Special Post: Young Adult Fiction for Adults

Sometimes adult readers turn their noses up at Young Adult fiction simply because it is shelved differently in libraries and bookstores. Maybe they feel YA books are all simplistic and juvenile in themes, characters, and writing to appeal to a less sophisticated audience.

Boy, how wrong they are.

There are some doozies out there that will engross readers of any age. With students returning to school and needing some great reads for book reports, here are some of my absolute favorites that won't disappoint adult or younger readers on any level. 

Include your own favorites in the Comments section if you are so inclined.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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Hatchet  (and others in this survival series) - Gary Paulsen

First Sentences 

Brian Robeson stared out the window of the small plane at the endless green northern wilderness below. It was a small plane -- a Cessna 406 -- a bush plane -- and the engine was so loud, so roaring and consuming and loud that it ruined any chance for conversation. Not that he had much to say   

          - from Hatchet 

Description:

I love the survival tales of Brian Robeson who, after a plane crash, finds himself stranded alone in the Canadian wilderness and now must survive by his own wits. Hatchet and Brian's Winter are my favorites and worthy reads for any adult for the challenges faced, the struggles to survive, and the overcoming of self-doubts that we all feel in our lives.

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I Am the Messenger - Markus Zusak

First Sentences 

The gunman is useless. 

I know it. 

He knows it. 

The whole bank knows it. 

Even my best mate, Marvin, knows it, and he's more useless than the gunman. 

          
Description:

Author of the popular The Book Thief, Zusak has written a fascinating mystery about an aimless young cabdriver who begins to receive cryptic notes written on playing cards. When deciphered, he feels these messages refer to neighbors who have problems that he must address and help, whether through simple encouragement, friendship, fighting, or simply listening. His friends don't understand his quests, but undeterred he resolves to understand and complete the missions alluded to in the four cards.

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Brewster - Mark Slouka

First Sentences 

The first time I saw him fight was right in front of the school, winter.

It was before I knew him. I noticed him walking across the parking lot -- that long coat, his hair tossing around in the wind -- with some guy I'd never seen before following twenty feet behind and two others fanned back like wings on a jet.

        

Description:

This is the book I feel should replace The Catcher in the Rye as the novel that most honestly represents teen angst and the reality they face in the twenty-first century. One high school boy deals with the untimely death of his popular brother by trying to become a cross-country runner. Another friend, gifted mentally, drifts in and out of school and picks fights everyone to build a reputation as dark as his countenance. Along with a girl and an unpopular bully, these four contemplate their present and future world in honest and halting words and actions to meet their fates head on. A brilliant, strongly-written book.

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The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien

First Sentences 

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, nor yet a dry sand bare sand hole: it was a hobbit hole and that means comfort.

   

Description:

Originally a small story told by author Tolkien to his children, The Hobbit became a runaway best seller to millions of children and adults throughout the world. A tale of adventure, humor, dragons, gold, and most importantly Good and Evil, The Hobbit is worthy of any reader who loves a great story simply told with great depth of character and plot. Here, an unsuspecting hobbit is recruited to join a group of dwarves on a quest to reclaim their ancestors' ancient gold from the dragon guarding it. The major (and minor) figures are unforgettable, whether hobbits, dwarves, men, dragons, spiders, mythic figures, or a strange creature who lives in the dark and cold under the mountain. 

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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

First Sentences 

It was 7 minutes after midnight.

The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs. Shears's house. It's eyes were closed. It looked as if it was running on its side, the way dogs run when they think they are chasing cats in a dream.

Description:

Maybe not technically a YA book, this fascinating novel explores the mind of the autistic teenage narrator who seeks to find the answers to who violently killed the neighborhood dog. His quest takes him into many worlds that he fears but faces with straightforward honesty and questions which are uncomfortable for many to answer.

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The Harry Potter series - J.K. Rowling

First Sentences 

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number 4, Privet Drive, were proud to say they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.

They were the last people you'd expect to be involved with anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense. 

