A quick survey of writers in The Denver Post’s Features section revealed that many of us — ranging in age from our late 20s to pushing 60 — are reading and enjoying Young Adult fiction titles. While some of these are considered classics, they’re also typically on middle and high school reading lists. A few recommendations:
“The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian” by Sherman Alexie, 2007
What it’s about: Arnold Spirit, a budding teenage cartoonist living on the Spokane Indian Reservation, doesn’t fit in. And that was before he decided to leave behind everything (and everyone) he knows to go to the all-white school in a nearby town in search of a better education.
Why you should read it: Alexie’s first book for young adults won the National Book Award in 2007 but you’ve probably heard of it because it’s also a frequent target of school censorship. A very funny, very sad coming-of-age tale that deals with very real issues, racism, poverty and alcoholism among them. The dark, insightful cartoons by Ellen Forney interspersed throughout the book aren’t to be missed, either.
— Emilie Rusch
“Ship Breaker”
Paolo Bacigalupi, 2010
What it’s about: In a post-global-warming, drowned Gulf Coast shanty town, 15-year-old Nailer ekes a living as a salvage diver stripping copper wiring from drowned oil tankers. His future is grim; his drug-addled, violent father is grimmer still. Only a few true friends make life bearable. When he and a pal stumble on a truly valuable — and dangerous — bit of salvage, Nailer must forge his own sense of ethics and identity.
Why you should read it: Bacigalupi, who calls Paonia home, won the Nebula award for his adult science fiction. “Ship Breaker” offers a gripping, plausible future world you won’t want to escape until it tosses you aside. And if you’re truly hooked, there’s a companion book, “The Drowned Cities.”
— Susan Clotfelter
“The Drowned Cities”
by Paolo Bacigalupi, 2012
What it’s about: Riveting, misanthropic novel set in a distant but horrifically imaginable future when swamps and soldiers have strangled civilization. “The Drowned Cities” continues the story of Tool, the genetically-engineered half-man in Bacigalupi’s excellent companion novel, “Ship Breakers,” which won the Michael Printz Award and was a National Book Award finalist.
This time, Tool finds himself reluctantly indebted to two young refugees named Mouse and Mahlia. All three are targets of the malevolent militias scrapping to claim territory in the vestiges of one-time East Coast landmarks.
Why you should read it: What makes “The Drowned Cities” so powerful and immediate is Bacigalupi’s articulation of the ragged world produced by the worst sorts of self-interested warlords, cretins who’d be perfectly at home on some of today’s virulent talk shows.
— Claire Martin
“The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”
Mark Twain, 1876
What it’s about: Twain’s most popular creation is the quintessence of snotty boyhood zeal. The story follows a young Missouri malcontent as he sews rural mischief, steal kisses, uncovers plots and searches for buried treasure. It’s a summer blockbuster geared toward the young-at-heart and a template for countless American romps, literary or otherwise.
Why you should read it: Few works of prose so evocatively chronicle the bittersweet contradictions of growing up, from morality’s gray expanse to sex, otherness and greed. Twain’s seemingly effortless, surgically precise writing is a marvel of visceral story telling and a reminder that the best tales have something new to offer at each stage of our lives.
— John Wenzel
“Brave New World”
Aldous Huxley, 1932
What it’s about: In the 25th century World State each citizen has a job and a purpose — and a drug-aided escape from the drudgery and soullessness inherent in them. That is, at least until a “savage” comes back from the fringe and exposes the flaws of a society based on relentless mental conditioning and fruitless escapism.
Why you should read it: A sprawling commentary on mind control, sex, drugs, class, technology and more, Huxley’s all-too-prescient vision of the future is also a fantastically compelling piece of writing that foreshadowed countless societal changes. There’s a reason the book remains on the reading list at so many schools: Huxley was such a brilliant writer and philosopher that he was able to craft “Brave New World” as a delivery mechanism for viral, subversive ideas that are as important to young minds today as they were in 1932 — and no doubt for decades to come.
— John Wenzel
“Catcher in the Rye”
J.D. Salinger, 1951
What it’s about: Holden Caulfield is an authentic, tortured 16-year-old in a world lousy with phonies and dullards. His melancholy, often laugh-out-loud journey of self-discovery begins when he skips out on a prep-school football game in Pennsylvania and continues as he bounces around New York City running into tourists, nuns, teachers, romantic crushes, low-lifes and family members.
Why you should read it: Salinger captures an adolescent longing and cynicism in Caulfield that transcends age, but he also embraces the messy realities of being a teenager in a more relatable way than almost any novel before or since. “Rye” is a shrine to self-delusion and a naked acknowledgment of adulthood’s artifice, a long arrow in the bull’s eye of young-adult literature that has yet to be dislodged.
— John Wenzel
