Audience Participation Time, Fit the Second

[grammargirl]

Some of you may remember that a few months ago, at the beginning of my last set of classes, I asked for recommendations regarding favorite children's books. This semester I'm taking what is basically the sequel to that class, taught by the same professor, which means that I have to do another annotated bibliography--only this time I have to read fifteen books instead of ten (3-5 by the same author), and they have to fall into the Young Adult category (think age 12-17, or grade 6-12). So: make with the recommendations, please.

Fly, my monkeys!

Comments

[mariness.livejournal.com]

These are pretty standard young adult favorites, I think:

Ursula Le Guin: The Earthsea Trilogy, Tehanu, and one of my favorites of her books: Very Far Away From Anywhere Else.

Katherine Paterson: Jacob Have I Loved.

Diana Wynne Jones can be a bit of a hit or a miss for me, but she's very prolific, so if you need 5 books by someone, she might be someone to look at.

Elizabeth Speare (spelling? I think I have that wrong): The Witch of Blackbird Pond.

Paul Zindel.

Garth Nix.

Charles De Lint has also done a lot of young adult stuff.

[grammargirl.livejournal.com]

Oooh, The Earthsea Trilogy might be fun to do. It'd be kind of cheating because I've already read the first one, but it was years ago so I wouldn't feel too bad. Though I've never even heard of Very Far Away..., so maybe that would be even better. What kind of stuff does Garth Nix write? The name doesn't ring a bell.

[mariness.livejournal.com]

Garth Nix does young adult fantasy, mainly. He's from New Zealand (I think? Um. That might be wrong) and his publishers strongly push him as the writer to read while waiting for the next Harry Potter book, which is unfair since he really doesn't do humour at all. His books are all pretty serious.

[minsies.livejournal.com]

Seconding the Garth Nix.

Also, Philip Pullman? That may be overdone, but His Dark Materials makes me happy.

[mariness.livejournal.com]

I really liked the first book of His Dark Materials -- I wasn't as crazy about the rest of the series, but I do recall reading them and thinking, people are squawking about Harry Potter and not about this?

Ooh, and while I'm on the fantasy kick, pretty much anything by Patricia Wrede will be amusing.