cross between literature and history.
Katie
From when I was 14: Tomorrow When the War Began, by John Marsden (very well known Australian author).
More recent, that I think she’d like: Code Name Verity, as mentioned above.
Have a great summer of reading!
Let’s Talk About Love by Claire Kann. It’s about a biromantic asexual library assistant and has some really good explorations of dynamics within long-standing friend groups.
Old Man and the Sea
Lord of the Rings
The Hobbit
The Alchemist
Has she read anything by Le Guin? I think she’d like The Left Hand of Darkness. The Dispossessed is my favorite, but I really love Le Guin. On the more YA side, I loved the Abhorsen trilogy by Nix. Badass female protagonists and talking animals. What’s not to love?
Neal Shusterman’s “Scythe” and “Thunderhead.” Third book of the trilogy due out in November. The concept is that humanity has learned all possible knowledge and become immortal, with government being taken over by an AI, and “gleaning” to reduce the population performed by people called Scythes. Last year the high school where I work used “Scythe” for their “One School, One Book” program where all the kids read the same book and the teachers include discussion of it in multiple subjects. Shusterman came and spoke to the students and I was absolutely fascinated. A brilliant and insightful man, and a truly thought-provoking series. If you and Victor read it as well, I predict some amazing (well, more so than usual) dinner conversations!
I came back to add more.
I’m glad someone else already flagged “Alas Babylon”.
-“A Canticle for Liebowitz”
-“Only Begotten Daughter”
-Fritz Lieber’s “Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser” (For what it’s worth, these were in general circulation before Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings)
-Dandelion Wine (“gazelles?”) by Ray Bradbury
-“Have Spacesuit Will Travel” by Heinlein (Yep not the greatest author for male/female relationships — but the joy of this one is the hero could be ANY techie nerd teen.)
Glad to see I wasn’t the only one reading “Gone With the Wind” at 14.
Also, John Jakes ‘Kent Family Chronicles’ series, starting with “The Bastard.” LOVED them. I think there were 8 or 10 total. Couldn’t wait for a new one to come out.
Please please please, I beg both of you… read the Adventures of Flash Jackson. It’s about a girl named Hayley who beats to the tune of her own drum in a small town. It’s funny, whimisical, and left of centre in the best possible way.
My first “adult” reading in Jr High School was Stephen King’s The Stand. I made a little notecard and wrote the characters names on it so I could keep everyone straight…I loved it and haven’t looked back since…give me All the Books!
These are all books that I’ve loved/read/gifted:
All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven
The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
Piecing Me Together by Renée Watson
The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill
The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms by Amy Stewart
(My local librarian recommended this nonfiction book about earthworms and it’s become one of my FAVORITE books. Period. It’s also a book that I’ve gifted to others. Who knew that a book about the humble earthworm could be so fascinating?)
The discworld series by Terry Pratchett. Here is how you hook her in though. Have her read “Going Postal” first. Its hilarious on its on. If she says MOAR please then tell her about the series and get all of them.
1) I would love if you would compile a list of all the books suggested in this and post it–reading what the tribe loves would be EXCELLENT. (perhaps on goodreads?)
2) At 14 I read a lot of books that have stuck with me, that perhaps are not age-appropriate? Since your daughter seems to be mature and inquisitive: Lord of the Flies (or anything by William Golding), Catch 22, Breakfast of Champions, Dandelion Wine (again, or anything by Ray Bradbury), The Invisible Man, Dune…..
GAH! so many books!
I may be repeating, as I didn’t manage to make it through all the comments, but the following is a list of authors (with my favorite book in parentheses) that I associate specifically with my teenage years (as opposed to books I loved and only happened to read as a teenager, mostly sci-fi and fantasy):
Carolyn Mackler (The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things)
Sarah Dessen (The Truth About Forever)
Chris Crutcher (Whale Talk)
Julie Anne Peters (Define “Normal”)
Joan Bauer (Hope Was Here)
There are probably more that I’d add if I were visiting my childhood bedroom, but I think it says something that these are the ones I immediately thought of when I saw your post. These authors and their books all meant so much to me, I’m getting surprisingly emotional just thinking about them.
I hope you share the final list you and Hailey compile 🙂
I know you have hundreds of titles to consider, but I really hope she will read The Yearling.
Okay, so this is hard because I can’t remember exactly at what age I read things…and I didn’t really read according to age anyway. But here are some best guesses based on what I remember reading in high school overall and some other stuff that might be relevant.
