Teen litterature is a new concept.Bwuh?
L'Engle started publishing her stuff in the '60's.
Alexander published the Prydain stuff in the '60's.
Lewis published the Narnia stuff in the '50's.
Heck, Hardy Boys was in the '20's, and Nancy Drew was in the '30's.
All of these are teen/young adult literature.
Yeah, oh boy, it's almost a hundred years old! May I remind you kindly that the Odyssey was written about 2800 years ago and was the "teen lit" for the greeks.
Good Omens has the usual violence you can expect from American/British literature but it's a collaboration of Terry Pratchet and a young Neil Gaiman. It's more of a satire of religion than a serious novel but it's really good.
Thank you sir, I did not kwew they wrote a book together. I'll be sure to read it.
All we ever got in schools was The Great Gatsby and Faulkner novels and Shakespeare and similar junk.
Ack! [Clutches chest and passes out]
Teen litterature is a new concept. Teenagers can read adult books. After Harry Potter, send them to something more serious. I often wonder if it's not just a way to hang them back by developping a market that consider them unready to get to serious stuff... A teacher made me read Dante'S inferno when I was 15, and I'm glad for that.I couldn't even make it part way through the Inferno.
I still say Pratchett & Gaiman's Good Omens is excellent.
I read the Inferno and loved it, but could not make it part way through the Puragatory... ;-)
Gaimain is a fantastic read, I agree. But I don't know it as teen fiction. I've not read Good Omen, but What I've read of him (Neverwhere, American God, Anancy Boy, etc.) is very adult in theme and pacing. Gaiman is not really "teen lit" for me - no easy love story, a lot of violence, adult themes, etc. Maybe we just need a good definition of waht is teen lit...
[
Some of Gaiman is geared towards more college age (the ones you mention), but a decent amount of his stuff is for teens, and he has a few childrens books. Coraline, Mirror Mask, and Odd and the Frost Giants are all good books for elementary school. Graveyard Book is an excelent book for the younger one, a recent Newbery Award winner targetted at middleschoolers but excelent enough to appeal to all ages, and a great coming of age story. The short stories in Smoke In Mirrors are definetely appropriate for teens. Interworld and Stardust are exactly the types of books you describe as teen liturature, lost teenagers going out into the world to find there way. Sure, his most well known books (Good Omens, Anansi Boys, American Gods) are geared towards more adult themes, but he even writes childrens books (The Day I Swapped My Father for Two Goldfish)
Yeah, oh boy, it's almost a hundred years old! May I remind you kindly that the Odyssey was written about 2800 years ago and was the "teen lit" for the greeks.Teen litterature is a new concept.Bwuh?
L'Engle started publishing her stuff in the '60's.
Alexander published the Prydain stuff in the '60's.
Lewis published the Narnia stuff in the '50's.
Heck, Hardy Boys was in the '20's, and Nancy Drew was in the '30's.
All of these are teen/young adult literature.
[Revives]
Jane Eyre--1847
Little Women--1868
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer--1876
etc., etc.
Although, there is a school of thought that the idea that the "invention/discovery" of adolescence as a separate stage of human development dates back to only about the middle of the nineteenth century.
Anyway, returning to the topic of the thread, I'd throw in the books by Roger Lancelyn Green and Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn.
Wait - Mirrormask is a book too? And we're not talking about a "making of" book either?
Wait - Mirrormask is a book too? And we're not talking about a "making of" book either?
He wrote the book after making the movie.
Yeah, oh boy, it's almost a hundred years old! May I remind you kindly that the Odyssey was written about 2800 years ago and was the "teen lit" for the greeks.Teen litterature is a new concept.Bwuh?
L'Engle started publishing her stuff in the '60's.
Alexander published the Prydain stuff in the '60's.
Lewis published the Narnia stuff in the '50's.
Heck, Hardy Boys was in the '20's, and Nancy Drew was in the '30's.
All of these are teen/young adult literature.
[Revives]
Jane Eyre--1847
Little Women--1868
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer--1876
etc., etc.
What I meant is that the marketing of teen litterature as such is pretty new. Sure, Verne's books could be considered "teen lit" but adults would pick them up too. Alice in Wonderland was written for children, but was read by adults all the same.
What I find is new is a market of "teen only" litterature, which often is poorly written and not that good, but hey, it's ok you know, because it's only for teens. Not that all book marketed as such are lame, but there is a lot of crap, and I believe it's mainly because of the creation of a niche market that was almost inexistent before, and was anyways more aimed at "young adults AND adults", meaning you can still enjoy reading "Around the world in 80 days" "Treasure Island" or "The count of Monte Cristo" when you are 77 and have post-doc degree in comparative litterature.
It is not the case for most "teen lit" you'll now find at the bookstore. It is expected to be "only" for teens, and so, we don't care if it's good or not, because you are not expected to read and enjoy them again when you are old.
Again, I'm not saying all of those books are lame, but a lot are, and I'm only wondering if, globally, this new market of "teen lit" (And I could say the same about the "Bit lit") is a good thing for teens.
But maybe it's I'm already an old grumpy purist at 31...
