BIbliography of Suggested Reading for Teens

     For Dr. Dial-Driver's Children's Lit class. This bibliography, too, was extremely difficult to narrow down to ten examples. I tried to be diverse when it comes to genres.

Rawls, Wilson. Where the Red Fern Grows. Doubleday, 1961.
     Billy Coleman lives near Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and he diligently saves up for two years in order to buy a pair of coonhound puppies, which he names Old Dan and Little Ann. His grandpa helps him teach the dogs to hunt raccoons, becoming one of the Ozarks’ most accomplished hunters. After Dan dies following a mountain lion attack, loyal Ann dies from a broken heart, and the Colemans move out of the mountains at Mama’s request, settling in Tulsa.
     The chief heartbreaker of all dog-story-tearjerkers, this ought to be required reading for Oklahoma children due to the local setting. Loyalty is the chief virtue expressed in these pages, though there are many virtues scattered throughout. I was five when I first heard this story, which was plenty old enough to understand it. Wilson Rawls wrote his books for “people,” and hated the idea that publishers marketed them as children’s literature. Therefore everyone ought to read it, as an example of true love and the power of patient hard work. Especially teenagers.

Kaye, M.M. The Ordinary Princess. 1980. Doubleday, 1984.
     In the far-off kingdom of Phantasmorania, there is a seventh princess born to the king and queen, her royal highness Amethyst Alexandra Augusta Araminta Adelaide Aurelia Anne – and the seventh princess is always the prettiest, the most graceful, the most blessed of all the fairies. Everyone knows that. But everyone also knows how contrary fairies can be – and this is what caused this princess to be ordinary, of all things. An ordinary princess would be an embarrassment to the kingdom, so Amy becomes a scullery maid in the royal castle of the next country over, where she eventually falls in love with a man-of-all-work.
      This was mystery author M.M. Kaye’s only fairy tale, but it works supremely well, mainly because it has such an emphasis on the ordinariness of life, while at the same time clearly being a fairy tale and containing all the classic ingredients. These elements are treated with respect, unlike so many things which claim to be modern fairy tales (glaring at you, Shrek).

Schaefer, Jack. Shane. 1949. Bantam, 1975.
     In 1880’s Wyoming, the Old West was dying quickly. This novel is narrated by a man named Bob Starrett, who was eleven when a dangerous stranger rode onto their farm one day, signed on as a hired hand and then found himself defending the group of local homesteaders in the middle of a range war with a devious cattle rancher.
     It’s a straightforward and formulaic Western plot, but the writing quality alone makes it worth reading for the strength of Schaefer’s descriptions. Bob Starrett is one of my top ten narrators across all books ever.

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. 1960. Grand Central, 2010.
     This tale set in a Depression-era southern Alabama town chronicles Scout and Jem Finch’s childhoods dealing with their father Atticus’s occasionally absent-minded parenting, in addition to the trials of public education and racism. Character and setting are much more important than plot.
     Scout Finch is probably my favorite narrator of all time, and Atticus is one of my favorite characters. This is a classic of southern American literature, and therefore almost has to be read at some point. Lee deals with a lot of big questions in this novel, and doesn’t provide all that many answers, which appeals to teenagers everywhere. If the reader has writerly ambitions, then studying Lee’s Go Set a Watchman shows how important the revision process is.

Goldman, William. The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure. 1973. Del Rey, 1987.
      In the country of Florin, long before Europe and just before glamour, but after America and blue jeans, lived the most beautiful woman in the world. She was a farm girl named Buttercup. Forced to marry Prince Humperdinck against her will, she is kidnapped and then reunited with her first love, Westley. Once Buttercup is recaptured, Humperdinck brutally murders Westley. He is resurrected (this is a fairy tale, after all) and teams up with Buttercup’s original kidnappers to break her out of the castle. The novel ends on a wonderfully ambiguous note, as they’re running away as fugitives with their end unknown.
     There’s the first sentence, to start with: “This is my favorite book in all the world, although I have never read it.” So many quotable quotes. So much more character depth than in the movie. This is a fairy tale for grownups, which claims neither to be more nor less. It is presented as an abridgement of a longer satirical Florinese history by fictional author S. Morgenstern. To paraphrase an A.A. Milne quote (from Once On a Time), the reader will either love this style of narration, or he/she will not. It’s that sort of book.

Shakespeare, William. Much Ado About Nothing. 1598. The Complete Pelican Shakespeare, edited by Stephen Orgel and A.R. Braunmuller. Penguin, 2002, pp.365-400.
      After the conclusion of a civil war, many people gather at the house of a rich man named Leonato. His daughter Hero is engaged to Claudio, whose best friend is Benedick, former lover of Hero’s cousin Beatrice. Everyone schemes to get Benedick and Beatrice back together. Complications ensue.
     William Shakespeare is one of the greatest storytellers in the history of English. His comedies are the easiest for modern readers to understand, and Much Ado follows most closely the formula of a modern comedy. And Benedick and Beatrice are amazingly snarky, slinging insults at each other with gleeful abandon. There is also the brilliant Joss Whedon film adaptation.

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. 1953. Simon & Schuster, 2013.
     In a bleak dystopian future, humanity is enslaved by addiction to technology, books are banned, and firemen create fires. After making the acquaintance of his quirky neighbor Clarisse, fireman Guy Montag comes to question everything he knows about his life and his society, to the point of becoming a wanted fugitive.
     The idea of dystopian literature is to serve as a warning of what society could become. Thus, while it may be uncomfortable to read, it is an important genre to be aware of, in order to avoid the futures described in the books. Bradbury’s Fahrenheit, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orwell’s 1984 together make up the triumvirate of essential dystopian literature.

King, Stephen. On Writing. Scribner, 2000.
     Almost everyone has read at least some of Stephen King’s works while a teenager, so why not read about the man behind the stories? The first half is a memoir, detailing his life from childhood up until the struggling early years of his marriage. The back half is a “how to write well” book. Both of those genres are necessary sometimes.

Crichton, Michael. Jurassic Park. 1990. Ballantine Books, 2015.
     A billionaire with no common sense creates a theme park featuring live cloned dinosaurs. During a cold opening of the park as a final measure of readiness before allowing the general public, a traitorous employee sets a catastrophe in motion which severs all power and communications, letting all the dinosaurs loose from their enclosures. Lots of people are eaten over the weekend.
     While mostly a bit of thriller fluff, there are some profound questions raised by this novel, mainly dealing with the role of science and technology in our world. And a quote from Dr. Ian Malcolm is interesting: “In the information society, we expected to banish paper. What we actually abolished was thought.” Loads of academic jargon make this somewhat difficult to wade through, so I would estimate high-school-age as a target audience.

Montgomery, L.M. The Golden Road. 1913. Kindle Direct Publishing, 2012.
     This novel meanders here and there, so there isn’t much a plot. It follows a group of friends and the adventures they had together just before going their separate ways as they grew up, narrated by the adult version of one of the characters. That makes it a perfect read for panicking high school graduates going to college to destress with as they reflect on memories made. This is another book with the target audience of “people.” I love most of Montgomery’s works, but this is my favorite of hers.