Results of my very very long "Top 5 Books for Teens" thread

[Pretzel_Warrior]

Hi everyone,

I am going to give everyone more time to weigh in on the question over at this thread.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2137933]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022137933

But just to let you know, this has been a terrific project. I'll be sharing the full results of what books were listed and I'll provide the top 25 books in order of how many people mentioned them and where they put them in their list.

If you don't like the order of these book titles, feel free to weigh in on my other thread and I'll take your information into account for the final.

As of right now, the Top 20 look like this:

1. To Kill A Mockingbird
2. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
3. The Grapes of Wrath
4. The Lord of the Rings
5. Slaughterhouse Five
6. Lord of the Flies
7. The Catcher in the Rye
8. A People's History of the United States
9. 1984
10. Siddharta
11. Animal Farm
12. Of Mice and Men
13. Stranger in a Strange Land
14. The Old Man and the Sea
15. The Handmaid's Tale
16. Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
17. Fahrenheit 451
18. Les Miserables
19. Great Expectations
20. All Quiet on the Western Front





Also, thank you (alphabetically) to everyone who contributed at least one book title to the discussion. My apologies if I missed anyone.

11 Bravo
2naSalit
AnnieBW
applegrove
arcane1
Atticus
azlatina
backscatter712
BainsBane
Barack America
Blue In AK
Botany
Buzz Clik
CanonRay
catpuke9000
Coyotl
d r
datasuspect
dickthegrouch
Earth First
Egalitarian Thug
etherealtruth
farminator3000
FedUpWithIt All
FSogol
Fumesucker
galileoreloaded
GliderGuider
GoCubsGo
graham4anything
gulliver
Hekate
JEB
Joe Bacon
Kalidurga
KittyWampus
Laura PourMeADrink
libinnyandia
loli phabay
LP2K12
Lwolf
madaboutharry
mainstreetonce
malaise
Manifestor of Light
Mass
mfcorey1
mia
morningfog
mrs p
MrYikes
narnian60
NashvilleLefty
NMDemDist2
notundecided
NRaleighLiberal
Ohio Joe
OmahaBlueDog
OneTenthofOnePercent
pangaia
PasadenaTrudy
patrice
peacebird
pinto
Pisces
RagAss
reACTIONary
Recursion
RedCappedBandit
RedRocco
Rider3
riverbendviewgal
RoccoR5955
RoverSuswade
salinen
samsingh
Sarah Ibarruri
sheshe2
Stargleamer
stlsaxman
stopwastingmymoney
stultuporcos
surrealAmerican
Tikki
truckin
truebluegreen
Warren DeMontague
Whisp
Whovian
WiffenPoof
wilsonbooks
WinkyDink
Zorra

[CurtEastPoint]

1. Those are great books for anyone, including teens. Thanks!

[NoOneMan]

2. Great list of books

Anyone tackling those will likely become an intelligent, rational liberal ready to take on all the challenges of the 20th century.

[HubertHeaver]

6. What would your suggestions be for the twenty-first century?

[NoOneMan]

8. I'm not entirely sure yet

I do think that as our institutions crumble and climate change takes hold, a complete paradigm shift may render such reflections about our civilization wholly irrelevant. When looking toward the past, authors like Franz Kafka, Daniel Quinn and Aldous Huxley are great resources for allowing us to identify this artificial, subjugating reality we have created, but the novels about moving forward past it may yet to be written.

The issues of our time will manifest in new forms of art. Those issues may not be a continuation of capitalism vs socialism or individualism vs fascism, but of survival vs extinction and cultivation vs coexistence.

[Carni]

18. I have some...

Diary of Anne Frank

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Go ask Alice (dated but still powerful)

On a clear day you can see General Motors by John Delorean

Anything by Stephen King...

Peter Straubs Shadowland

Ghost Story by Peter Straub

I read all of these, plus the classics that you originally suggested when I was a *younger* person

These all served me well, as unorthodox as this collection may seem!

