Good books for teens

By MELISSA DAHL
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Shh! If parents and teachers figure this out, it'll all be over. But more and more teens are reading _ for fun, that is.

You can blame a certain bespectacled British wizard for the phenomenon _ since 1999, young-adult book sales have increased 23 percent. With so many books to choose from, it's hard to know which one you'll enjoy.

That's why author Anita Silvey, a professor of children's literature at Simmons College in Boston, wrote "500 Great Books for Teens" (Houghton Mifflin, $17.16, 416 pages). She says she chose the books that "10 years later make their eyes light up and make them think of the parent or the teacher that gave that to them."

Here's a listing of 20 of those books:

_ "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" by Mark Haddon. Vintage, $10.36, 240 pages

Originally written for adults, teens have snapped up this mystery novel, too. A 15-year-old autistic boy is falsely accused of killing his neighbor's dog, and he sets out to solve the crime.

_ "Eragon" by Christopher Paolini. Knopf Books for Young Readers, $12.89, 544 pages

Dragons! Elves! Epic battles! A noble quest! It's not "Lord of the Rings," but fans of that tome and the fantasy genre made "Eragon" a hit in its own right. Paolini, only 15 when he wrote the first installment of the trilogy, has seen his book become a New York Times best-seller, a movie (opening in December) and an upcoming video game. Take that, Frodo!

_ "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel. Harvest Books, $10.78, 336 pages

So a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan and a tiger are sitting in a boat _ and 16-year-old Pi Patel wishes there were a punch line. As he and his family sail from India to Canada with animals from their zoo, the ship sinks, leaving Pi in a lifeboat with the four animals. Soon, the creatures attack and kill each other, leaving just Pi and Richard Parker (the 450-pound Bengal tiger, of course).

_ "ttyl" by Lauren Myracle. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., $6.95, 234 pages

OMG! Maybe the best way to tell the story of three 15-year-old girls is the way they would tell it _ through dozens of instant message conversations. If you're not well-versed in Internet speak, your eyes may start to blur from all the LOL. But young 'uns will love eavesdropping on the gossip sessions.

_ "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky. MTV, $10.92, 224 pages

All you'd expect from a book published by MTV, including general teen angst. Told in short, choppy sentences, Charlie writes his little high school freshman heart out in a series of letters to an unnamed recipient.

_ "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris. Back Bay Books, $9.72, 288 pages

He's content with calling himself David Thedarith and avoiding the dreaded letter "s" by saying things such as, "On the final day of the year we take down the pine tree in our living room and eat marine life." Sedaris chronicles his lifelong battle with language _ from childhood speech therapy to living in France without speaking French.

_ "The Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold. Little, Brown and Co., $14.93, 288 pages

What a difference a past-tense verb can make. The novel's first sentence is, "My name was Susie Salmon," and 14-year-old Susie, who was brutally raped and murdered, narrates from heaven. She watches her family and friends repair their lives after her death.

_ "Running With Scissors" by Augusten Burroughs. Picador USA, $8.40, 320 pages

It's a horrifying story, really. But the matter-of-fact tone Augusten Burroughs uses to describe his childhood makes it funny, not depressing or pathetic. At 13, his mother sends him to live with her psychiatrist's family, each on the verge of nervous breakdowns, in their roach-infested house.

_ "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini. Riverhead Trade, $8.40, 400 pages

An adult Amir relocates from Afghanistan to California and is haunted by an incident in his teens, when he betrayed his best friend, Hassan. He learns Hassan and his wife have been killed by the Taliban, and Amir makes it his mission to rescue their son.

_ "The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things" by Carolyn Mackler. Candlewick, $10.87, 256 pages

They warn against judging a book by its cover _ but can you judge it by its title? As the only big, blond underachiever in a family of skinny, dark-haired superstars, Virginia feels hopelessly out of place. So she lives by her own rules ("The Fat Girl Code of Conduct"), and eventually learns to love and accept her big, fat self. Aw.

_ "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath. Harper Perennial Modern Classics, $11.16, 288 pages

She's beautiful, she's talented and she's won an internship at a women's magazine in New York City. Still, Esther Greenwood copes with depression and thoughts of suicide. A slightly veiled account of Plath's first suicide attempt at age 20, "The Bell Jar" explores a young woman's struggles with depression and mental illness.

_ "A Long Way Down" by Nick Hornby. Riverhead Hardcover, $16.47, 352 pages

It's a look at life after not killing yourself. The novel's set up like "The Breakfast Club," with an American rock star, a depressed teenage girl, a single mother of a disabled son and a TV personality who meet on New Year's Eve at Topper's House, where Londoners go to jump to their deaths. They decide to live, and afterward they meet regularly with each other.

_ "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger. Little, Brown and Co., $6.99, 224 pages

Holden Caulfield _ the original emo kid. Kicked out of yet another prep school, 16-year-old Holden wanders around New York City, riffing about phonies, his family and the fate of the Central Park ducks in the winter. Slight warning: Holden's angst-y attitude is infectious. At the novel's end, you'll share his suspicion of phonies, and you'll probably start thinking in italics.

_ "Stargirl" by Jerry Spinelli. Knopf Books for Young Readers, $8.95, 208 pages

While the rest of the students at her high school are all Abercrombie-d out, Stargirl dresses in long peasant skirts and carries a pet rat, causing her classmates to wonder if she's from another planet. It's a sweet love story as Leo falls for the free-spirited, nonconformist Stargirl.

_ "The Giver" by Lois Lowry. Houghton Mifflin/Walter Lorraine Books, $10.88, 192 pages

Open. Read. Repeat. Teens are likely to read "The Giver" over and over to figure out the details of the complicated, futuristic story line. In the world of "The Giver," Jonas has never known hunger, pain or poverty _ but he's also never seen colors or had a Christmas. At 12, he becomes apprentice to his "perfect" community's memory-keeper, and he must decide if he will rebel against the decisions of his parents' generation.

_ "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd. Penguin, $11.20, 336 pages

It's 1964, and 14-year-old Lily Owens decides to rescue Rosaleen, her African American stand-in mother who was placed in jail for trying to register to vote. The novel explores prejudice and racism at the time of the Civil Rights Act.

_ "Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers" by Mary Roach. W. W. Norton & Co., $11.16, 304 pages

The ick factor is high in this nonfiction book, an exhaustive exploration of all things cadavers. Among the grossest of the gross-out facts: cannibalism, face-lifts on decapitated heads and 18th century Scottish university students paying for their med school tuition in corpses.

_ "Flipped" by Wendelin Van Draanen. Knopf Books for Young Readers, $8.95, 224 pages

She likes him; he thinks she's nuts. Then, he likes her; she thinks he's shallow. Alternating from the perspective of Juli and Bryce, "Flipped" details the he-said, she-said of an eighth-grade romance.

_ "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee. Warner Books, $6.99, 288 pages

Often required reading for English lit, chances are "To Kill a Mockingbird" is one of the few books that the entire class actually reads. Court drama, racial stereotypes and a mysterious neighbor are at the book's core, and if you've read the book, just try remembering these names without a warm-and-fuzzy feeling: Scout, Boo Radley and Atticus Finch.

_ "Akira" by Katsuhiro Otomo. Dark Horse, $16.47, 364 pages

Often credited with starting the manga craze in 2000, this six-volume, 2,000-page graphic novel follows two teenagers in Neo-Toyoko City in 2030, 38 years after World War III. Motorcycle chases and gunfights pop off the pages in this science fiction epic, which was also made into an animated film.