Summer Reading for Teens

Last week I promised I'd be back to talk about summer reading for teens.

I'm back.

I'm not going to break these down into categories for younger teens/older, maturity levels, etc., simply because 1.) I'm lazy and 2.) tastes, reading ability, judgment on what is age-appropriate, and so on, vary wildly. Also, while some of these are written for young teen readers and some were written for adults, many of these books appeal to the whole spectrum.

So, as always, please look into the subject matter, language, and so on for yourself -- faithful Catholics have varying attitudes on what is appropriate for their children and why, so I'll leave that part up to you.

Here are some of my daughters' favorites, in no particular order:

The Anne of Green Gables series (obviously) and all L.M. Montgomery
The Betsy-Tacy teen years
Regina Doman's Fairy Tale Novels
The Percy Jackson series, Rick Riordan
The Kane Chronicles (Riordan)
The Hunger Games series (more on them here and here)
The Harry Potter series (more on Potter here and here)
The Mysterious Benedict Society series
The Gallagher Girls series (about teenage spies)
Most of Madeleine L'Engle
Jane Austen, of course
Louisa May Alcott, of course
Sharon Creech
A La Carte and Mare's War, by Tanita Davis
Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster
Operation Yes and Letters from Rapunzel, by Sara Lewis Holmes
Laurie Halse Anderson: Fever 1793 and Chains and Forge
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
The Giver and Gossamer, Lois Lowry
Jen Bryant's Kaleidoscope Eyes and The Trial
Flipped, Wendelin Van Draanen
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (may he rest in peace ... he just passed away yesterday)
Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
Doomsday Book, Connie Willis


And, a few more for the 9-12 age group:

Everything Melissa Wiley has ever written (we actually love the Martha and Charlotte books even more than the original Little House books, and Ramona can't wait for The Prairie Thief)

Redwall series, Brian Jacques

Peg Kehret (especially her memoir on having polio)

You might also want to check out Treasure Chest for Tweens, a great blog that has reviewed a bunch of books and discusses them in the light of the Catholic faith.