          - from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Description:

Probably no one has not heard of the Harry Potter series of magicians, Muggles, and evil forces combated by teenage wizards in training. But if you have only seen the movies, you are cheating yourself of great writing and characters not found on the silver screen. Although the books become increasingly darker and longer, the entire series is a treasure to read. Start at the first and read consecutively for the fullest effect of a maturing author and characters, flowing into complex stories and decisions from the heroes to thwart He-Who-Cannot-Be-Named.

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Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card

First Sentences 

"I've watched through his eyes, I've listened through his ears and I tell you he's the one. Or at least as close as we're going to get."

"That's what you said about the brother."

"The brother tested out impossible.For other reasons. Nothing to do with his ability."

Description:

Earth's government recruits child geniuses and trains them in an orbiting Battle School to be soldiers against the predicted invasion of fierce, insect-like aliens. Ender Wiggen and his two siblings take leadership roles in this coming conflict on Earth and in space. Ender rises in the ranks of selected trainees, overcoming bullies, mental challenges, and mock battle in weightless environments and sophisticated video simulation games. And they wait of the coming alien battles, hoping their are ably prepared. Extremely well-written, gripping, and unpredictable. 

An added bonus is the recent book Ender's Shadow written by Card years later to retell the same story but from the completely different eyes of a street smart youngster named Bean who was also recruited in Ender's class of soldier cadets. Interesting that a minor character now becomes the center of attention as the narrator and later Ender's right-hand officer in the training and battles. Bean gives a completely different perspective on the government, the mission, and the organization that seeks to make him a loyal soldier.

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Five Children and It - E. Nesbit

First Sentences 

The house was three miles from the station, but before the dusty hired hack had rattled along for five minutes, the children began to put their heads out of the carriage window and say, "Aren't we nearly there?"

Description:

From the author of the Railway Children series, E. Nesbit's 1902 novel tells of five siblings who discover a sand-fairy who grants them a wish a day with the proviso that at sunset the wish wears off and everything returns to as it was. The children ponder each wish very carefully - for wealth, beauty, to be big, wings, etc. - but each wish fulfillment goes unexpectedly wrong so that by the end of the day the children are glad to have the results of their wishes reversed. And they plan the next day's wish that will be perfect without possibility of misinterpretation or unexpected repercussions. A very interesting, timeless read from over 100 years ago.

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Me and Earl and the Dying Girl - Jesse Andrews

First Sentences 

So in order to understand everything that happened, you have to start from the premise that high school sucks.

Do you accept that premise? Of course you do. It is a universally acknowledged truth that high school sucks. In fact, high school is where we are first introduced to the basic existential question of life: How is is possible to exist in a place that sucks this bad? 

Description:

The perfect first sentences to a Young Adult book: snarky, slangy, pessimistic, and funny. And Andrews keeps up the writing style throughout, mixing in formats of scripts, dialogue, and rambling narrative to tell this tale of two teenage boys and one girl (not a "girlfriend") working through the challenges of cancer, high school life, bad film-making, and getting along with the various high school mobs. You may have seen this movie (I did and didn't even know it was based on this book), but reading this story is so much more funny. Remember all the clever lines from the movie? Taken directly from the book which is chock full of such wit, sarcasm, insights, friendship, and genuine tenderness.

Let's just say that it would explain a lot of things if there were a fungus eating my brain.

Everything I Never Told You

Ng, Celeste. Everything I Never Told You. New York: Penguin. 2014. Print.

First Sentences:

Lydia is dead. 

But they don't know this yet. 1977, May 3, six thirty in the morning, no one knows anything but this innocuous fact: Lydia is late for breakfast.

Description:

Grim, powerful first lines are exactly the kind that force you to continue reading. And Celeste Ng's novel Everything I Never Told You does not disappoint on any page. 

It is a sad story set in a small college town during the mid-1970s, a story of one family's tragic loss of their teenage daughter Lydia who they discover has drowned in a nearby lake. But why did this happen? Who caused her death? Could it have been avoided? And what does her loss do to each member of her family?

Underlying this simple tale are the swirling currents of race discrimination, alienation, parenting, loneliness, spoiled relationships, and individual coping strategies when dreams blossom and die. 