The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyers (sci-fi retelling of classic fairy tales like Cinderella)
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Anne of Green Gables series
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Anything by Rainbow Rowell, but especially Eleanor & Park/Fangirl
Perks of a Wallflower
Anything by John Green
The Scarlett Letter
The Crucible
The Hobbit
Anything from Becky Albertalli
Dumplin’ & Puddin’ by Julie Murphy (AMAZING, and set in Texas, if it helps)
One of Us is Lying by Karen McManus (also has a follow up, but haven’t made it that far yet)
Second the idea that if you do Lord of the Flies (which I hate with a fiery passion, for what it’s worth, haha) you should totally do Beauty Queens by Libba Bray also! It was such a fun read.
Librarian here! I’d recommend the following
– The Waterfire Series by Jennifer Donnelly (Deep Blue is the first book)
– The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
– The Last Survivor’s Series by Susan Beth Pfeffer (first book is Life as We Knew it)
– Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
– A Thousand Ships (the Odyssey from a female perspective) by Natalie Haynes
My first thought was the Flowers In The Attic series. What does this say about me? I am shocked by the number of young people I know who have NOT READ THEM. Seriously, we are talking about classic trash! Required reading! On a more serious note: if she likes creepy, another favorite that not too many people have read are the John Bellairs books, especially the Johnny Dixon series. For general edification I recommend of course To Kill A Mockingbird or any of the classic classics, Jane Eyre, etc. I also read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich around that age and it was really a good basis for watching politics.
Also PLEASE share whatever list you come up with, I used to love summer reading lists and reading all these recommendations makes me want to start in on them!
The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monserrat. Only book on my high school reading list that I enjoyed.
The Jungle, The Hate U Give, and Of Mice and Men are my recommendations for that age!
Watership down, Enders Game, True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle
I read a lot of questionable literature at 14, but it’s when I started really getting into Fantasy. As an adult, Mercedes Lackey series drive me crazy (no one ever dies permanently!) but they were great as a teen.
I also highly recommend Dave Duncan, especially the “A Man of his Word” series. Tailchaser’s Song by Tad Williams is good. Tad’s series Memory Sorrow and Thorn I also read as a teen – the first book took me a month to get through the 1st 150 pages and 4 hours to read the next 400+, then the book ended on a cliffhanger and I had to wait over a year for the next one. I’m still salty about that and it’s been 30 years.
I read several classics one summer when I was about that age and loved them… The Hobbit, Wuthering Heights, Little Women. Then after that anything by Stephen King. 🙂
I would HIGHLY recommend Unwind by Neal Shusterman. It deals with abortion and personhood in an accessible way, and that first book has two of the most beautiful, heartbreaking moments in any book I’ve ever read ever. The whole series is good, but the first one also stands on its own.
Salt from the Sea by Ruta Sepetys
I think that was when I first read Dune.
LGBTQ-themed:
Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli
Empress of the World by Sara Ryan
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz
Far from Xanadu by Julie Anne Peters
Dream Boy by Jim Grimsley
What Happened to Lani Garver by Carol Plum-Ucci
Autobiographical/memoir:
Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
The Book of Emma Reyes by Emma Reyes
The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler
Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness by Alexandra Fuller
Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller
The House at Sugar Beach by Helene Cooper
The Cry of the Go-Away Bird by Andrea Eames
I am Malala by Malala Yousafzai
Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey
Things I’ve Been Silent About by Azar Nafisi
One Day in My Life by Bobby Sands
Unbowed: A Memoir by Wangari Maathai
Fantasy/sci-fi:
His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman
The Reckoners series by Brandon Sanderson
Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire
The Giver by Lois Lowry
General fiction:
Holes by Louis Sachar
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli
Ok, I could go on but I’ll stop there. 🙂 Some of these are things I read when I was in high school, others are things I read later but think would be instructive or fun if I had read them in high school.
The Celia’s Journey series by Melissa Gunther is one of my all time favorites. The first book has obvious comparisons to Harry Potter, but the story branches out on its own after that. Other good YA series my family has read include The Water Fire Saga by Jennifer Donnelly, The Ruby Red Trilogy by Kerstin Gier, and the Beautiful Creatures series by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl.
I gave my 15 year old Moll Flanders to read this summer. I think it’s good to know that there are fun books from the “traditional” reading lists. And there’s a great TV version with River Song in it. I also gave her Hild which is pretty good.
I think at 14 I was still reading Edith Hamilton Mythology, Agatha Christie, The Dark is Rising series, Danny, Champion of the World (Roald Dahl) and I might have started Kafka by then and the Chronicles of Amber by Zelazny as well as Lathe of Heaven by LeGuin. And then also a bunch of Stephen King.
