A reading project

[kenjari]

Growing up, my reading skills developed extremely quickly and I generally ended up able to read at a very advanced level for my age. As a result, I largely skipped over YA literature. I missed a lot of great stuff, particularly in the fantasy genre. So I'm now going to work my way through the novels I didn't read, but probably should have. So far my list includes:
The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley
The Dark Is Rising series by Susan Cooper
The Earthsea books by Ursula K. LeGuin

Any other recommendations?
(For the purposes of this project, I'm only looking for books I could have read when I was between 10 and 15, so I'm not looking for anything published after 1989. Not that I'm not interested in recent great YA literature, I just have a specific goal in mind here.)

Comments

[apintrix.livejournal.com]

Katherine Paterson was definitely one of my favorite YA authors as a child. Terabithia's the famous one, but "Jacob Have I Loved" is probably better. (not fantasy).

I used to like Willo Davis Roberts' books, but I'm not sure how they aged. (sci fi and mystery)

My favorite YA sci fi was definitely Sylvia Louise Engdahl's "Enchantress from the Stars", which I read over and over and over and over, along with McCaffery's Harper Hall books. (I still think "Dragonsong" is, all things considered, not a bad book, even if I find her adult novels a bit trashy.)

Hm, what else, what else.

Oh, of course! John Bellairs! "The Face in the Frost" in particular, but a lot of his stuff is excellently creepy and surprisingly good. Some fantasy, some x-files style mystery... and boy did he churn it out. Shame he died young. "does the sonorous bus go beep-beep?" This is verging into children's, though, I think.

And along the "creepy" lines, there's "I Am The Cheese" by Robert Cormier, and William Sleator's "House of Stairs", both of which messed with my brain. Sleator has written a number of well-received YA books since, like "Interstellar P.I.G.", but I haven't read any of them.

Rae swears by Garth Nix, who's new to the YA scene, and everybody and their mother loves Octavian Nothing, another new one (new book, not the author's name).

I'd read your list first, though, all things considered. :)

[apintrix.livejournal.com]

oh d'oh! Speaking of new and excellent YA fantasy: Megan Whelan Turner's series (The Thief, The Queen of Attolia, The King of Attolia) is definitely a new classic.

[apintrix.livejournal.com]

gah... reply +3 (I wish lj let you edit replies): because I realize it isn't clear from above, only the last three things (Nix, Octavian Nothing, and the Attolia books) are new, the rest were published in the 70's and 80's. But I figured I'd include them while I was at it.

[kenjari.livejournal.com]

Thanks for all the recommendations! I'll add all the older ones to my list, and I'll keep the newer stuff in mind for when I decide to start on the more recent YA novels. For the record, I don't mind stuff on the edge of children's and YA - I had to go to the children's section of the BPL to get the Cooper.

[apintrix.livejournal.com]

cool beans-- if you don't mind delving more into the 8-10 range, it's worth pointing out that the 1st Cooper book is something of a tribute to E. Nesbit, the noted children's fantasist (5 Children and It, The Treasure Seekers, etc.), whose influence on the field cannot be overstated, and who is also completely charming to read. I recommend in particular "The Enchanted Castle".

Also, Madeleine L'Engle's "Wrinkle" books become more and more YA as they go, and she has additionally written a fair amount of solidly YA material in that universe. The Sandy & Dennys book "Many Waters" was another thing I read over and over again (it's a Biblical time travel story with evil nephilim!), and her more realistic Austin family novels were books I loved when I was about 11 or so, particularly "The Young Unicorns" which has an excellent creepy scene in a cathedral crypt, and "A Ring of Endless Light". Well, there are probably 10-20 books I could cite here, but I'll spare you!

[kenjari.livejournal.com]

I read the "Wrinkle" books - one of the few things I didn't miss. I think they count as my first foray into the sci-fi and fantasy genres. I really enjoyed them. I'll have to look at her other stuff, too.

[holmes-iv.livejournal.com]

I haven't revisited them recently, but I think it's still safe to say that I like Dragonsong a lot, Dragonsinger some, and Dragondrums very little. The adult stuff is absolutely trashy, but still interesting up to a point. Fortunately, I think I successfully jumped ship at just about the right moment (book 10 of the continuity, the name of which escapes me at the moment).

For new material, if Sci Fi is admissible, I would suggest a dip into the Robert Heinlein young-adult series (The Star Beast, Space Cadet and Red Planet stand out in my mind, but there were a good few others that were thoroughly not bad, and notably fail to be part of the gigantic slide into Œedipal Ickiness that is the bulk of the Future History series. Oh, and The Rolling Stones of course!)

[woodwindy.livejournal.com]

My favorite YA sci fi was definitely Sylvia Louise Engdahl's "Enchantress from the Stars", which I read over and over and over and over

OMG me too! Hee. There was also one I adored about a boy who grew wings, but I'm at a complete loss for the title.

This might be a dumb question, but... kenjari, have you read all of Lloyd Alexander's stuff? There were books besides the Taran series that I loved, like The First Two Lives of Lukas-Kasha. I'm also endorsing the Diana Wynne Jones recommendation below.

Depending on how you look at them, Sheri S. Tepper's True Game books could be sorta-YA -- there are "mature" issues being addressed, but by youthful protagonists on journeys of self-discovery. Plus they're just great fantasy books!

[kenjari.livejournal.com]

Embarrassingly enough, I have not read any of Lloyd Alexander's work. I'll have to add him to my list.

[tigerdreams.livejournal.com]

I can definitely vouch for The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown.

The other series I'd be most inclined to recommend was published just after your time window (the first one came out in 1990, according to Wikipedia), but I'll suggest it anyway, because they were awesome. The Enchanted Forest Chronicles, by Patricia C. Wrede. There are four books: Dealing with Dragons, Searching for Dragons, Calling on Dragons, and Talking to Dragons.

[davidsmom1.livejournal.com]

I highly recommend Barbara Hambly's Darwath trilogy which I own and am very happy to lend to you. The kidlet also owns all the Heinlein YA stuff and I am sure he would loove to loan his books to auntie kenjari.

[kenjari.livejournal.com]

I think I already read the Darwath trilogy - those are the ones with the things like manta rays, right? In fact, I think I read your copies. They were quite good.

[iralith.livejournal.com]

Did you read any of the Diana Wynne Jones stuff, back in the day? If not, I guess my short list would be Archer's Goon, The Homeward Bounders, and Fire and Hemlock. (The first two of those are near the low end of your age range; Fire and Hemlock is near or a bit past the high end.)

[kenjari.livejournal.com]

Nope, didn't read any of her books (yeah, I've got some shocking gaps in my reading history). I'll add her to the list. Thanks!
Didn't she also write Howl's Moving Castle?