Lydia, along with her older brother Nath and younger sister Hannah, are children of James, a Chinese father who is a history professor at a small college, and Marilyn, who is white, a housewife, and once was James' student. Wracked by guilt and sadness over Lydia's death, all four family members look for answers from each other and outsiders like the police and Jack, the unsupervised trouble-making teen living across the street. 

Jack smelled as if he had just been out in the woods, leafy and green. He smelled the way velvet felt, something you wanted to run your hands over and then press to your face.

With chapters narrated by different characters, individual past histories including Lydia's are slowly uncovered. Each person is full of secrets and surprises that show these people to be a very ordinary family but made up of individuals who are unique in both good and troubled ways.

Marilyn smiled back, a fake smile, the same one she had given to her mother all those years. You lifted the corners of your mouth toward your ears. You kept your lips closed. It was amazing how no one could tell.

I won't spoil the details of the exploration of this family's inner workings and the unraveling of details around the death of Lydia. Suffice to say, it is not a thriller-style book about roving murderers and violence. Rather it is a riveting, highly personal novel of one family's interaction as a group and as individuals during their formative years in a difficult social environment. Their dreams, their losses, and their coping mechanisms for dealing with feelings of loneliness, frustration, and isolation are powerfully portrayed by Ng's spare writing, with plenty of secrets and twists up to the very last pages.

Before that she hadn't realized how fragile happiness was, how if you were careless, you could knock it over and shatter it.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Ogawa, Yoko. The Housekeeper and the Professor

The very quiet, personal narrative of a Japanese woman who becomes the housekeeper for a retired professor of mathematics. Their relationship and gradual unfolding of their inner strengths and lives is satisfying on every level. (previously reviewed here)

See, Lisa. China Dolls

Story of three young Chinese girls during the 1938 World's Fair in San Francisco, trying to make a living, enjoy their new friends, and preserve their individual identities in this very foreign world. (previously reviewed here)

Wolf in White Van

Darnielle, John. Wolf in White Van. New York: Farar, Straus and Giroux. 2014. Print.

First Sentences:

My father used to carry me down the hall to my room after I came home from the hospital.

By then I could walk if I had to, but the risk of falling was too great, so he carried me like a child. It's a cluster memory now: it consists of every time it happened and is recalled in a continuous loop.

Description:

Clearly, the narrator of John Darnielle's unusual, compelling book Wolf in White Van is physically damaged, but the exact nature of his injury is only slowly revealed. Something happened to Sean Phillips in his teens, but since he tells his story in reverse chronology, the exact situation that caused his damage is only revealed in the final paragraphs. His terribly distorted facial features serve as a background to the action of the plot rather than the driving force. As I said, unusual and compelling, daring readers to peek ahead to try to learn what happened to set the plot in motion.

Sean lives alone in his apartment, running a successful fantasy game n an imaginary post-apocalyptic world as they search for the mythical sheltering cityvia mail. Subscribers pay a fee and are given instructions for possible moves i. While online video games are available, his customers seems to prefer the snail-mail delivery format.

This is a game first imagined by Sean as a teen during the months he lay in a hospital recovering from some incident that left his face horribly disfigured. (It is hinted that this was due to an incident he may have brought about himself.) Upon return to his parents' home, he writes down all these memories and movements, carefully organizing them in files to create Trace Italian, a role-playing game. After placing ads in various magazines, players from around the world subscribe and write him for an introduction to this world and the first possible steps to address the choices they now face in this fantasy world.

All seems to progress well, but Sean' stream of thought narration occasionally refers to a young couple who took the game too far, confusing the imaginary world with the real one, and who suffered dire consequences. He only hints at this situation, again leaving the details tantalizingly off the page as he fleetingly contemplates their fates and his own possible role. As he tries to unravel their reasons as well as face his own withdrawal into his secluded life away from former friends and family, the plot slowly lets us learn about the workings of Sean's mind and the events that shaped his current situation.

I feel safe [at home], but I am lost, and I need constantly to be shoring up the wall that holds my emotions at bay, or I will feel something too great to contain.

