Favorite Young Adult books?

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Just curious what everyone here was partial to when they were younger readers. I can't remember too many from when I was a child, but a few stand out: "The White Mountains" trilogy by John Christopher, "The Prince in Waiting" series also by John Christopher, the Retief stories by Keith Laumer, and this strange series I can't remember much about except that it was science fiction and the protagonist had a kind of alien sidekick that looked a bit like a ghost or a bat.

Oh, and the Robots series by Asimov.

What series or books do you remember the best from your "young adult" days?

 

hmm. Not really sure what you mean by young adult but when I was younger (hitting puberty ) I used to read the Hardy Boys and Goosebumps. I also read the Spookesville series by Christopher Pike, that series never really got popular and ended after a 25 book run but it was effing amazing. I wish they would re-release the whole series.

 

'Never got popular' and 'ended after a 25 book run' are--or should be--mutually exclusive.

Unless the publisher has no business sense whatsoever.

 

The Belgariad and Malloreon by David Eddings. Think I read them more than ten times in my teens.

 

What I meant was it didn't hit the mainstream market like goosebumps That was Pike's attempt at a more toned-down "adventure" type of series as opposed to his other stuff like Fear Street which was horror for young adults. He had this one book which creeped me out at the ending, one of his Ghosts of Fear Street books iirc. His The Last Vampire series was also quite good, I loved the twist in the final book.

Also they're not really "young adult" but I read them a lot back then and still read them now: anything by Agatha Christie, especially her Hercule Poirot stuff. Classic.

 

Christopher Pike's stuff - it has really good ideas but the writing is pretty bad. Of course, you don't really notice as a kid

Also - John Marsden's The Tomorrow Series. I'd recommend this to everyone, because it's pretty freaking awesome. As a 'young adult' series you'd expect it to be dumbed down, but it's not. It's oomphy, but written in such a way that pretty much anyone can read it.

 

I'd go with Christopher Pike as well. I love many of his books, The Last Vampire, Remember Me, See you Later, Sati to name a few.

Hardy Boys were pretty good too. And I can't believe no one mentioned Enid Blyton!

 

There is a difference between young adult books and books read by young adults. For the longest time the Newbery Award covered both older children and young adults. Many of those winners are quite applicable (and very good).

Classic young adult books:

A Wizard of Earthsea Trilogy (plus one) by Ursula LeGuin
The Dark is Rising Series by Susan Cooper
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMN by Robert O'Brian
Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell
Lord of the Flies by William Golding (a Nobel Prize winner in Literature for the scope of his work).
Jonathon Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach
Watership Down by Richard Adams
Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

 

Oh I agree with T2Bruno - I read most of those when I was a kid and loved them all. I think my love of seagulls today is partly inspired by Jonathon Livingston Seagull.

The Chronicles of Narnia was the first set of books that I ever read - I started reading them one night when my mother did read enough to me for my satisfaction.

Watership Down is a work of art. What a great adventure... I could go through most of TS Bruno's list with fond memories.

 

Good list, T2Bruno.

My favorites as a young adult were "The Hobbit" and "The Chronicles of Narnia." I read them many times. Also Eddings' Belgariad and Malloreon are good. Like Joacqin, I read them over and over.

 

All of Eddings books, Piers Anthony's Xanth series, also his series with Stile...Blue adept series maybe?.

I read alot of Drizzt and Elminster books as well.