[JustAnotherGen]

51. I'll add

The Color Purple
Anything by Zora Neale Hurston
Black Like Me
S.E. Hinton's books
Brett Easton Ellis' work
E. L. Doctorow's work

Loved the book Less Than Zero - still do!

[Carni]

60. Yes! Black Like me--Excellent read!

I forgot all about it!

It's been so long since I have actually read anything quality...typically I read news, or technical.

Not very well rounded but hey...I am old and if I am not reading for work, I make it through about ten minutes and then fall asleep! lol

[WinkyDink]

62. Yes, it's tragic how humanity has changed in the last dozen years.

[alcibiades_mystery]

11. ROFL

[jtuck004]

34. “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” Faulkner.

Let's see, gonna get all prepared for the future, while not having a job because banking rules that protected us written in 1935 were repealed in 1999 and 2000, allowing corporate greed to run rampant and destroy the lives of tens of millions of people.

Maybe he does need to read those books, pick up whatever the so-called rational liberals of today seem to have missed...

[NoOneMan]

37. There always must be an idealogical excuse as to why the system of the day is failing

And there is always some idealogical roadmap to a utopia that can never come. Now the excuses are about the "bankers" and the "greed" that spoiled it for everyone, though it has always been spoiled to some degree for the masses during the last few thousand years. Nevermind that.

These stories we look at are part of how we organize and perceive reality--they are all part of our overall cultural story. This story may not reflect reality and it may not be relevant to how we must perceive the future to survive. This current story may be on the brink of destruction by means now beyond man's grasp.

Maybe the real reason things fall apart is simply due to the laws of physics, rather than the laws of men. Maybe mankind has problems with fuelling exponential growth and increasing complexity (which requires and exponential amount of finite resources), and dealing with its consequences like ecosystem destruction. Maybe this is really the bottom line, and things such as feudalism, mercantilism, capitalism, fascism, socialism, etc have constantly obscured these very basic truths by suggesting we just try it again in a different way.

We are ten thousands years into a rabbit hole of evolving stories that explain our failures and how we can finally fix an increasingly complicated mess that spun out of control before most of us can even conceive; coming to grips with this idea may be beyond the capability of people still using a cultural lens to organize reality.

[jtuck004]

38. Bah. Not an excuse. Bankers, pimps, and their politicians are hurting people, and their behavior is

their own doing, criminal, not just fate. They are thieves, liars and robbers, and that is reality. And the foreclosed families and hungry kids are what's left of their fraud.

Damn right it's ideological, nearly everyone is. Any dirty liar that says it's not is just trying to fool ya'.

And just because we don't do whatever well doesn't mean we can't understand it. Maybe we are just lazy, or like being kept as serfs, or...

Ymmv, however..

[NoOneMan]

41. See, your story has villains and heroes

I just see a self-sustaining system of exponential growth via surplus accumulation and exploitation; I see your "villains" as an integral part of the system who are lauded when they fuel the growth and ostracized only when they hinder it. But even when these agents for growth do "bad", they serve the system by fueling a cultural narrative that obfuscates the destructive nature of the system itself. In any case, if we could eliminate them and all hold hands, singing while we pillage this finite earth and share its spoils, I simply do not see how that benefits a species ultimately stuck on that spoiled earth.

However you see it is entirely valid for the reality you live in, but may I humbly suggest that reality is about to come to a halting crash because of the system our stories have enabled and fueled. To those who survive, we may likely need a new story.

[jtuck004]

42. I hope you find someone to hold hands with . The rest of us have work to do. n/t

[LeftofObama]

3. I must have missed the original thread,

but I'm glad my favorites made the list. #3, #9, #11, and #12 I probably read those 4 at least once a year.

K & R!

[Egalitarian Thug]

4. Thank you for the follow up. I think they are all good choices.

Let us know how the reader(s) react as they plow through this list.
& R

[hootinholler]

5. I really think the art in this is in suggesting the right book at the right time

Really the book to proffer depends on the teen, no? I mean we are speaking 13-19, there's a lot of development in there with everyone in their own time.