It is a delicious book, full of interesting characters who anonymously play the intricate Trace Italian game or try to reconnect with Sean after the injury. The backwards revelations of the plot through a disjointed use of time and situation brings to mind the confusion of a video game: full of the unknown, choices, decisions, and consequences. The narrative captures the words and thoughts of a teen and adult Sean as he jumps from person to person, game situation to reality in his daily life.

It's a fascinating read that is on the many of the "Best Reads of 2014" lists. I completely agree.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Bronsky, Alina. Just Call Me Superhero

A young teen, horribly disfigured in his face, is thrown together with other damaged teens under the guidance of a questionable guru.

The Giant's House: A Romance

McCracken, Elizabeth. The Giant's House: A Romance. New York: Avon.1996. Print

First Sentences:

I do not love mankind.

People think they're interesting. That's their first mistake. Every retiree you meet wants to supply you with his life story.

Description:

A deceptively compelling and passionate novel, Elizabeth McCracken's The Giant's House: A Romance slowly crept up on me and pulled me into its characters' minds and hopes so thoroughly that their images and words still haunt my thoughts. These are such deeply caring, sensitive, and complex characters with lives, dreams, and isolation so real that you can see and understand them completely.

Narrator Peggy Cort, a recent library school graduate, is now in charge of a small public library on Cape Cod in 1950. She feels she is a woman people probably think is crazy, and for her part holds no love for her other patrons. She loves books, order, quiet, and knowing the answers to questions. 

People think librarians are unromantic, unimaginative. This is not true. We are people whose dreams run in particular ways...The idea of a library full of books, the books full of knowledge, fills me with fear and love and courage and endless wonder. 

As a librarian, I longed to be acknowledged, even to be taken for granted. I sat at the desk, brimming with books reviews, information, warnings, all my good school, advice. I wanted people to constantly callously approach ... I had gone to school to learn how to help them, but they believed I was simply a clerk who stamped their books. All it takes is a patron asking. And then asking again.

But underneath her outwardly quiet, private, and slightly abrasive demeanor, there is a romantic spirit which dreams of a meaningful love.

Truthfully, this is the fabric of all my fantasies: love shown not by a kiss or a wild look or a careful hand but by a willingness for research. I don't dream of someone who understands me immediately, who seems to have known me my whole life, who says, "I know, me too." I want someone keen to learn my own strange organization, amazed at what's revealed; someone who asks, "and then what, and then what?"

But you can't spend your life hoping that people will ask you the right questions. You must learn to love and answer the questions they already ask. Otherwise you're dreaming of visiting Venice by driving to Boise, Idaho. 

When 11-year-old James Sweat enters her library on a school field trip, Peggy senses something different about him -- beyond the fact that he was taller than most men even at that young age. She sees that James is interested in learning, in books, and having his questions answered. They become a perfect fit: he requesting information on a topic of interest, she recommending books. Although they don't talk much, Peggy is drawn to this tall, tall boy.

Eventually, when James does not come into her library for several weeks, Peggy goes to his house to inquire about him. She meets his protective mother who was deserted by James' father. Despite their dissimilarities, Peggy feels a kinship with this woman:

We were too old to be unmarried, and odd, surely matchless. But here's the difference: she was ruined by love -- that's how she put it -- while I was ruined by the lack of it.

Peggy for the first time observes James' cramped home and lifestyle. She decides to become a regular visitor to James after work, bringing him books and talking or just sitting with him. Eventually she organizes the community to donate money, materials, and labor to build him his own over-sized cottage in his family's backyard complete with large-size furniture and high ceilings -- the Giant's House.

James continues to grow and grow and grow over the years, eventually standing over 8 feet before he is 18, experiencing the frustrations of clothes, movement, fatigue, and isolation. Peggy comes by after work each day to sit with him and his teenage friends, watching him interact with them, growing closer and closer to him in her mind. She never reveals her feelings to James as he gives no indication that he looks on her as anything other than a friend to talk with who brings him books and sits with him.