Anything by Joan Aiken is great the comic Arabel’s Raven and then more in depth Wolves of Willoughby Chase series.
My daughter is very fond of the Chrestomanci series by Diana Wynne Jones. I like the 3 Howl Books as well.
My favorites include: Jane Eyre, The Secret Life of Bees, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Invisible Man, and Fahrenheit 451.
These are the big four I remember reading around that age. (14 to 16) All purchased at the ‘Hungry Head” bookstore in Eugene Oregon.
“Black Boy” by Richard Wright
“Push” by Sapphire
“The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair
“Stranger in a Strange Land” by Robert Heinlein
I just wanted to say thank you for re-introducing me to “Between Shades of Grey.” Several years ago I saw an interesting book at the section of the library where they sell people’s donated books. It was something about WWII, and I would have bought it, but didn’t have any cash on me. When I went back, it was gone. So I went to trusty Amazon, and looked up “Shades of Gray,” which is what I thought I remembered of the title. Amazon responded with everything “Fifty Shades of Gray,” which was NOT what I was looking for. I figured I had misremembered the title, and never found the book again until I read this post!
At 14 I was reading the very inappropriate Flowers in the Attic series, and Stephen King novels. I did enjoy Agatha Christie books and other mysteries for quite a while, which were more age appropriate. My husband also had trouble finding books at that age, but then found science fiction. I am so glad that so much good “Young Adult” literature now exists and is categorized as such, because finding books as a tween/young teen used to be difficult!
The Mary Russell series by Laurie R. King (world of Sherlock Holmes, if you haven’t heard of them). Kick-ass female protagonist who meets Holmes as a teen and learns from him but also teaches him quite a bit. The series travels the globe, which I quite enjoy.
At that age, I was primarily reading things by authors like Christopher Pike, Richie Tankersley Cusick, R.L. Stine, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, V.C. Andrews and Danielle Steele. I basically hated anything I was required to read in school, including The Hobbit, simply because it was required. But it looks like there are lots of good suggestions that others have listed here!
Oh and the Gate Thief by Orson Scott Card. A kid realizes he can open portals. They are more like magic hat type portals, but it’s enough of a gift to get him into trouble.
From how I absorb haileys aura 😂 I’d say it is a MUST that she reads: the inkheart series and the land of elyon series!
The Perks Of Being A Wallflower, The Thornbirds, Pure. Amazing.
Laini Taylor, especially the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy. I read it when I was 54 but I would have loved it when I was 14.
Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George. An amazing survival and coming-of-age story featuring a 13-year-old girl as the heroine. It changed the way I look at the world.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
My jam is non-fiction, and anything by Mary Roach, especially Stiff, Packing for Mars, and Grunt are great! Also Simon Winchester, though he might be a bit verbose for a teen. For sure “The Poisoner’s Handbook” by Deborah Blum, The Victorian House, The Ghost Map, Salt,Triangle (though that one is hardcore, about the Triangle Shirtwaist fire), The Radium Girls (also hardcore and sad). I love The Great Influenza (about the 1918 flu epidemic) but it is MASSIVE and intense. I love love it, it’s a Pulitzer Prize winner, but yeah it is a pretty huge book, plus it goes back to the formation of American medical schools, the American medical system and how that and the Great War influenced care and the spread of the illness. It’s long.
A not-bad recommended reading site from a 6-12 school in California: http://library.castilleja.org/reading-list
The Shadowhunters Chronicles series by Cassandra Clare is awesome. Love the variety of characters (werewolves, vampires, fairies, etc.). Have a great trip!
The Dragonriders of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey was a favorite at that age. Looking back, the world McCarffrey built was sexist, but that just makes for a good conversation with your daughter. Start with Dragonflight.
Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke. Freaked me out big time, but in a good way.
The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare
Ok so my favorites are All the Bright Places, The Breathing Series (3 book series), and Eleanor & Park!!!!
The Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas
Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Blood Throne of Caria by Roy Casagranda
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
Carry On by Rainbow Rowell
The Kingmaker Chronicles by Amanda Bouchet
Anne McCaffrey
Mercedes Lackey – anything by her, seriously, anything
Robin McKinley
Lois Macmaster Bujold has a crazy/amazing space opera/sci-fi epic. It’s something like 14 books long. And several other series all of which are appropriate for someone around Hailey’s age.
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Machine of Death- sounds morbid but is amazingly existential and not very graphic.
