Teens - YA Material

[rune]

I'm looking for YA authors that are more for slightly older YA readers, so teens say, instead of the very young.

There are so many authors that fall into YA and no real indication as to the age range they are aimed towards.

Any suggestions?

 

[dwndrgn]

What is interesting is that many follow their characters...for example Edo Van Belkom is following up the successful Lone Wolf with Wolf Pack and the characters are older, now teens. Much like J.K. Rowling has done with Harry Potter, watch the kids grow older - keep the same following - pick up some older fans...

As far as your question goes rune, unless a book states "this book is intended for children of the ages of 9-12" I've no idea how to categorize. Having read adult books to begin with and then only progressed to the younger books later in life, I've a strange perspective and no idea what I would have liked...other than what I was reading (Tolkein and London) much less what other kids of that age would enjoy.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Fantasy for teen readers is now so popular in the US that large bookstores like Borders have a whole section devoted to it. Even if one can't afford to buy, it's a good place to discover authors to look for at the library.

Some authors that I've recently discovered: Hilari Bell, Kate Constable, Clare Dunkel, Alison Croggon. Also, for Science Fiction, Philip Reeve.

Less recent books for teen readers that I liked very much: The Spellkey Trilogy by Ann Downer (starts out like generic fantasy and slowly turns into something much more original) and Crown Duel/Court Duel by Sherwood Smith.

As a child, even though I was provided with plenty of books, there were never enough books, so I got in the habit of reading books for all age groups, and never got out of the habit.

 

[Elphineas]

Here are the YA books that I liked enough to buy. A few are for younger audiences, like the Seventh Tower series, but for the most part, they are for older YA's.

Garth Nix:
Sabriel
Lirael
Abhorsen

The Seventh Tower series

The Keys to the Kingdom series

Patricia C. Wrede:
Calling On Dragons
Dealing with Dragons
Searching For Dragons
Talking To Dragons

The Grand Tour : Being a Revelation of Matters of High Confidentiality and Greatest Importance, Including Extracts from the Intimate Diary of a Noblewoman and the Sworn Testimony of a Lady of Quality (with Caroline Stevermer)

Sorcery and Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot : Being the Correspondence of Two Young Ladies of Quality Regarding Various Magical Scandals in London and the Country (with Caroline Stevermer)

Tanith Lee:
Black Unicorn
Gold Unicorn
Red Unicorn

Wolf Tower
Wolf Star
Wolf Queen
Wolf Wing

All of Tamora Pierce’s books

Meredith Pierce:
Dark Angel
Gathering Gargoyles
The Pearl of the Soul of the World
Birth of the Firebringer
Dark Moon
Son of the Summer Stars
Treasure at the Heart of the Tanglewood

Diana Wynne Jones:
Charmed Life
The Lives of Christopher Chant
Witch Week
The Magicians of Caprona
Conrad’s Fate
Castle in the Air
Howl’s MovingCastle
The Dark Lord of Derkholm
Year of the Griffin
Cart and Cwidder
Drowned Ammet

The Spellcoats

The Crown of Dalemark
The Merlin Conspiracy
A Tale of TimeCity

William Nicholson:
The Wind Singer
Slaves of the Mastery
Firesong

Christopher Paolini:
Eragon
Eldest

Victoria Hanley:
The Seer and the Sword
The Healer's Keep
The Light of the Oracle

Robin McKinley:
The Hero and the Crown
The Blue Sword

Spindle’s End

Beauty

Of course the Harry Potter books

Lloyd Alexander:
Book of Three
The Black Cauldron

Taran Wanderer

The Castle of Llyr

The High King

The Arkadians

The Iron Ring

The Marvelous Misadventures of Sebastian

The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen

The first two lives of Lukas-Kasha

Susan Cooper:
The Dark is Rising

Under Sea, Over Stone

The Grey King

Silver on the Tree

Greenwitch

Monica Furlong:

Wise Child

Juniper

Cohlman

Ursula K. LeGuin:
A Wizard of EarthSea

The Tombs of Atuan

The Farthest Shore

Tehanu

Tales from EarthSea

The Other Wind

Patricia McKillip
Riddle Master of Hed

Phillip Pullman
The Golden Compass
The Subtle Knife
The Amber Spyglass

 

[Elphineas]

Oops - I pasted that from a Word file. I didn't realize it would be that long, and I have no idea why some of it is in bold. If the titles are closer together, it means they are a part of a series, farther apart means they are stand-alone novels.