Peggy shares many hours talking or just sitting with and observing James, alone with her thoughts but comfortable in the presence of a great friend. Author McCracken is highly skilled in gradually, patiently unveiling the minds of these lovely, sensitive characters. What goes on in the mind and daily life of a giant? Or in the mind of a spinster librarian for that matter? Their conversations and the gentle exposure of each of their lives are the heart and soul of the book. 

The Giant's House is full of joy and sadness, passion and isolation, hope and resignation, as two uniquely singular people meet and interact for whatever time they have. Together they share one thought. As Peggy states: 

Nowadays, trendy librarians, wanting to be important, say, Knowledge is power, I know better. 

Knowledge is love. 

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

McCracken, Elizabeth. Niagara Falls All Over Again

The fictional life of Mose Sharp describing his years as the straight man in a successful comedy act that spanned Vaudeville, film and television years. His life, travels, friends, women, and confirmed bachelorhood present a fascinating, compassionate portrait of a man and his era.

Ogawa, Yoko. The Housekeeper and the Professor

A simple woman and her young son take on the role of housekeeper for an elderly, crotchety ex-professor of mathematics. The communication between these two, while sparing, slowly grows and each realizes the value of the other and their own important role in.the other's life. (Previously reviewed here)

Mother of God

Rosolie, Paul. Mother of God: An Extraordinary Journey into the Uncharted Tributaries of the Western Amazon. New York: HarperCollins. 2014. Print

First Sentences:

Before he died, Santiago Durand told me a secret.

It was late at night in a palm-thatched hut on the bank of the Tambopata River, deep in the southwestern corner of the Amazon Basin. Beside a mud oven, two wild boar heads sizzled in a cradle of embers, their protruding tusks curling in static agony as they cooked. The smell of burning cecropia wood and singed flesh filled the air.

Description:

You just cannot get a better opening than reading a dying man's secret as told in a mud hut on the bank of an Amazon river with wild boar heads sizzling on coals nearby. Paul Rosolie's Mother of God: An Extraordinary Journey into the Uncharted Tributaries of the Western Amazon immediately checks all my boxes for a good read: interesting setting, Check; unusual characters, Check; potential for great plot, Check; intriguing use of words, Check. After just these first sentences, I'm all in. 

Mother of God are the true experiences of the author, Paul Rosolie, and his life in the wildest areas of the Peruvian Amazon jungle. When his dyslexia and disinterest in school cause him to struggle with academics, he obtains his GED, drops out of high school, and works as a life guard to save money to travel to the Amazon, a word that has caught his attention. He has always had an interest in nature, hiking, and rescuing injured animals, and later develops a fascination with isolated environments and real possibility they might disappear before he had a chance to experience them. 

Through writing letters to anyone working in a jungle environment, he eventually obtains a volunteer research position on a 27,000 acre preserve in the Peruvian portion of the Amazon jungle, an area known as the Madre de Dios ("Mother of God"). Emma, a British biologist, and JJ, an indigenous guide and her partner, have scraped together enough funds to purchase this land and ecotourism lodge to create the Las Piedras Biodiversity Station. 

Surrounded by hundreds of miles of untouched jungle, the LPBS is heaven for the inquisitive Rosolie, and his real education begins to take place every day under the tutelage of JJ . They daily walk the trails throughout the preserve and observe the diversity of the jungle, identifying and observing tracks, medicinal plants, and the animals themselves. 

[from a plane] it was like looking into the vault of the universe to where all the greatest secrets were kept, the library of life....the foliage of the Andes/Amazon interface ... constitutes more than 15 percent of the global variety of plants....rough tallies for the entire Andes/Amazon region: 1,666 birds, 414 mammals, 479 reptiles, 834 amphibians, and a large portion of the Amazon's 9,000 fish species.

One of these creatures is Lulu, an orphan baby giant anteater that Rosolie rescues and raises at the lodge. What is a baby giant anteater like? Imagine "if you bred a hyper baby black bear with Edward Scissorhands"...with "three-inch-long black sickles that could tear through denim and skin with ease." And there's that two-foot-long sticky tongue. Undaunted by Lulu's huge claws and her need ride on his back and sleep on his chest in his hammock, Rosolie patiently learns to hand feed her until he can teach her (somehow) to identify ant hills and how to use her claws and long tongue to feed herself.

