'My library was dukedom large enough.'

I read a book last night - Fearless. It purported to be 'young adult fiction' - a term I deplore, since I feel it lumps Jacqueline Wilson-style 'I'm a pre-teen, look at my issues' kinds of books, and teen girl Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging 'boys boys boys' diaries, both fine in their place, with some really decent literature which just gets ignored.

It is hard to define where children's books end and young adult books begin, same as where YA finishes and adult books begin. But that's what's good about the wheat in the chaff - I enjoy them as much at 18 as I did at 8 (precocious reader :P) and I will still be reading them at 48, I'm sure!

Here are ten 'young adult fiction' books or series which I think deserve to be read by everyone.

1. Poison by Chris Wooding

They recently updated the cover of this book to a violent orange with a manga style girl rappelling down the page. What a travesty. The go-go attitude it lends the books is nothing to do with the story, which is in itself a haunting gothic adventure through fairyland. But dark, very dark. Wooding is a horror writer - check out The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray if you want a good scare - but Poison is not horror, just scary. It's perhaps one of the scariest books I've read, but not for the giant spider or the scene where the heroine is trapped in a cannibal witch's house, for the comments on the darkness of human nature, and the realisation (I read it at 11) that Faeries and the Seelie Court were not the beautiful pleasant creature fairytales made them out to be. All the tropes are there, but wonderfully twisted. This book should be read by every literarily inclined child, and every adult interested in true magic.

Other books in a similar vein - though not nearly as good - are Holly Black's Tithe, The Thirteen Treasures by Michelle Harrison and Knife by RJ Anderson - all modern fairytales. Also, Patricia McKillip's Winter Rose is a lovely retelling of the Tam Lin legend.

2. Happy Ever After - Adele Geras

I was never a Geras fan as a younger child. But I came to Happy Ever After at the age of 16 or 17, and it is one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. It's actually a collection of three stories which focus on the same three characters, Megan, Alice and Bella, who live out, in 60s England, some of the best retellings of fairytales I've ever read. Snow White, Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty, are so lovingly retold that you barely notice the references as intrusions on the stories of the girls - wicked aunts, long hair, rose gardens and a tower room are all part of this world too, perhaps showing the universality of fairytales in human nature.

If you like this, you should definitely read Beauty and Spindle's End by Robin McKinley.

3. So You Want To Be A Wizard - Diane Duane (and the rest of the quartet)

Oh, wonderful, wonderful books. These were my favourite when I was younger, and I still love them. Modern day kids find a book of wizardry and become wizards. One has an affinity for machines, using a car antenna as a wand, and one has an affinity for words - and magic being all about words in this story, the book naturally appealed to me as a born reader. What first grabbed me about these books was the description, in the wizardry manual, of what a wizard is likely to be like - solitary, can't sleep without reading, gifted at languages... 'Their love for and fluency with words is what makes wizards a force to be reckoned with'. That was me!
The books are interesting in being not just a battle between good and evil, but a battle against entropy - a pretty high level concept for its target age group. I read these books over and over again, even now. They're just the right amount of scary, sassy, funny and magical to entertain.

4. Anything by Tamora Pierce

This might be a somewhat obvious answer, but Pierce was always and remains one of my favourite authors. Her books always feature strong heroines, but not in a pushy feminist way - she never seems to be on an agenda to empower girls, just to write fun adventures with easily relatable characters. I began with the Song of the Lioness Quartet, the story of Alanna, who swaps places with her twin brother to become a knight. She goes from 11 to 21 in these four books, and it's easy to stay with the character as she -and I- grow up. Most of Pierce's books take place in the same land, Tortall, so that Alanna appears as a grown woman in many of the more recent books, although the focus shifts to younger heroines once again. It's interesting how my preferences have changed over the years - I least liked the Daine series at 10, favouring the Protector of the Small (not as poncy as they sound) books, but now Daine is my favourite heroines. Pierce is clever in her heroines. They become like friends.

5. Riana's World and Paul's World - Mark Shirrefs and John Thomson

I'm not sure if these were written before or after the Australian TV series (which I've never managed to find) but they are lovely quick reads about a boy from our world who, in an electrical accident on a school trip, gets sent to another, more primitive world, where the evil rulers have secreted away all technology and use it as 'magic'. Paul and Riana do a fair amount of jumping between the two worlds, and the way she adapts to our culture makes for some of the funniest fantasy I've read. Good scary in the sense that it's not at all scary, just high adventure and very very fun. Gets a bit philosophical, which I missed when I was younger - does anyone have a right to technology? Does anyone, now we mention it, have a right to rule? Should Riana be sent back to her world, even though she's happier here? And so forth, but a very nice little pair of books. I'd love to find the TV series.

 

6. Carbonel - Barbara Sleigh (and sequels)

Several years ago, Carbonel was my life and the air I breathed. My mum gave me the first one - I can't remember if it was hers originally or she just thought I'd like it - and then, after reading it about 12 times, I set off on a mad hunt to find the other two (which were out of print). Never have I searched so hard for a book that wasn't a Piers Anthony (one of my favourite authors; sure I'll talk about him at some point in this procrastination!). In Carbonel, a little girl called Rosemary buys a cat. A magical cat she finds out, whose curse must be lifted. A fun little magic-in-the-real-world romp, as Rosie comes up against adults who don't believe in magic and the limitations of only having a bit of pocket money. These are just light, fun, proper magic books for preteens, but they're undercut with the sardonic wit of the cat, which make them eminently readable for adults.

 

7. Charmed Life - Diana Wynne Jones (and sequels/prequels)

For me, Charmed Life is in a thoroughly different field to any of its sequels or prequels, and I think it might simply be because I had my mum's copy of Charmed Life and modern covers on the rest. An unfair basis for judgement, and they are all really good books, but the first one really is the best. A world like ours, but with magic (I'm sensing a trend here...), a believable child hero, a healthy dollop of wit, and one of the scariest scenes I can remember from my childhood. An oldie, but a goodie.

 

8. Charlotte Sometimes - Penelope Farmer 

This book really scared me when I was little, but had a profound impact on me. I love and adore stories set in boarding schools, and the unintended time-travel idea was a new one - I won't say I wasn't scared of going to sleep after this! And I was absolutely delighted to find that one of the bedposts comes off my new bed, just like Charlotte's - so I know what to do if it ever happens to me! I found out the other day that there are more books featuring Charlotte and her sister, which seem to me well worth a read, if they're as cleverly haunting as this. You just can't forget about it afterwards. And come on, The Cure wrote a song about it...

 

9. Malory Towers - Enid Blyton

Oh, these have to have been my favourite books as a child! The only reason they're not higher up this list is that they're not really 'young adult', they're more children's books - although, as Darrell grows from a first year to a sixth former, there's been resonance for me from before I started at secondary school, eager for a taste, till now, as an upper sixthformer myself. I admit to a weakness for all the boarding school books of this period - St Clares, Naughtiest Girl in the School and others, including the wonderful Betty the Ugly Duckling which I found in a charity shop - but the girls of Malory Towers are the best-drawn, the most lovable, and the liveliest I've found. If you are a girl, read these books. I'm not even kidding. That's an order. 

 

10. Sabriel, Lirael and Abhorsen - Garth Nix 

Getting slightly more modern here, and slightly more towards the older end of the range. Nix's clever fantasy is dark, very dark, but not to the extent of shutting off children - I think I read it at 12. There's a heavy focus on death, but the books manage not to be depressing. Maybe they have a little too much battle, but the riddles and adventure are irresistible to the inquiring mind, and everytime I reread any of Nix's work, I pick up on something I missed before. Definitely suitable for adults as well as teens.