Caitlin Moran is probably more advanced than you’d like but it’s amazing and I read it at 15, originally.
All the Terry Pratchett (although I could never get into the Long Earth series)
The Ultimate Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams- it changed my life.
Jane Eyre
I was reading SF like Farenheit 451 and Stranger In A Strange Land when I was 14, and while they shaped my thinking, they didn’t change me quite as much as a few books I read a little later. Those were, in chronological order:
Flowers For Algernon (SF) by Daniel Keys
Black Like Me (non-fiction) by John Howard Griffin
Mockingbird (SF) by Walter Tevis
I think Andre Norton had the biggest effect on me at that age. And Madeleine L’Engle. And John Christopher, especially The Guardians and The Sword of the Spirit trilogy. They really opened my eyes to questions about the nature of good and evil.
My daughter loved “The Secret Life of Bees”
Hiroshima was required reading in my advanced English class and it made me a Pacifist for life.
Margret Atwood, especially The Handmaid’s Tale. (Although read it with her it is super frightening.)
Lord of the Flies, Lord of the Rings, Player Piano, For Whom the Bell Tolls
I was and am a historical fiction nut, and loved “I, Claudius” and “Claudius the God” by Robert Graves when I was that age. A more current release is Circe by Madeleine Miller which has incredibly rich and delicious language. It’s magical and emotive. I am so enjoying it.
Lab Girl. I read it twice! The story intertwines science and humanity, and demonstrates just how far you can go in your work collaborating with a trusted friend.
I was heavy into Stephen King then……. most likely a contributing factor to my warped and usually inappropriate way I look at things now at 14 x 3.3.
As Usual by the time I get to one of these topics the replies are up over 500, and I’m pretty sure you’ve stopped reading but in case you haven’t:
Zahrah the Windseeker by Nnedi Okorafor is high quality middle grade fiction, but I think absolutely essential reading for any kid who’s every felt different. Especially useful for gifted kids. If she likes it she can dip her toes into the more intense work but his incredibly gifted Naijamerican author.
Argh hit return too soon! I’m the anonymous who recommended Zahrah.
Also Brown girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson. It’s a semi hopeful dystopian novel. I also loved Octavia Butler but can’t bring myself to recommend Parable of the Sower which is post apocalyptic to a 14 year old while the world is on fire.
To round things out my daughters summer reading assignment is Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry. Which is the set up for them reading Maya Angelou in the fall.
I’m also gonna second the recommendation that she read some graphic novels. American Born Chinese is heartbreakingly good. But also pick some of the fun reads off this list. Summer Reading lists lean too hard on the “worthy”. Don’t buy into the idea that you can’t have fun while learning or that only the grim counts as literature. Read the Bromeliad Trilogy by Pratchett, read some of Raina Telgemeir’s delightful bit sized graphic novels about middle grade girls friendships.Part of the joy of homeschooling is digging into whatever excites you.
I hope I’m not doubling up too much here but: The Stone Angel, Margaret Lawrence, the entire Anne of Green Gables series (reads differently each decade I re-read them), I loved You Went Away by Timothy Findley aaaand Fifth Business by Roberston Davies. A few Canadian books to add to the list 🙂
Last summer my daughter Ivy was an incoming freshman at the local fine arts HS program here in Austin. Their summer reading assignment was The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. I read it along with her and it totally knocked my socks off.
This summer there are more choices. Her top picks are In the Time of the Butterflies (Julia Alvarez), a mystery set against a backdrop of Latin American political upheaval, and Purple Hibiscus (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie), a coming of age story set against a backdrop of African political upheaval. Lotta political upheaval going on – a metaphor for the adolescent experience, perhaps?
Best to Hailey & happy reading!
Sabriel series. The first one, especially, never put a foot wrong. I did not know that YA fantasy could be so flawless.
The Jungle made an impression on my when I was a sophomore in high school.
One of my favorites that made me change the way I think about my faith was The Mists of Avalon, but Marion Zimmer Bradley turned out to be such an abusive parent that I can’t keep it in the house. Other folks are better at separating good books from their problematic authors, so I threw that out there.
Jane Yolen’s pit dragon trilogy is a fast favorite.
A Tree Grows In Brooklyn is fantastic, too.
The Once and Future King, by T.H. White
How Green Was My Valley. It’s from 1939 about a mining family. Read it in HS and it helped me step into shoes of people very different from me.
The Purple Hibiscus by Chimanda Ngozi Adichie. Be prepared to have some interesting discussions with her.
Where do I start?… lol
A caveat–my list will be heavily weighted toward fantasy and mysteries and heavily weighted away from dystopias because that’s how I roll.