And, oh, the adventures he has each day, including:

• a cayman (crocodile) that swallowed a 4' bag of Brazil nuts, cooking pot, and fish in one gulp;
• footprints from tapirs and jaguars found many mornings only inches from tents. (JJ feels it is "probably the smell of fresh white gringo that was attracting them.")
• spider monkeys that taunt and throw figs at the fiercest animal, the peccaries (wild pigs);
• awakening one night in his hammock to the hot breath of a jaguar only inches from his face;
• gliding ants that can sail back to tree trunk when wind blows them off.
• a 15' anaconda (snake) (Rosolie'e encounter is scoffed at by Santiago who tells of an area that has anacondas are over 40' long 24" wide - and Rosolie later actually finds one!)

Not all his experiences are with the animals, nor are they all pleasant. He notices the impact of each action on the jungle has repercussions, some temporary and some permanent. The jungle is a living organism that suffers from any modification in its system of life. 

He encounters poachers who kill a wide variety of wildlife with disastrous impact on the jungle. Rare trees with unique holes are chopped down to secure a nest of endangered baby birds, thus destroying not only the birds but a very rare nesting spot for similar birds. Rubber plantation owners exploit and destroy both the trees and the natives. Loggers clear-cut mahogany trees that take years, if ever, to regrow. Government road-builders blast huge swatches of the jungle to cut a highway across from Brazil to Peru to provide access to the resources and animals, as well as the opening of areas for human settlement. Small tribes of "uncontacted" natives move deeper and deeper into the jungles and became fiercely suspicious of outsiders and deadly protective against intruders. 

But Mother of God is a work of hope and survival. There is so much fascinating information presented as the author explores trails, animals, and survival knowledge from the indigenous people he encounters. Page after page of beauty, wonder, and adventure fill this book and pull readers onward, deeper into the world of the Amazon.

And, of course, Rosolie must seek the lost world described by Santiago, the old native who tells stories of the giant anacondas and many other wonders, and who is never proved wrong in his knowledge.  Access is treacherous, but Rosolie sets off alone to find it using Santiago's ancient directions.

He said it was a place where humans had never been. Between rivers and isolated by a quirk of geography, it had remained forgotten through the centuries. The only tribes who knew of the land had regarded it as sacred and never entered, and so it had remained untouched for millennia...He told me that it was the wildest place left on earth.

Mother of God is a book of exploration, whether learning about tracks or seeking means to keep the Amazonian jungle and its inhabitants protected. So much beauty is described and experienced by the author, an adventurer and seeker of knowledge and understanding about this wild land. As he writes on the departure of his solo journey to find the lost world:

In the most savage and dizzyingly vast wilderness on earth, the rule is simple: never go out alone. Yet there are those among us who have difficulty accepting what we have not found out for ourselves, who pass a WET PAINT sign and cannot help touching the wall. We simply have to know. 

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Grann, David. The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon.  

Detailed adventures of British explorer Percy Fawcett in the early 1900's and his many forays into the Amazon jungle in search of the City of Gold. (Previously reviewed here). 

Adams, Mark. Turn Right at Machu Piccu: Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time  

The desk-bound author sets out with a modern-day Fawcett as his guide to walk the routes of Hiram Bingham in order to re-trace that explorer's search for the fabled city of gold in Peru, with very humorous and serious adventures along the way. (Previously reviewed here). 

Davis, Wade. One River.  

Memoirs of the author who traveled the length of South America via the jungle, meeting and interacting with isolated tribes, describing their friendships, rituals, food, hunting practices, languages, and social structure.

Vaarty, Boyd. Cathedral of the Wild: An African Journey Home.  

Fascinating memoir of the author and his family who lived on their game reserve and ran a safari company for four generations in the wilds of South Africa. The book opens with the author awakening, at age 11, to a deadly 9' mamba sliding over him - one bite is fatal. And it goes on for there with encounters with all forms of wildlife on the reserve.