I'm also surprised there's little Sci-Fi, I would add "Dune," "Foundation" (The entire trilogy). Probably still early for "The Art of War". Some Carlos Castaneda might be in order.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

7. Yup also, gender might figure in. I would also add

Catch 22 and one flew over..
Edited to add Robinson Cruso

[Hekate]

14. I cut my teeth on sci fi; the F&SF in our household is why I read LOTR in 1965 at 17

For sheer dystopianism, read Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner

For political science, read Ursula Le Guin's Planet of Exile and The Dispossessed

[Lordquinton]

23. Snowcrash

That's one of the few books I read when I was older and made my say out loud "Why didn't I read this when I was a teen" I rebought a copy recently and it's 'on the pile'

[Fumesucker]

33. More modern SF

Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep, A Deepness in the Sky and Children of the Sky make an excellent trilogy.

Neal Stevenson's Anathem and The Diamond Age, someone already mentioned Snow Crash.

Peter Watts' Blindsight.

Lois McMaster Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan books are very popular, Miles is a brilliant character.

Greg Bear's Darwin's Radio and Darwin's Children

[alcibiades_mystery]

9. 18 out of 20 white dudes

20 out of 20 white authors.

17 out of 20 books written before 1970.

19 out of 20 written 1980 or before (not surprisingly, one of the two women included accounts for the only post-1980 texts).

What have our teens of today learned? 1) White folks write the best books. 2) Ain't really been shit worth reading in 40 years!

Great job!

[NoOneMan]

10. We've been too busy creating a vast technological infrastructure...

that allows any asshole to post 140 characters of their worthless opinion to all corners of the earth

[Hekate]

16. Did you contribute? Do you have some contributions now?

Perhaps this list reflects our relative ages.

So, toss Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown at the kids, and Native Son by Richard Wright.

Are those too outdated for you, or do they show that even in the Jurassic Age there were authors of color and authors who saw reality?

Ursula Le Guin is still writing, so I guess that makes her still relevant. She's cast into the F&SF category, but really she crosses all genres.

[No Compromise]

19. I make my kids read these 'classics' (insert eye roll)they hate them,call them incredibly depressing

They prefer a plethora of other books, written by authors in the last 40 years, who are still writing even.

RA Salvatore, John Flanagan, Rick Riordan, Cressida Cowell, Eva Ibbotoson, Veronica Roth, Patricia Wrede,
Tamora Pierce, Anthony Horowitz, Timothy Zahn, Terry Goodkind, Brandon Sanderson, Karen Traviss, Robert Jordon

They have a very firm grasp of history, they have read People's History of the World and a myriad of other history books, so much so they teach me something new every day.

They don't need those books to learn about history, more like make them hate reading
(except for Lord of the Rings)

We often talk about what today's classics are. What would the youth say?

Harry Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games..is what is popular today, tomorrow's classic? What determines a classic?

[Carni]

20. I actually meant to include Malcomb X in my updated book suggestion list

Read that too as a kid. I am old so my memory falters lol

[Pretzel_Warrior]

27. I think it more speaks to what people have been exposed to. and the broad sweep of history

just the laws of probablity and the far more reading/writing intensive eras in England, America, and elsewhere would have me expecting that only a small slice of what we call "great literature" occurs in our modern recent times by more diverse authors.

Perhaps you should include some you have read and would recommend to teens or others. I am not done with my list.

some great ones are on the "master list" that are written by people of color and women. Yes, we can judge some very recent works as excellent literature that can and should be read. Feel free.

[malaise]

12. Wow

That was a lovely thread

Bookmaking this

[JaneyVee]

13. What? No 'Rules For Radicals' or Upton Sinclair?

[Pretzel_Warrior]

26. will add it

[UBCchuck]

15. I think

"Bury my heart at Wounded Knee" should be required reading in all United States high schools. Ishmael by Daniel Quinn is one of my favorites also maybe the most significant book I have read. All very good books on your list.

