(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best teen classic literature books

I don't know a lot of titles for the youngest ages, though the Junie B. Jones and Magic Treehouse books are favorites of my mother's elementary-aged students. Speaking of magic, you can't go wrong with The Magic Schoolbus. Oh! And Where the Wild Things Are.

As suggested by /u/jpop23mn, the Berenstein Bears are great books for young readers (I loved them so much as a kid), and Dr. Seuss is classic.

For middle-schoolers, I recall enjoying Maniac Magee (though I don't recall much about it), lots of Bruce Coville's monster books, the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series, and one of my favorites, The Phantom Tollbooth. My sister enjoyed the Warriors series (and still reads them now as a college student). Then there's classics like Where the Red Fern Grows and Bridge to Terabithia, though those books cover some difficult subject matter (death).

Ghost stories are much beloved, and if you can find folklore and fable specific to various cultures, you can learn about other cultures while enjoying a good story!

Some other fantastic books to have around are The Daring Book for Girls and The Dangerous Book for Boys, both of which teach all kinds of fantastic information and skills while also being entertaining. I especially urge you to get the Daring Book for Girls if you have a daughter, because it not only teaches useful skills like changing tires and woodworking, but it also teaches about strong, independent, successful women through history. It promotes independence, self-esteem and self-confidence, which (in my opinion) are vital to any young person's upbringing, but especially women, since so much of the media and society seems bent on making women insecure, dependent and subservient. (Please excuse my politics.)

The Chronicles of Narnia are fantastic, if you don't mind that they're a religious allegory. When I was a kid, I read them for fun, and didn't give a damn about the religious aspect. (I'm agnostic.) Another good series is the Dark Materials series, though some parents avoid it because of Pullman's anti-religious sentiments. Again, I didn't care about that, I just enjoyed a good story.

Hopefully, with a big enough selection of books, your kids will be able to choose their own books by high school. But it's still nice to keep around some young adult and adult novels for the kids to explore. The Dragonlance novels are fantasy novels set in a D&D-inspired world, but this setting has more of a chivalric, idealistic mood, which is good for young adult readers as well as adults. You've also got the Harry Potter series, which is kind of a given...

The challenge is finding adult novels that are appropriate for your kids. If you are trying to avoid exposing your children to certain ideas before a certain age, then you'll have to personally read and consider each book before you put it on their shelf. If you're the kind of parent who allows their kid to read what they want to read, doing your best to answer their questions and put the stories into context, then it's a little easier. If your kid reads Jurassic Park, they're going to be exposed to an awful lot of violence, but they're also going to learn some fascinating scientific information as well. Crichton's books are science-fiction with a strong scientific background, so they're educational as well as thrilling, but they've got adult themes that might be better for more mature readers. (That being said, I was reading them at a young age.)

I hope this is a decent start. There are lots of good lists online, too. I'd suggest checking out GoodReads and various Amazon lists. Just remember that it's up to you to choose what you want your kids to be exposed to.

Edit: As a male, I have a distinct lack of experience with books aimed at young females. I would like to think that a good book can be enjoyed by boys and girls alike, but some books have more of a gender-focus than others.

So I have a friend in jail that I regularly send books to. This doesn't cover every situation, but I assume the circumstances will be similar.

He says that the (meager) prison library is very skewed towards religious books, classics, GED materials, and low-difficulty grocery store novels. Anything other than that will be appreciated. The books most requested are thick fantasy books, activity books (sudoku, physics workbooks, etc), science non-fiction, and coffee-table books or magazines with lots of pictures. These will be swapped with other inmates so that anyone interested has a chance to read.

Some things to keep in mind:

• There is often a limit on how many items can be kept. 3-books-in-1/omnibus editions help get around this.
  
• There may be monetary limits on gifts. Shop for deals and choose the cheaper mass market paperbacks whenever possible.
  
• Mail a receipt ASAP! She might not be able to pick up any books until she has that.
  
• Mail books through a big company (e.g. Amazon, B&N) or they might be destroyed. No third-party Amazon sellers or used book stores in most cases.
  
  Books that have gone over well and can be found in cheap forms:
  
  
• Mistborn trilogy
  
• His Dark Materials trilogy
  
• The Name of the Wind
  
• The Best American Science Writing/The Best American Science and Nature Writing anthologies
  
• Sudoku
  
• Hyperbole and a Half
  
• A Song of Ice and Fire

OK, so I have a friend in jail serving a lot more time and the rules are probably even stricter (separate receipt needs to be sent in a different shipment or else even new books from Amazon will be destroyed).

Anyways, he says that prison libraries skew towards religious books, former crappy bestsellers (dime-a-dozen bestsellers, the crappy sort of chicklit, etc), and classics. Books that deviate from that are better.

Some general rules: books that cost less are better (at a certain point, you can receive 3x $10 books or 1x $30 book), 3-books-in-1 are better (you can have x many objects).

Books that have gone over well:

• Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson (fantasy)
  
• The Best Science and Nature Writing anthology, any year (non-fiction)
  
• A Game of Thrones (fantasy)
  
• and various Sudoku books (puzzle)
  
  Mass appeal/tradeability is a big thing: Harry Potter, His Dark Materials, and Percy Jackson are popular.
  
  Books with lots of nature photography are also big.

I highly recommend "His dark materials" for you to read. It has to be one of the better books I read and it is a series!

All 3 books (tangible copies)

All 3 books (Kindle)

It has coming of age, strong female protagonist, science fiction, and survival story all rolled into one.

