On the recommendation of one of the library's front desk staff, I recently read The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak, a young Jewish-Australian writer.
This is a brilliant new novel from the young people's collection in our library. The Y.P. collection, meant for our 14 to 21 year old patrons, is a veritable goldmine of wonderful classics: coming of age stories, science fiction, fantasy, edgy drugs, sex and rock and roll pieces, war stories, romances, adventure, mysteries, and of course, disguised adult advice.
The ideas for these books were believed to have started with The Swiss Family Robinson, published in 1812, by J.D. Wyss, a pastor who wished to give his sons a story illustrating such Christian values as frugality and co-operation.
Young adult novels today can be clearly autobiographical, such as Jeanette Walls's The Glass Castle, or as daring and gritty as Heather O'Neill's Lullabies for Little Criminals. Both books describe childhoods markedly different to most of our own.
Many of us who have left our adolescence can remember books that affected us in profound ways. They spoke directly to the circumstances we found ourselves in during those rocky times or they spoke with a voice to which we could relate.
The good old Anne of Green Gables and The Little House on the Prairie series showed us strong and unforgettable female protagonists, loving family relationships, and life as it really was lived over 100 years ago.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Kidnapped threw us into fantastic rollicking adventures. Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials series (from which the film The Golden Compass came) and Madeleine L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time series both take the fantasy road - they discuss developing identity, relating to others and becoming a part of a society.
S.E. Hinton was one of the first real teenage writers of fiction for teens. Her novels Outsiders, Rumble Fish and Tex explore universal adolescent experiences such as peer pressure, violence, family loyalty and first sexual encounters.
Oddly enough, Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger 1951 - considered to be the quintessential book about adolescence with all its exquisite pain and joy, uncertainties and self doubt, intolerance and judgment of others, vanity, self absorption and inability to communicate - was originally written for an adult audience.
If you didn't get to read these Y.P. titles when you were growing up, pick one up. You're sure to get just as much enjoyment out of them while remembering your own coming of age.