[rurallib]

17. Question - when does someone become a teen?

We mentor kids up to age 13/14. Some of the books seem a bit mature for that group.
Probably depends on the kid.

Most of the kids we work with are Latino so let me suggest one of their favorite "La Linea" Ann Jaramillo

[Pretzel_Warrior]

22. I believe I'm looking for the whole gamut. I read Huck Finn as a 14 year old but read Animal Farm

as a 17 year old. I had my daughter read 1984 when she was 15. She loved it. She's read Sylvia Plath and many many more because I taught her to read from a very young age and helped her love books.

She read the entire Harry Potter series and LOVED it.

I agree it depends on the individual. Some of these I wouldn't have chosen for my teen, but I'll definitely check out myself.

[AverageJoe90]

21. I had tried to contribute to the other thread as well.

I had a few books, like "Tom Sawyer" on the list, but my computer turned off on me just as I was about to post.....

Still, though, hope you don't mind the suggestion of considering "Tom Sawyer". It was one of Mark Twain's BEST.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

25. you are correct. not one person has mentioned it before you.

it will go onto the list

[coalition_unwilling]

24. I just weighed in on the original thread with 'Catch 22' for juniors and seniors, and

'The Chocolate Wars' (by Robert Cormier) for first-years and sophomores.

[mainstreetonce]

30. As Newtown is on your mind

Try

The Hour I First Believed

Wally Lamb

Only book I ever read that actually brought tears

[2theleft]

35. ALL of Wally Lamb's books are awesome

I Know This Much is True - awesome book... She's Come Undone, also great. I wish he ould write books faster!

[riderinthestorm]

28. Yikes, I just asked my 16 yr old deep reader and thinker about this list and she's unimpressed

She's read most of them but honestly isn't impressed with "our" selection. When pressed, she responded that her top choices on that list would be A Handmaid's Tale and Zinn's A People's History. LOTR's language is "too archaic" while Huck Finn's cultural language is "offensive" and of no value. She herself mentioned that while some of the plots and ideas may be interesting in the books listed above, she found the language and style to be too tedious in most of these and thought that "newer" books had a lot of the same great creativity and interesting ideas but with more "accessible" language.

So here's a 16 yr old girl's list...please note that she's raided a fair few of my books and co-opted them for her own. I occasionally still buy tangible books but most of my library is now digital so she doesn't "see" as many books anymore that may grab her attention like they would on a bookshelf. We own most of the books on your list Pretzel Warrior so she's had a chance to read them both at home and at school. She's a voracious reader and has never been censored. She's read everything and anything including the Bible! all the way to the Kama Sutra. She's currently reading Great Expectations ("blech&quot for English class, just finished 1984 (again for class - her review was that it was "okay" but Handmaid's Tale was "better&quot

A Child is Born by Lennart Nilsson
Harry Potter for clever wit and the perfect depiction of a completely different world
The Hunger Games for a nuanced view of a post-Armegedden world
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (she loves Lat Am lit)
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
Monster by Walter Dean Myers
My Sister's Keeper for emotional wallop and ethical choices, and the power of a kid, by Jodi Picoult
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (she actually really like Walls and has read both her books)
anything by Neil Gaiman but especially the Graveyard Book
Freakonomics by Steven Levitt
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
The God Delusion by Dawkins.
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (loves the movie too)
The Idiot's guide to Philosophy
Mythology by Edith Hamilton
The Chalice and the Blade by Riane Eisler

I'll add these to your original thread Pretzel Warrior but these are her recs, I literally typed this out as she pulled books from her bookshelf. She also added that its hard to "just" choose 25! (heh). She's the original autodidact so take it for what its worth.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

32. I'm adding

[No Compromise]

46. Thanks for the list!

[Jennicut]

48. I love Lord of The Rings but Tolkien

can be hard to read for a younger reader. Plus all those names that sound the same. I read Lord of the Rings the first time in my 20's.