Anything by: Patricia McKillip (they’re so haunting and dream-like), Pamela Dean, Robin McKinley, Terry Pratchett, Patricia Wrede (I haven’t read all her books, but the ones I have are so much fun), the Meg Langslow series by Donna Andrews, the Squire’s Tale series by Gerald Morris, the Green Sky trilogy by Zilpha Keatley Snyder, The Deed of Paksenarion by Elizabeth Moon, George MacDonald’s short fantasy, anything and everything by Diana Wynne Jones (seriously–if she, or for that matter you, haven’t read her it needs to happen), the Sherlock Holmes books by Laurie King are pretty great, I really also enjoy Dick Francis. That will probably do to start with.
Oh! I forgot The Whys and Wherefores of Littabelle Lee, The Yearling, and Where the Red Fern Grows. I would probably recommend not reading those three in a lump, though, unless she likes really long crying jags…
I’m amazed that it took 488 comments for anyone to mention Sharon Shinn, but she hasn’t written a book that I’ve read and I haven’t loved. I second the recommendation for The Angel series.
I loved King Arthur books at that age, and Bernard Cornwall (the The Last Kingdom guy) has a great retelling. I can’t estimate whether they would be appropriate for her age or not, though. http://www.bernardcornwell.net/series/the-arthur-books/
I don’t remember much of what I read at that age, but I do remember I walked into the first day of 9th grade with one of the Star Trek books, and that caused two people to strike up conversations with me that day. And those two people became, over time, my best friend and my first boyfriend.
Anything by Gail Carriger (i.e. Etiquette and Espionage series and The Parasol Protectorate series).
I just read Darius the Great is not Okay and it was fabulous. It deals with depression and bullying and feeling out of place between cultures (US and Iran) I would have loved it at that age
I definitely recommend checking out the books on the Mighty Girl teen reading list!
https://www.amightygirl.com/books?age_range_filter=6
LOL, I think every single greatest book ever written has been mentioned here. There are a lot of responses and I didn’t have time to read them all. I never read in my age group so I can’t say as what age group this one falls in but it changed my life’s direction in the most profound way when I was in 3rd grade. It’s Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time.
I read Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo at around that age–it was a real eye-opener.
One of my favorite books when I was a teenager was “The Once and Future King” by T. H. White. Still love it to this day.
if she likes science fiction, The Rama series from Arthur C. Clarke are my absolute favorites to this day. It’s such an amazing reflection on human condition, but with aliens and spaceships included. Tears of joy every time I read it…
Anything, and I mean anything that John Scalzi has written.
Neverwhere and Coraline by Neil Gaiman. Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett. Good Omens, by both of them…
I really enjoyed The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer
The Outsiders
The Endless Steppe is a memoir about living in a Siberian gulag. I remember it being pretty good 🙂
Just finished “the hate you give” by Angie Thomas. I think it would be an excellent book for 14 year old.
San Fransisco Waldorf School puts their summer reading list on line: https://www.sfwaldorf.org/uploaded/docs/hs/library/9th_grade_Summer_Reading_(2018)(3).pdf There are some great suggestions on it.
As a teacher, I would suggest anything by Mary Roach, _Red Scarf Girl, People’s History of the United States AND The Indigenous People’s History of the United States, Animal, Mineral Vegetable, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, The Pearl, The Book Thief, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science and the World, and The Golden Ratio: The Story of Phi, the World’s Most Astonishing Number.
My son is 13 and his class is reading Flowers for Algernon, which is one of my favorites from that time.
I also recall reading Brave New World around 9th grade; it was so different from 1984 (my only other dystopian reading at the time) and yet so scarily similar.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. It’s wonderful and sad and I’ve read it every year for the last…THIRTY ONE YEARS. Oh my god, why am I so old now? 🙁
When I was 14, my family moved in with our family friends for about a year. They owned a comic book store, so in addition to working my first summer job at the comic book store (I dusted, vacuumed, and read A LOT of comic books!), I also had access to an excellent home library. My favorite series from that time is the Dragonriders of Pern, which is a fantastic fantasy series from Anne McCaffrey.
14, a long time ago but I think…
Anne McCaffrey’s Dragons of course but also her Talent series, and her Ship Who Sang. Her Restoree is also awesome.
Piers Anthony’s Xanth series.
The Jalna books by Mazo De La Roche.
All the Little Women series by Louisa May Alcott. So many tears and I still reread them decades later!
Swiss Family Robinson – Johann David Wyss
The Hobbit. I loved this book even though I gave up on The Lord of the Rings.