I will second:
Pratchett
Gaiman
Susan Cooper
Lewis
One I haven't seen on the posts:
Roderick MacLeish's Prince Ombra
meaning you can still enjoy reading "Around the world in 80 days" "Treasure Island" or "The count of Monte Cristo" when you are 77 and have post-doc degree in comparative litterature.
Can you truly enjoy ANYTHING with a degree in comparative literature?
What I find is new is a market of "teen only" litterature, which often is poorly written and not that good, but hey, it's ok you know, because it's only for teens. Not that all book marketed as such are lame, but there is a lot of crap, and I believe it's mainly because of the creation of a niche market that was almost inexistent before, and was anyways more aimed at "young adults AND adults", meaning you can still enjoy reading "Around the world in 80 days" "Treasure Island" or "The count of Monte Cristo" when you are 77 and have post-doc degree in comparative litterature.
It is not the case for most "teen lit" you'll now find at the bookstore. It is expected to be "only" for teens, and so, we don't care if it's good or not, because you are not expected to read and enjoy them again when you are old.
1st paragraph: Of course, you could say much the same about most (eh, why hedge my bets--all!) genres of "genre literature."
2nd paragraph: Stream-of-consciousness off-topicness: It was only within the last three or four years that I read Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret! by Judy Blume. Good book.
You could go with Animorphs. They are about to be re-released this year apparently.
It was only within the last three or four years that I read Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret! by Judy Blume. Good book.
What a coincidence. Recently, I was talking to some people who derided modern vampire romances, saying that you had to be a 12-year-old girl to like that stuff, and said something to imply that anything meant to appeal to such readers must be a bad book for anyone else. I countered with "I loved 'Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret' as an adult."
Now I'm tempted to go get a bunch of Beverly Cleary books from the library--but I probably won't.
Just like with The Beatles in '63, sometimes 12-year-old girls know their shiznit!
meaning you can still enjoy reading "Around the world in 80 days" "Treasure Island" or "The count of Monte Cristo" when you are 77 and have post-doc degree in comparative litterature.Can you truly enjoy ANYTHING with a degree in comparative literature?
Good point. I guess you only enjoy Derrida by then. Makes me shudder just to think about it.
Stream-of-consciousness off-topicness: It was only within the last three or four years that I read Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret! by Judy Blume. Good book.
Thanks, I'll try to have a look. As I said, there is good stuff in that genre, but I still think it's difficult to find amidst all the crappy books published in order to fill this new "teen" market.
What I wanted to say to the OP was : don't restrict yourself and your children to the teen shelves. You'll probably find many more good books in other sections of the library your children will enjoy reading. And Stevenson, Howard, Vance and others are still there and great reads for teens even if not marketed as "teen lit".
Now I'm tempted to go get a bunch of Beverly Cleary books from the library--but I probably won't.
I take it this means you've read Cleary before.
I'm afraid of getting off topic, since this thread is supposed to be about FANTASY books. Doodlebug Anklebiter, please see this thread.
You know, it's funny that I only just realized this: I am, right now, reading a Young Adult book, written by a woman and with an eighth-grade, female protagonist. It's Heir Apparent by Vivian Vande Velde. One could argue that it's more like science fiction than fantasy, because it's about virtual reality. However, it involves someone playing a FANTASY role-playing game with that virtual reality technology. It's short, it's easy to read...
...and I'm almost finished reading it for the fourth time.
I'm not saying that it's a "must read" to get girls started on fantasy, by any means. But it just goes to show that a book written for young girls can be enjoyed by others.
Patricia C. Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles (starts with "Dealing with Dragons").
They're in a fun, fractured-fairy-tale-style universe, with a strong female character who bucks the accepted norm for princesses and runs away to join the dragons. Even as an adult, these books are great, and I'd recommend them to anyone. Also, my fiance and several other female friends cite them as some of the first fantasy books they were able to find with a female protagonist they could really get behind.
He's mostly for a slightly younger audience, but even as an adult I love all of John Bellairs' books. House With a Clock in its Walls was the first fantasy book I ever read, and I was instantly hooked for life -- D&D and everything else fantasy came after that. Bellairs' one adult fantasy, The Face in the Frost, I've probably read at least six times.
First, another recommendation: If the readers in question made it through HP #5, they're clearly not afraid of long books. Miyuki Miyabe's Brave Story is a great read. The story deals with issues like dysfunctional families, peer pressure, and prejudice, and there are a number of great female characters. I laughed; I cried!
What I wanted to say to the OP was : don't restrict yourself and your children to the teen shelves. You'll probably find many more good books in other sections of the library your children will enjoy reading. And Stevenson, Howard, Vance and others are still there and great reads for teens even if not marketed as "teen lit".
At the same time, adults shouldn't be afraid to peruse the young adult section of libraries and bookstores either. I've definitely read of a few authors saying they preferred to publish YA books because they could get away with crazier, more experimental stories that way than they can when trying to get writing published as adult fiction. And, of course, depending on how your library chooses to categorize, lots of classics and fantasy can end up shelved in YA instead of in fiction or sci fi/fantasy (the library in my parents town, for example, shelves all classics frequently assigned to students in YA, as well as all Terry Pratchett).