[Hekate]

50. Excellent! Thanks for including what a real kid is reading!

Ahem, I mean a Reader from a Reading family. There's nothing like it.

I'll have to go look some of those up myself.

[Odin2005]

63. That's an excellent reading list.

You got a smart young woman, there!

[JDPriestly]

29. Great list!

[sheshe2]

31. Thanks Pretzel_Warrior

It was fun to be a part of it! Two of my favs made the list too!!! Yeah.

Great follow up...you put a lot of work into it.

Thanks again,
sheshe

[jtuck004]

36. Bill Haywood's Book: The Autobiography of William D. Haywood

Teach them why the laws we have now exist, and what solidarity can do in the face of overwhelming force and power...

The Student as Nigger by Jerry Falwell
By Any Means Necessary (Malcolm X Speeches and Writings
-Both of these are lessons in developing class consciousness in others when their thinking is poisoned directed by TPTB, when people are using their oppressors words because they have never been exposed to another point of view, or if they have it's so similar as to be useless for analysis. These authors give them a new language to express what they have been feeling, and thus perhaps something to do about it.

Hard Times by Studs Terkel - How people ;lived in the past - might come in handy in any of today's teen's futures.

The Accounting Game: Basic Accounting Fresh from the Lemonade Stand - Part of the reason Wall Street and the people who do their bidding hold such power over everyone is because many people really don't have an understanding of basic accounting. This is a great intro, and given that he or she may well be already in their maw, or will be soon, perhaps they can learn how to defend themselves before the chewing begins.

Would hurt to take a class and build a small house, learn some things about basic electricity and welding, Those may sound like skills, but they start teaching you things about logic, planning, scale, accomplishment, in some ways similar to the Zen/Motorcycle book in purpose.

I didn't see how old the teen is, but those could/should all be read before leaving high school, I would think.

[Liberal_in_LA]

39. I've read 14 of the 20!

[knitter4democracy]

40. I teach or have taught 6 of them. I'd change a few.

Hunger Games is the only book in my teaching career I've had to literally break up a fight over. Two non-readers were about to come to blows over our only copy of the second book in the series. That one gets kids reading.

I'd add in Their Eyes Were Watching God and/or The Bluest Eye. Many kids really connect with those books.

Shakespeare needs to be on there, but can we please make it one or more of the comedies? I get to start the Othello unit here in a couple of weeks, but I would rather be teaching a comedy instead.

Lastly, don't discount some of the YA novels like Harry Potter or some of the other series out now. Anything to get kids reading.

[No Compromise]

44. not comedy, but my kids like Hamlet

The movie with Mel Gibson and Glen Close is really good too.

That is really funny about Hunger Games...anything that gets kids reading like that should be at the top of this list...

[knitter4democracy]

58. I hate that version. David Tennant one is much better.

Last year, when I taught Hamlet, I showed the BBC/David Tennant/Patrick Stewart version, and I almost had a riot when I turned it off at the end of Act III so we could read more. The kids were up in arms that I turned it off, and they all started yelling at me to turn it back on. Hamlet gets them every time.

Still, they do so enjoy Much Ado when I get a chance to teach it. Same with Twelfth Night.

[bedazzled]

65. isn't that a magnificent version?

he's my favorite hamlet ever!

[jtuck004]

43. BTW, one reason I suggested "Bill Haywood's Book" is that the teen will

have to get it from a university library. What they will learn is that there a whole raft of knowledge sitting out there for them that they have to ask no one for. Well, except for a library card if they want to take one home.

Lots of people don't know about that free resource near them, and you can get things from nearly any library in the country that way.

The other reason is that the teen may then be confronted with lots of books about labor before union leaders decided they could do better by siding with business owners rather than workers, and sold out for the $. Haywood's writing is an illuminating, horrific tale of a struggle for democracy in the United States.

[No Compromise]

45. list from my teenagers...