 

[rune]

Thanks to those who've posted so far I can see others are as confused as me. For instance Tanith Lee The Black Unicorn - I read that and would put that in very ya, it's language is quite simplistic even. Diana Wynne Jones, Philip Pullman and Christopher Paolini I think would probably fall into the very YA too, I've read Phillip Pullman and Paolini's books and they are more for very young teens.
It's so hard isnt it to find those authors that are for older teens.

 

[GOLLUM]

Actually I would've classed Pullman as older teens because of some of the themes involved, which rasies for me an important point of interperation. As a number of novels can often be read on different levels by a variety of people, classifying them for a specific age group like very young or older teenager etc..can be fraught with danger IMO. It's such a subjective thing I think and then some adult books also utilise simple sentence structures where the themes or stroyline can be quite complex so in this case you're looking more at the content as a guide.

My 2c....

 

[Culhwch]

Pullman's Northern Lights sequence is definitely for an older audience (gods, I missed half of the allusions), but fare such as Count Karlstein is definitely aimed at the younger end of the market...

 

[Alia]

Impressive list Elphineas!!! Good to see another YA reader on the forum.

I would classify Patricia C. Wrede books for the younger crowd (under 10). I had my daughter read her books as a first chapter book, they're short and simple.

Also, Rune, the last time I was at the book store I found a book by Josephe Delaney, The Last Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch in which on the inside book sleeve it says ages 10 and up. I hope they start doing that with all books, classifying them according to ages and printing them on them. It would be so much more simplier.

 

[Mark Robson]

It's also interesting to note that Waterstones are finally getting to grips with the fact that YA readers are capable of reading a lot more than they are normally credited with. Has anyone else noted that Trudi Canavan's Black Magician series is now being marketed in the YA section as well as the fantasy section?

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

But your question originally, Rune, was books for teens, not specifically older teens. If you had said older teens I would have pointed out that books are rarely (or never) written especially for them, because they are expected to move on to adult books by that time.

 

[rune]

But your question originally, Rune, was books for teens, not specifically older teens. If you had said older teens I would have pointed out that books are rarely (or never) written especially for them, because they are expected to move on to adult books by that time.

Im being influenced here by how my local library sections YA material. They put children's books into childrens and teens. So I've been thinking of teens as older children. I found Lian Hearn's Across the Nightingale Floor and the other 2 books in her series in the Teens section of the library.
Unfortunately I find when buying books all ages for YA readers are clumped together

 

[rune]

It's also interesting to note that Waterstones are finally getting to grips with the fact that YA readers are capable of reading a lot more than they are normally credited with. Has anyone else noted that Trudi Canavan's Black Magician series is now being marketed in the YA section as well as the fantasy section?

Ive heard some members here mentioned they felt this series was aimed at YA's. I would agree with that, though I would say it's for Teens not Children.
It must be really hard for parents to pick books for young children that are suitable. One of my pen pals asked me for children fantasy recommendations, because she didnt know which books in that bracket were actually OK for young children.

There should be an age range guideline I think.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Our library sometimes has multiple copies of a book, shelved in different areas, for some of those borderline books. The bookstores around here do that less often.

But coming up with exact age groupings can be difficult, since children of the same age can have vastly different reading abilities and sophistication. With my children, I wanted them to stay children as long as they could and not end up jaded and world weary at eighteen, so I was careful about the books and movies that I personally put in their way. Some parents take the view, "They'll learn about it eventually anyway," and think it's a good idea to toughen them up early. Or they just don't want to be bothered by the question of age appropriateness at all, and resent any implication that they should.

