Young adult writing today contains everything. The worst of it is as limited as any bad writing, the best could thrill any readers willing to put themselves in the hands of expert storytellers and great writers. Readers, that is, of any age.
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Perhaps this isn’t a young adult book. Really, who is to say? It is one of those books that gives you a whole world – small and wonderful – which is entrancing for eight chapters, and which you feel very sorry to leave.
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For ambition and scale, this highly accomplished trilogy is hard to beat. The story is excitingly paced and has a cast of engaging characters, but taken together, the trilogy is also a complex study of responsibility, difference, maturity and power.
Skellig may be better known, but I think the book that followed is Almond’s masterpiece: Kit’s Wilderness is one of those rare works that changes how we see the world. With the delicate, dark beauty that characterises so much of Almond’s work, Kit’s Wilderness explores things beneath the surface, suffused with death and menace, and the spirits of the past, but this is a wilderness that is full of beauty and things that are precious, too.
Hmm, not a lot of female writers on this list, or indeed stories with female protagonists. I think this writer missed the mark for listing YA books that adults could also enjoy.
Which books would you include, ontd?
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The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (Bloomsbury)
Perhaps this isn’t a young adult book. Really, who is to say? It is one of those books that gives you a whole world – small and wonderful – which is entrancing for eight chapters, and which you feel very sorry to leave.
Chaos Walking trilogy by Patrick Ness (Walker)
For ambition and scale, this highly accomplished trilogy is hard to beat. The story is excitingly paced and has a cast of engaging characters, but taken together, the trilogy is also a complex study of responsibility, difference, maturity and power.
Kit's Wilderness by David Almond (Hachette Kids Hodder)
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Skellig may be better known, but I think the book that followed is Almond’s masterpiece: Kit’s Wilderness is one of those rare works that changes how we see the world. With the delicate, dark beauty that characterises so much of Almond’s work, Kit’s Wilderness explores things beneath the surface, suffused with death and menace, and the spirits of the past, but this is a wilderness that is full of beauty and things that are precious, too.
Hmm, not a lot of female writers on this list, or indeed stories with female protagonists. I think this writer missed the mark for listing YA books that adults could also enjoy.
Which books would you include, ontd?
src
