YA boys' books focussed on leadership?

[M Harold Page]

Hi - Doing a bit of research for a frankly terrifying guest blogging invite, and also to expand my son's book list.

Can anybody recommend modern* YA books or series which focuses on leadership, preferably with a competent male protagonist who is the leader*?

*(Edit - sorry!)

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Seems a strange idea.
An adult leader or a Teen Leader?

Or younger?
"Fatty" in Enid Blyton's "Five finder outers" series is definitely a male leader.

The post WWI Biggles books?

Mostly the fun is the success of the "exploit" despite idiocy, arrogance, inexperience etc of the "leader".

It's fiction ... so how useful would it be?

Why male? Though often "leaders" in Fiction are White Male Adults.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Swallows and Amazons?
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (peter as leader)
Ender's Game, surely for genre?
Percy Jackson
Artemis Fowl (maybe, just check it's a male leader)

 

[M Harold Page]

Thanks! Have updated the original question to clarify that I'm looking for modern books, with a competent male protagonist as leader. There are plenty of old books, the better ones like Ronald Welch's young officer tales have a lot of real life lessons about leadership and responsibility. I'm wondering to what extent the modern equivalent exists.

Percy Jackson grows into a leader, right? Same with Scarrow's Young Gladiator.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Afaik Percy becomes a leader. I assume you have Andrew Wiggin in there - he ends up leading a religion in the sequels.

Also, is Dune too old? Both Paul and his son might be worth looking at. (How thereoretical do you want to get - because there you have an eg of a charismatic leader in Paul, and inherited leader in his son ie born to that role. Nice dicotomy in there). Both are young characters when they take the role but the book is adult. Not sure, but I'll muse on whether there's a similar leadership paradox in anything more recent.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Swallows and Amazons?
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (peter as leader)
...
Percy Jackson
Artemis Fowl (maybe, just check it's a male leader)

Swallows and Amazons (series). I thought of that too. But the "leadership" isn't really clear.
The Lion, The Witch. I thought of that too, and sort of discounted it. Perhaps Prince Caspian in the two books. Or even Puddleglum. But not really much of a leadership example.
Percy Jackson: Again he's technically the leader, but like the other two, any "leadership" is more about structure and quite unimportant really to the story.

Oddly, Artemis Fowl, the criminal Mastermind teenager is a leader of sorts. He has his faithful butler, Mr Butler, and Butler's niece. In a crazy manner he is more a "leader" (planning, giving orders, plotting etc) than the others. I've only read the first book (which is crazy, but I rate it better than Darren Shan, but I only read one of them, the 2nd) and found the evil criminal mastermind teenager less obnoxious and the book better than I expected. But I'll not be buying (or leading) any Artemis Fowl or Darren Shan books to my grandchildren. I read all sorts of stuff for "research" purposes. Neither (nor Percy Jackson) comes close to the Arthur Ransome series starting with Swallows and Amazons (I have all of them).

Dune is definitely very adult!

None of the books except maybe Prince Caspian (the book, and I'm doubtful) have any significant useful Leadership Role models I think. Or possibly Puddleglum in the Silver Chair, but he is a very untypical sort of leader.

Aragorn?
Polgara in Eddings? (a woman)

 

[Hex]

John Flanagan's Brotherband series. It's all about Hal growing into being a leader (lemme clarify: fairly quickly in the first book he gets the leadership role, and learns how to lead, and the rest is mainly fine-tuning). You also get some interesting insights into the leadership role of Erak, the Oberjarl.

I think Artemis Fowl is a leader too (and Harry Potter).

 

[Cat's Cradle]

Okay, a VERY obvious suggestion, but the Harry Potter books seem an ideal match for what you're seeking. And since you said preferably male, rather than exclusively male, for the gender of the protagonist, how about the terrific His Dark Materials books, by Philip Pullman? The protagonist is a young woman, but she's truly wonderful. CC