If you liked harry potter, there is a good chance you will like this book series. (They tried to make a movie about it but adapted it horribly.. do not judge the book by the movie)

It’s great expectation. Rollercoasters: Great Expectations https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0198355343/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_MH8TBbAXG0HM7

Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:


amazon.co.uk

amazon.ca

amazon.com.au

amazon.in

amazon.com.mx

amazon.de

amazon.it

amazon.es

amazon.com.br

amazon.nl

amazon.co.jp

amazon.fr

Beep bloop. I'm a bot to convert Amazon ebook links to local Amazon sites.
I currently look here: amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.ca, amazon.com.au, amazon.in, amazon.com.mx, amazon.de, amazon.it, amazon.es, amazon.com.br, amazon.nl, amazon.co.jp, amazon.fr, if you would like your local version of Amazon adding please contact my creator.

Flounder plush :D

Prize - Kindle omnibus of one of my favorite series!

This was my favorite book when I was young. I read it many, many times, along with this one

Uh, if I win...is erotica okay? The third part to a series I've been reading comes out tomorrow. If that's okay, let me know and I'll post the link.

Get those kids some books! But not smutty ones! Those are for grown ups.

One of my favorite books as a lit'lun: http://www.amazon.com/Incident-Hawks-Hill-Allan-Eckert/dp/0316209481

May help with the roleplay. Probably not, but it's a good read anyway. Also has a sequel, if you're interested at all.

The Winter of Enchantment by Victoria Walker

EDIT:

There's also a sequel called 'The House Called Hadlows' :-)

EDIT:

Two additional links you may like here and here.

Oh, my friend, they have already taken three more steps.

Here you go It's a series and they're just so innocent and sweet.

The Good Master - Kate Seredy

Something along the lines of Hatchet might be a good place to start. The main character would be about your brother's age as I recall.

Romeo and Juliet and Vampires. Yes, this is a thing.

"From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler"

Claudia knew that she could never pull off the old-fashioned kind of running away...so she decided not to run FROM somewhere, but TO somewhere. And so, after some careful planning, she and her younger brother, Jamie, escaped -- right into a mystery that made headlines!

We found it here, and here (75 cents).

I guess it'd look something like this.

I'll add: The Girl Who Owned a City and From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.


While already listed I'd like to reiterate: anything by Madelin L'Engle and My Side of the Mountian.

Island of the Blue Dolphins

Bridge to Terabithia

The Classic Treasury of Bulfinch's Mythology

And I can't upvote Anne of Green Gables enough

Yeah that's fine, doesn't really matter to me if its hardcover or paperback or anything.

War of the Worlds is a small (I guess 'regular sized') paperback edition. I found a link to the edition on Amazon.

And yes, The Lost World includes the dust jacket.

Both books are in good condition, just featuring the normal wear-and-tear from being read a few dozen times over the years.

If you're stranded, the first priority is food and shelter- not keeping track of what date it is.

The only reason why people started keeping track of dates and things like solstices was because they started settling down and harvesting crops.

Being stranded from all civilization means that you've devolved past that back into the hunter-gatherer stage of existence. And until you build up a mass of people (ie civilization) enough to plant crops and settle in somewhere, there is no real need to keep track of such things.

And any damn fool can look around and realize which of the 4 seasons it is. You don't need a fancy watch to tell you that.

As far as survival in the wilderness goes, my favorite all time book about such things is The Hatchet. I've always felt that book was far more accurate/realistic than any sort of thing Hollywood could ever come up with.

Yes, it is young adult fiction. Yes, it is 20 years old. But if you've never read it, then you're missing out.

I don't have a recommendation on a game system, but you might want to throw a few hours at Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. It's the story of a boy who finds himself alone in the open wasteland of northern Canada with no food or shelter. He suffers a lot as he deals with mosquitoes and other insects, wild animals, poison ivy, and other things. He learns to make fire on his own, how to hunt birds and small animals, and all kinds of things. It's a great story about survival and really gets to the heart of what you'll probably want to bring to your game. With a scenario like the one you want to write, you will probably want your players to react in a visceral way. The best way to do that is to evoke emotions in them like discomfort, hunger, panic, etc.

EDIT: http://www.amazon.com/Hatchet-20th-Anniversary-Gary-Paulsen/dp/1416925082/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343240804&sr=1-1&keywords=hatchet

lol...sorry

http://www.amazon.com/Bridge-Terabithia-Katherine-Paterson/dp/0060734019/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344404402&sr=8-1&keywords=Bridge+to+Terabithia

This one will last for a long time.

Does this count as a match?

Not the Kindle versions, but I have all three paperbacks on my wishlist. (Three separate links.)

If not well...snooble!

It exists.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0061976245/ref=pd_aw_sim_b_9?refRID=0J7A8HJP06T2G5NHYD7J

Can you provide any more info on anything else that happened in the story? As you said, covers can vary over time and regions, so the only clue we're left with from your description is "brother and sister run away from home and there is a story about it."

Here's a guess:
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

A brother and sister run away from home and live in a museum for awhile.

Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. I read that in 5th grade and was obsessed with it.

Consider Philip Pullman. His "His Dark Materials" series is fine Fantasy with Steam Punk style.

As well, Larry Correia's Grimnoir Chronicles are 'wicked good'.

Tyara, I'm not used to the username yet.

/u/PotatoAssassin because she is fucking awesome and if you vehemently disagree I'll break your arm. Or at least hurt it a hell of a lot!

She should have these books because everyone should have His Dark Materials. Especially Northern Lights which is the best of the triology and no, I wont use the silly American name for it.

My favs:

• The Hatchet
  
• Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes
  
• Bridge to Terabithia
  
• The Giving Tree
  
• To Kill a Mockingbird
  
• The Little Prince