We had a whole discussion a while back as to whether children are mentally and emotionally prepared for all adult books even when they have the reading ability to tackle them. We couldn't come to an agreement here, and I doubt that book-sellers, publishers, or librarians could come up with a hard and fast standard that most people would agree with either.

 

[Mark Robson]

We had a whole discussion a while back as to whether children are mentally and emotionally prepared for all adult books even when they have the reading ability to tackle them. We couldn't come to an agreement here, and I doubt that book-sellers, publishers, or librarians could come up with a hard and fast standard that most people would agree with either.

I think the whole question of whether a book is suitable for a nine year old, or a fifteen year old, will depend very much on the individual. You are so right about parents ducking responsibility for what their children read and watch on TV, but I can also sympathise with Rune's statement about guidelines. At least they have a vetting procedure for video/dvds, flawed as it may be. An effort has been made to censure material based on age, but it is up to the parents to agree, or not, with whether the guidance of those who have issued the certificate for that program have got it right for their children.

Book shops do grade books into age ranges, but there are times when I wonder who, if anyone, really looks at the contents to determine the suitability. Again, I suppose it's a guide, but maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea if books sold in the childrens' section had a lower age limit printed on the cover somewhere in the same way as videos and dvds.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

No, when I said some people don't want to take responsibility for what their children read, I wasn't talking about people who ask for guidelines; I was talking about people who would ignore those guidelines if they were there. Like the people who take their four or five year old to see an ultra-violent PG-13 movie.

 

[Alia]

Book shops do grade books into age ranges, but there are times when I wonder who, if anyone, really looks at the contents to determine the suitability. Again, I suppose it's a guide, but maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea if books sold in the childrens' section had a lower age limit printed on the cover somewhere in the same way as videos and dvds.

I like this idea, which is one of the reasons why I bought the book by Josephe Delaney, The Last Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch was because it had ages 10 and up written on the cover (that wasn't the only reason why I bought the book). Looking over the book, it's written in large print and small pages (a clue that it's for 10-12 age group, at first glance) but I won't say it was 15 or older, although it could contain info that only a 15 or 17 year old would comprehend.

One of the issues I had researching for the guidelines for this forum was the lack of guidelines Publishers used when classifying a book either as a Adult, YA or childrens story. They went off of how they felt when they read the story. It seems to me that it was based on the publishers own views and perspectives of where a story should be placed rather than age appropriateness. I feel that guidelines or parmeters, much like the flawed rating system for movies or music should be incorporated in books as well.

I can see others are as confused as me.

Rune... often times you have asked on this forum the age appropriateness of a certain book and often times I can't find that info. When I do see that information I try to post it (with you in mind). The only issue I have is the information comes far and few in between. It would be very nice to have it listed, on each and every book. When you're asking the forum for help the issue can and does get confusing for us all. Because public opinion will differ and isn't based on a clear cut guideline or parmeters. Alas, Kelpie and I might view a book as a teen book seeing all the adult content in while Gollum and Mark see it the same book as a children's book with no adult content in it.

Ah... I think it would be less confusing for us all if, as Mark had mentioned before, there was a rating system on all books. I wonder why publishers haven't done that yet? They do for music and movies. And books are a much older form of entertainment.

Anyhoo... method you could use is look at the age of the main character. Usually that's a sure sign of what age group the book is intended for.

 

[Alia]

No, when I said some people don't want to take responsibility for what their children read, I wasn't talking about people who ask for guidelines; I was talking about people who would ignore those guidelines if they were there. Like the people who take their four or five year old to see an ultra-violent PG-13 movie.

I'm such a parent with my oldest... *hangs head in shame* What I fail to realize was at 3 and 4 years old they are intelligent people who are being molded into wonderful adults. I am very careful now.

 

[rune]

Thanks for the suggestion Alia, of course I should of realised. The age of the characters in the story would be a good indication about the material. I'm such a plank!
I seem to have opened a can of worms here, which wasnt my intension. Just trying to find a way to judge the age YA adult books are aimed at so that I can try books that would be more to my taste.

Perhaps it's something that authors can push forward with their publishers.