My Favourite Ten YA Novels
Originally published at tansyrr.com. You can comment here or there.
The lovely editormum linked me to this poll attempting to determine the top 100 YA novels of all time. They are requesting each participant to vote for their own top 10 of YA books, in order of preference.
On the one hand, these things make me kind of cynical - on the other, lists are good. I love lists, especially the deeply subjective ones. They encourage people to read books, and I do love it when people read books.
So here we go. This was a tricky one. The list I started out with was weighted far more heavily with books I’d read in the last year or two, but then I kept remembering classics from my own childhood, that bounced out the more recent books. I am rather pleased I ended up with 50% Australian authors, too
I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith
This is the queen of floaty old fashioned girls novels for me - I loved Anne Shirley and Laura Ingalls Wilder and Jo March and Katy, but there’s something particularly wonderful and soppy about Cassandra Mortmain, her bohemian family, and the twisting dance of her sister’s (and her own) first romances, that just makes me melt inside. The movie was also weirdly perfect, even though it had Riley from Buffy in it. The casting was so good that it has imprinted now on to my memories of the book.
Howl’s Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones
Choosing which DWJ book to include here was tough, as I could of course fill an entire top 10 with novels by this author. But when it comes to favourite - it’s not about which has the best plot (Archer’s Goon) or the best romance (Fire & Hemlock) or the best magic (Charmed Life) or the best worldbuilding (The Merlin Conspiracy) or the deepest melancholy (Time of the Ghost) - it’s about which one you love best. Howl’s Moving Castle has all the hallmarks of a great DWJ novel - tangled plot, quirky characters, great dialogue, weird magic, bad parents, REALLY complicated plot, sweet romance - but on top of that it has Howl, and Sophie, and Howl’s hair. So it wins.
Tender Morsels, Margo Lanagan
I can never stop talking about this one - it made it to my top 10 standalone fantasy novels too. I can only repeat what I said there: I don’t have an unbiased bone in my body when it comes to this literary retelling of Snow White and Rose Red with added dwarf smut, extra sexy bear men, and deep psychological trauma. I feel it’s one of the most important fantasy novels published in recent years, precisely because of its powerful themes about trauma and recovery from abuse, over-protectiveness, and indeed, the nature of fantasy itself.
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Going Bovine, Libba Bray
A deeply important, epic story of a boy dying of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, who runs away on a crazy, magical adventure to save his own life, and the world. Quite possibly one of the best road trip novels ever, this deserves to be the bible of disaffected & nihilistic teens for at least a generation, and to serve as a snapshot of weird 00s pop culture for every generation that follows.
The Demon’s Lexicon, Sarah Rees Brennan
Another one I can’t really be unbiased about, a pure pleasure of clever dialogue, fun action, sexy flirting and very tight plotting. Funny and delicious, with a truly original protagonist.
Front & Center, Catherine Gilbert Murdoch
I love all three of the books in the Dairy Queen trilogy, but this one (the middle one! ha!) is simply the best - D.J. Shwenk is used to carrying more than her share of her farming family’s burdens on her own broad shoulders, but when one of her brothers is horribly injured in a football accident and her parents fail to cope, she is the one who has to drop her life to help him. A supremely powerful story about family.
Playing Beattie Bow, Ruth Park
A true classic, one of the best time travel novels I’ve ever read. This is one I haven’t been near since I was a teenager, and I really hope it holds up. I can still see just about every scene unfold if I close my eyes, though… Abigail travels back to the days of early Sydney Town thanks to a children’s nursery rhyme and the antique crochet on her dress. She learns of love and loss and puts her own modern problems into a clear and newly mature perspective - oh, that makes it sound horrible. I hope it’s not horrible. It’s a WONDERFUL BOOK. Her friendship with Beattie still sticks so hard in my head.
Queen Kat, Carmel & St Jude, Maureen McCarthy
This is one of those books I always thought I had read when in fact I had only briefly seen bits of the tv series. I read it properly a year or so ago and promptly sent it to Kaia as an example of brilliant Australian voice. Three girls who aren’t friends leave their own small town at the same time and share a house in the big city - we follow fat, unhappy Carmel’s point of view at first, then fierce, revolutionary Jude, and finally beautiful, damaged Kat. It beautifully conveys the assumptions that young girls make about themselves, each other, and the world. And it’s about friendship, as all the best YA novels are.
The True Story of Lilli Stubeck, James Aldridge
A story of a wild, unconventional girl in rural Australia, told through unreliable and one-sided narration by a boy who never really understood her. I found this one fascinating as a child and would really like to return to it. Though like Beattie Bow I’m a little afraid of what I might find.
Are You There, God, It’s Me, Margaret, Judy Blume
As with DWJ, how does one choose their favourite Judy Blume? I came very close to making this Then Again, Maybe I Won’t which was for many years the only insight I had into the teenage male mind, or Starring Sally J Freedman as Herself which was such a stark, sweet historical. But Margaret, with her first bra and her sanitary pad belt and that awkward uncertainty of making new friends and “I must, I must, increase my bust,” was impossible to ignore. Simply brilliant.