The Arabian Nights. I started with the Lambs Tales version.
Mary Stewart’s Melin books which start with The Crystal Cave.
I also read J T Edson and Louis L’Amour among many others but I was, and still am, a voracious reader.
What a fabulous list! There are so many great books available now. I am jealous in a way because I’m 65 now but by 12 I’d read our library in town and yearned for more.
One thing I would pass on is you don’t have to finish every book you start. I only learned this in the last couple of years. I am a bit over empathic and my depression can get out of hand reading. It’s not fun. Which isn’t to say don’t read sad books, just be careful and learn to put them down when you need to. 🙂
Drumroll Please by Lisa Bigelow. Did she read the Lumberjanes graphic novels already? I think new lesbian books for girls today need some support.
Of Mice and Men
A Man Called Ove
I’m Hailey’s age and love both of them.
This is the point where it I were giving recommendations to any other person, I would say “everything by Jenny Lawson. Don’t judge me. *runs away. Locks self in bathroom and can’t figure out how to undo the latch for the next 15 minutes.”
Yes, this is based on personal experience. Don’t judge me.
The Lovely Bones
Akata Witch, Binti trilogy, Weetzie Bat and others by Francesca Lia Block, The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death, The Chosen, My Name is Asher Lev, So You Want to Be a Wizard, The Book of Night with Moon (cat wizards!)
Probably below her reading level, but read it anyway. Night Witches by Kathryn Lasky. Awesome teen girl empowerment and true to real life (though fictionalized) retelling.
I’ve just started a list on Goodreads called “The Bloggess – Summer Reading List Suggestions” that anyone can add to. I hope there isn’t a size limit because it looks like we’ve got a lot of recommendations!
As if you don’t have enough, when I was 14, my friends and I read a ton of weird books–Jay’s Journal, Go Ask Alice. Diary books filled with bad decisions were fascinating! These days I’d say Rainbow Rowell, John Green books would top the list, and Gordon Korman’s books probably hold up. It’s summer–let her read the serious literature later. Hiaasen books are full of colorful characters too.
Diary of Anne Frank.
A classic book I loved at that age and am still very fond of is The Summer of the Swans by Betsy Byars. About a teenaged girl feeling stifled and restless and self-absorbed in small town West Virginia who starts to grow up and out of her narrow life when her developmentally disabled little brother goes missing. More recently, I LOVE the dark, dystopian “Last Survivors” series by Susan Beth Pfeffer. It starts with Life As We Knew It, which follows a suburban teen and her family as they try to survive the environmental catastrophe after a meteor hits the moon and knocks it into a lower orbit. The second book, The Dead and the Gone, runs parallel to the first but follows a working-class family in New York City. In the third, the teen protagonists from the first two books meet up. Great parable about climate change, refugees, and a bunch of other hot topics.
When I was 13/14, a classmate gave me the book Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert. A Heinlein. I hhhhaaaatttteeeeed reading until that book. Now I am a voracious reader and will always recommend that book to everyone who has not read it.
Birdy by William Wharton
Among Friends – Caroline Cooney
Locked In Time – Lois Duncan
The Basic Eight – Daniel Handler
We Were Liars – E. Lockhart
Midnight Hour Encores – Bruce Brooks
Life Without Friends – Ellen Emerson White
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith
Another vote for a Tree grows in Brooklyn. Pair it up with My Antonia by Willa Cather and compare immigrant experiences. Both are just beautiful to read and neither are very long.
My request- let us all know what she does read. Maybe we should start a reading group?
Homecoming, Dicey’s Song, and A Solitary Blue; all by Cynthia Voigt (Several other books tell various stories of this family and of their friends, but these are the first three and the best, IMO).
I would love a list of everyone’s suggestions…I didn’t read through all 800+ responses!
The Douglas Adams books. Anything by Kurt Vonnegut or Margaret Atwood. And simply for its literary beauty, Mark Helprin’s A Winter’s Tale. All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren. If she likes history, Barbara Hambly’s Benjamin January series are incredibly well-researched period mysteries. Benjamin January is a free black man living in New Orleans in the 1830s in the first book. He trained as a surgeon in Paris, but cannot work as such in America because he is black. Instead, he works as a physician to the city’s black inhabitants, and as a musician and private music tutor. The state of medicine, the state of the country, the weird divisions and justifications between the races in the South, and the fact that he constantly has to worry about getting sold into slavery, even though he is a free man, make these books fascinating. Her writing really transports you to the time and place, and her books have copious citations for her facts. The Charles Todd mysteries (really written by a mother and son team) are really good period pieces, too, happening during and after WWI. There are two separate series: Bess Crawford, a young woman who is a nurse in the war, and Inspector Ian Rutledge, a Scotland Yard detective who fought in WWI and has PTSD.