Alex Rider, by Anthony Horowitz
Rangers Apprentice, by John Flanagan
A Series of Unfortunate Events, by Lemony Snicket
Percy Jackson & The Olympians, by Rick Riordan(also Kane Chronicles by Rick Riordan)
Sisters Grimm, by Michael Buckley
Dragonback series, by Timothy Zahn
The Legend of Drizzt, by R.A. Salvatore
The Fall of Reach, by Eric Nyland
The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
The Belgariad(and others), by David Eddings
Divergent, by Veronica Roth
The Reluctant Heiress(and others), by Eva Ibbotson
Delirium, by Lauren Oliver
The Wheel of Time, by Robert Jordon/Brandon Sanderson
Song of the Lioness(and others), by Tamora Pierce
Sword of Truth, by Terry Goodkind
The Way of Shadows(and others), by Brent Weeks
Legend, by Marie Lu
City of Bones(and others), by Cassandra Clare
Harry Potter, by J.K. Rowling
The Hobbit(and others), by J.R.R. Tolkein
Vanished, by Meg Cabot
A Break with Charity(and others), by Ann Rinaldi
Dealing with Dragons(and others), by Patricia Wrede
Dragon Slippers(and others), by Jessica Day George
The High King(and others), by Lloyd Alexander

[riderinthestorm]

59. Wow!! Your teens love SF and Fantasy! Do they like the Golden Compass series by Phillip Pullman?

My daughter was really torn about including that one but I tried to encourage her to think about a diverse array of books for inclusion.

My daughter also went on a Garth Nix kick for a long while - his Abhorsen books are creepily delicious. Carlos Casteneda's books also got a good long pause for the list.



My daughter would definitely stop and raid your teens library!

[FSogol]

47. Great list, but all but one are white males*. Here's a challenge:

Put together a list of the top 20 without using white males.

Here's mine in no particular order:


"Apex Hides the Hurt" or "Sag Harbor" by Colson Whitehead
"100 Years of Solitude" by Gabriel García Márquez
"The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven" or "What You Pawn I Will Redeem" by Sherman Alexie
"The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini
"Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe
"Persepolis" by Marjane Satrapi
"Pym" – Matt Johnson (Just kidding - doubtful most people would get the satire)


* PS, just a snark. I love each and everyone of the books on that list and wouldn't remove a single one.
PPS. Shame on everyone for not reading/teaching Joesph Conrad more.

[Erose999]

56. Pretty much anything by Maxine Hong Kingston, Alice Walker, James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison

Jean Toomer, W.E.B. DuBois, etc etc.

Too much of the curriculum focuses on old dead white people.

[FSogol]

57. Not in our school district. They have a heavy emphasis on diversity.

Fairfax County, VA

[Pretzel_Warrior]

49. Definitely keeping track of all the new suggestions

Just may take some time to get back to everyone on the final full list and comments.

[southernyankeebelle]

52. I would like to add The Little women and Sense and Sensabilty

[HangOnKids]

53. My 11 Year Old Is A Prolifilc Reader Her Pick After Winter Break: A Prayer for Owen Meany

She read it twice and we talked about it for hours. So many things in there for a young tween to think about. Vietnam, faith, sexuality, forgiveness, sacrifice, integrity, loss, Owen is the shit!

[sakabatou]

54. I have read or listened to all except...

Siddharta
The Old Man and the Sea
The Handmaid's Tale

[loli phabay]

64. the old man and the sea is a must. hemmingway writes so well that you feel you are there

Its not even a long book but definetly worth it.

[johnnypneumatic]

55. how about 2 lists: fiction and nonfiction

I'd like to see some nonfiction groundbreaking books explaining history or the nature of reality or how the world works.
"The Origin of Species" should be on any list of great books, but may be too dry and dated for a teen to read.

but I'd recommend "The Selfish Gene" (30th aniversary edition) by Richard Dawkins, for a mind blowing paradigm shifting very readable book about evolution and natural selection.

[WinkyDink]

61. THIS? Was a class-act follow-up!