June 18, 2005

The Book Police

OK, I'm not "meme"-happy all of a sudden or anything. I feel a little embarrassed that I'm doing two in one month, but Ted Barlow "tagged" me so graciously that I feel I ought to be gracious back.

Here it is:

What fiction did you read as a teen/young adult that you have re-read as an adult (or would like to)? What pieces of fiction meant something to you? Put up your list, and pass it on to 2-3 people.

Even discounting the "adult" books I read as a kid, and standard age-transcendent stuff like Tolkien and Narnia and Watership Down, this would actually be a very, very long list for me. I count a number of YA novels among my favorite books period and I've reread a great many of them several times. There is a widespread notion that there's something weird or inappropriate about reading "teen fiction" as an adult; and that books dealing with adolescent themes or characters are somehow "beneath" adults, and not as good or worthwhile as "adult" books; or that YA books aren't quite the same as "real" books. I think that's totally crazy. But then I guess I would, wouldn't I?

(Seriously, though: if you applied the same logic to music, you'd have to stop listening to "Can't Explain" as soon as you reach drinking age - that's not a world I'd like to live in. In fact, just a sec, I'm going to play "Can't Explain" really loud for the next two minutes and four seconds.... and we're back. I don't care how old you are or how legal your drinking is - it's still hard to explain stuff.)

In fact, I find much contemporary "adult" "literary" fiction pretty unreadable. If you haven't picked up a novel with a plot in awhile, you might want to try some of these, even though many of them are intended for "pre-teens":

The Silver Crown, by Robert C. O'Brien. This is the author of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, but I've always preferred this one. A young girl spends the early morning of her birthday playing in the park, and when she returns she finds that her house has burned to the ground in her absence. "Kid, nobody lives here," says a cop when she tries to tell him it had been her house. "They'll be lucky if they find some bones." As she is stalked through the country by dark, sinister figures and elusive phantasms with green faces, she begins to suspect that it all may have something to do with this silver fabric crown she found on her pillow when she woke up that day, which she had assumed was a birthday present. It's a bit Lord of the Rings, a bit Trial/Castle, and, admittedly, maybe just a bit Escape to Witch Mountain as well, but it's a great book. And even though it's tagged for ages 9-12, it was genuinely scary and suspenseful when I reread it last year.


(George), by E. L. Konigsburg. A precocious sixth-grader struggles through his troubled home and social life aided and hindered by the voice of a repressed second personality named George ("a little man who lives inside me.") All of Konigsburg's books are great, but this is the most powerful.

The Collected Works of Ellen Raskin. They've never actually been "collected" as far as I know, but they're all terrific "puzzle-mystery" books of varying degrees of wackiness. The Westing Game (as good as any "adult" mystery); The Mysterious Disapperance of Leon (I Mean Noel) (aptly described as a sort of "psychedelic detective book for kids" by an Amazon reviewer); Figgs and Phantoms (a deep and well-plotted surreal literary mystery); The Case of the Tatooed Potato and Other Clues (which I can't find on Amazon - must be way out of print. A series of art-related puzzle stories.)

I Am the Cheese, by Robert Cormier. A first-rate psychological thriller, and also a subtle exploration of the complex adolescent emotional landscape. There are few novels as powerful and moving as this. All Cormier's stuff is great, and he kept going right up till the end: try Tenderness, or After the First Death. (I have to admit I had a little goofy "wow-I'm-speechless-and-blown-away" moment when I realized that Cormier and I had the same publisher - Delacorte.)

Lizard Music, by D. Manus Pinkwater. A surreal tale of a young Walter Cronkite fan who tries to get to the bottom of a mysterious late-night lizard TV show that no one else seems able to see. One of my all-time favorite books.

I could list hundreds of books, but I'll stop.

I'm sorry for being a bad meme-citizen, but now that it comes down to it I don't think I can bring myself to "tag" anyone. (This was started by John Cole, and Michele did it, too.)

Posted by Dr. Frank at June 18, 2005 12:38 AM | TrackBack
Comments

lizard music is one of my all time favourite reads. i chose it simply becuase of its cover, and happened to read it during a slight infatuation with all things network news related. i should go back and re-read it.

Posted by: kendra at June 18, 2005 12:56 AM

I loved I am the Cheese. That was going to go on my "books I read when I was a bit older" list that I forgot to do today. And you can't go wrong with Pinkwater.

Posted by: michele at June 18, 2005 02:08 AM

I loved and still love The Giver and Lord of the Flies. I actually still read these at least once a year.

Posted by: Amy 80 at June 18, 2005 02:30 AM

Bridge to Terabithia will always be my favorite book

Posted by: Jody at June 18, 2005 04:21 AM

I write comics, and as a writer, SE Hinton's early books have inspired me more than anything(except for Dan Clowes, I guess). My favorite of hers is That Was Then, This is Now. It has been a pretty long while since I've read it, though. I should pick it up one of these days.

Posted by: Chris Fabulous at June 18, 2005 04:39 AM


i enjoyed the Chronicles Of Amber a bit later than some,i still nead to reread these.

interesting list,though a little warning flag goes up in my head when ever i hear the words "psychological thriller" but only because the market seems a bit flooded now. how old is it?

Posted by: just me at June 19, 2005 12:02 AM

I have a son who is a very advanced reader, and what started out as trying to kind of screen books turned into an affair with Philip Pullman, Laurence Yep and many other writers of works for younger people. My childhood reading was Hardy Boys and Louis L'Amour. I know the plot of every HB and don't really care to red them again, but the LL was some great reading. I can fall in love with any era if there's a book about it, and I've always been a sucker for the American west. A Baptist upbringing however means that I missed out on what I should have been reading, so I'm trying to get it now.

Posted by: sam at June 19, 2005 05:06 AM

Okay, you just caused me to cue up Waterloo Sunset before writing anything. YA today is where it's at. Period. Yes, I Am the Cheese is still pretty good afer all these years. (National Book Award-winner Pete Hautman has just written a hot new YA, Invisible, which recalls I Am the Cheese.) But the YA from a long time ago that most blew me away--and still does--is The Quartzsite Trip by William Hogan. The best of the best Young Adult literature of the new millenium includes You Don't Know Me by David Klass, Under the Wolf, Under the Dog by Adam Rapp, Razzle by Ellen Wittlinger, Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher, Acceleration by Graham McNamee, Blankets (a graphic novel) by Craig Thompson, Feed by MT Anderson, The Land by Mildred Taylor, and The Bartimeaus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud. Have you gotten to read the piece in David Levithan's collection from last year, Realm of Possibility, titled "My girlfriend is in love with Holden Caufield"(p.60)?

Posted by: Richie at June 19, 2005 05:44 PM

I don't think I've read any of these, but might hit up the library for some weekend reading.

Growing up, it was Roald Dahl and John Bellairs. I'd love to find a collected edition of John Bellairs' novels.

Posted by: Adam at June 20, 2005 04:58 PM

"Tattooed Potato" on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0525408053/qid=1119354645/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/002-2643840-0200825?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

Pinkwater's "Snarkout Boys" books are also pretty great.

Posted by: The Chimpunks at June 21, 2005 12:52 PM

I'm very late to this post, but I just wanted to say that I re-read It's Like This Cat all the time. All the time. I want to find an arrow head in New York City and eat cold spaghetti sandwiches.

Posted by: nancy at June 24, 2005 12:10 AM
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