The Beany Malone series by Lenora Mattingly Weber. They may be difficult to find, but they are the best. When I was around that age, I had run out of things to read and our lovely local librarian saved me by recommending the Beany books.
A Prayer for Owen Meany (or any John Irving)
The Lords of the Discipline (any Pat Conroy)
The Poisonwood Bible (any Barbara Kinsolver)
Ready Player One (great audio book)
The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings trilogy
I add my vote to all Disc World books by Terry Pratchett, and add also the Hitchhikers Guide books by Douglas Adams.
“Brown Girl Dreaming” or “Another Brooklyn” by Jacquline Woodson. They are absolutely beautiful books.
While I was on vacation, I borrowed a book from the ship’s library about stuff nobody tells fat girls. And it was kind of kick ass. 🙂
Eating the Cheshire Cat – Helen Ellis
Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
The Life Before Her Eyes – Laura Kasischke
1984 – George Orwell
We Have Always Lived in the Castle – Shirley Jackson
The Color Purple – Alice Walker
Metamorphosis – Franz Kafka
Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton. This book 100% changed my life (for real at age 14) because it basically set me on my life path. It got me interested in what was out in the rest of the world beyond the tiny rural town I grew up in and also has great lessons on racism and classism and other -isms.
Also, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe because the same teacher that assigned the one above made sure we read African literature because it’s far too often ignored by traditional high school curriculum.
“The Left Hand of Darkness” and “The Dispossessed” by Ursula K. Leguin. “A Fine and Private Place” by Peter Beagle.
Struts and Frets by Jon Skovron. I own a bookstore, and I always recommend this to kids (esp. teen boys) who say they don’t like to read. Realistic fiction. Funny and sweet. My favorite comment was from a mom who said, “this is the first book he’s ever read all the way to the end. It’s made him a reader.” !!!
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian- Sherman Alexie
As Brave As You- Jason Reynolds
One Crazy Summer- Rita Williams-Garcia (A bit younger but multi-layered)
A Prayer for Owen Meany- Irving
The House on Mango Street- Cisneros
The Bekeeper’s Apprentice series- Laurie R King
Never Let Me Go- Kazuo Ishiguro
Anything Madeline L’Engle
She’s probably already read Walden and The Great Gatsby but if not, I think they’re both indispensable reading for Americans. And when I was a teenager reading an anthology of writings by the British social critic John Ruskin really made me think about society in a new way. One of his primary concerns was that Western societies are great at making things, but not at creating the circumstances for all of us to become better, happier human beings: “We manufacture everything except men; we blanch cotton and strengthen steel and refine sugar, and shape pottery, but to brighten, to strengthen, to refine a single living spirit never enters into our estimate of advantages.” (from this book The Stones of Venice). And Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger by Rebecca Traister (2018) is fantastic.
Count of Monte Cristo. It’s still my favorite book.
I loved percepolis at that age!
Atlas Shrugged. It’s a 50’s apocalypse book that is apparently a high school assigned read, but I read it just a few years ago and could read it again and again.
I think both a 14 yo girl, and ANYONE who’d like to learn about things outside themselves, should read The Soul of an Octopus, by Sy Montgomery. I’ve just finished it recently, and have seldom read something that gave as much insight and thoughtfulness about the intellectual and emotional lives and capacity of something other than humans – or mammals at all, for that matter. Read it!
I would love it if you would post your final book list so that my 14 year old can “read along” with Hailey.
So many great selections on here!!
The teacher in me would highly recommend The Outsiders and To Kill a Mockingbird.
At that age, my favorites were Gone with the Wind and anything by Joy Fielding or Margaret Atwood.
Best of luck 🙂
The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom. A very inspiring book about grace & reconciliation.
The Washington Post recently had an article, Books to Read at Every Age. Google that title and you will find it, plus a couple others on the subject.
So, this is probably never going to be seen, but Anthem, by Ann Rand changed my life as a summer Freshman book list. The other that I have never forgotten is “The Chosen” by Chaim Potok
Illusions by Richard Bach and anything by Hemingway or Steinbeck
Most of my favorite kid books are for younger readers, like the Edward Eager magic books and Pippi Longstocking, but I just read a really fun time-travel book called The Opposite of Always that I really enjoyed. Also someone from the “send letters and postcards to everyone” blog you posted sent me Mrs. ‘Arris goes to Paris, which I just read and loved – totally appropriate for a 14 year old, I think. I’ll rack my brain for more books.
My favorite “required reading” from high school was “The Count of Monte Cristo.”
My summer reading before freshman year of HS was To Kill a Mockingbird, Great Expectations, The Hobbit, and Watership Down. (I didn’t particularly enjoy Great expectations of Watership Down, but that may have been because I had to find 2 vocabulary words and write a synopsis for every chapter, and some of the chapters in Great Expectations are like a page long and NOTHING HAPPENS, which was a little soul crushing and may have warped my perception.) If she’s into steampunk, Gail Carriger’s Finishing School series. Urban fantasy- Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy, Lish McBride’s Necromancer series, and Maggie Stiefvater’s Raven Boys series. There’s also a kickass website called Forever Young Adult that reviews YA fiction and usually has good recommendations.
Maybe a little mature but 13 reasons why
Summer reading list that year for me was Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, and Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton. Also, the first week of school we started with The Merchant of Venice and while that one wasn’t my favorite she is the right age to start exploring shakespeare.
Next summer was Les Misérables, the great gatsby, and the sun also rises (Ernest Hemingway). I’d only rec Les Mis. School year was Heart of Darkness, Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm. Definitely a lot of white male authors. But if she wanted to have the full summer reading experience those seem pretty common in the midwest.
In terms of just fun reading, seconding or thirding or whatever number Maureen Johnson, The shades of London series is excellent and a little spooky. Robin mckinley is another fantastic author, beauty was excellant, and i think the sleeping beauty one. Dianna wynn jones chrestomanci series, Piers Anothony Spell for Chameleon (1st in the Xanth series, mostly puns) are other fav authors I loved in highschool. Susan Beth Pfeffer is pretty good too (apoclypse series about the moon crashing into the earth). A. S. King has some great YA stuff. Is she old enough for the Night vale podcasts and transcripts Mostly Void, Partially Stars?
Happy Reading!
Good Omens. It’s a fun read. I mean who dosent want to think of the apocalypse??
Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier
Jane Eyre
Tess of the D’urbervilles, which I’m ashamed to say I didn’t read until WELL after high school. But I believe it is perfect for early high school. Save Anna Karenina until Jr. or Sr. Year.
Side note, Jasper Fforde wrote a book called, simply, “Shades of Grey” and it is amazing and remarkable about seeing the world and prejudices and biases and love and rebellion in a very very unique way and he is a writing GOD and needs to do a sequel ASAP… even though it is too late to be ASAP.
You were looking for this https://slate.com/human-interest/2019/07/best-books-advanced-teenage-readers.html?fbclid=IwAR3WcWDexlbnFPhlS5uqrLWbPZKjHLvKnGeisGjW5z6QtxXmEdO6Dm4hVnQ
S.E. Hinton – Rumble Fish, The Outsiders, Tex.
Is anyone else using the answers here to build their own Amazon wish list? So many great recommendations and books I’d forgotten about here, I’m totally stealing these. One of my favorites at this age (and ever since) was Watership Down.
I wonder whether she would like “Grey Is The Color of Hope” by Irina Ratushinskaya? It is biographical, by a formerly Soviet writer who had spent time in such camps. It’s excellent.
Mercedes Lackey – Magic’s Price series; still re-read this one
Anne of Green Gables series – read at a young age, re-read a lot as a teenager, still re-read now; my perspective of it changes and grows as I get older.
Piers Anthony – Incarnations of Immortality series
Stephen King – Carrie, among others my Dad suggested
Emily Dickinson poems
I’m late to the party but:
For sure “The Blue Sword” and “The Hero and the Crown” which are still some of my favorite books.
“Wicked” which inspired the musical
“A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”
Stephan King’s “Dark Tower” series (which is not a horror story)
“Little Women”
“Anne of Green Gables”
And of course “Harry Potter.”
I feel super late here but I cannot recommend So You Want to Be a Wizard enough. Female MC with a POC male as the other hero of the story. The whole series of books is generally about kids becoming wizards who do what they can to make the whole world a better place and it’s an ongoing series that was started back in the early 80’s. The characters are incredibly real.
If I stay by Gayle Forman, Breakfast of Champions by Vonnegut, House of the scorpion by Nancy Farmer, Going Bovine by Libba Bray, Feed by M.T. Anderson, The Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld and Turtles All the Way Down by John Green are all books I recommend to my 9th grade students.
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