Boy Books - The List!

[leah_cypess]

And here it is… after the extensive discussion on the topic of boys books in the previous post (71 comments, and still ongoing!), our list of YA speculative fiction "boy books":

Comments

persephone

[anonymous]

Orson Scott Card? Ender's Game, Songmaster...I guess you might argue these are elementary school rather than YA, but they're pretty disturbing in parts. I'd prefer my boys didn't read them till age 13 or so.

Also, I don't know enough about this genre to list titles, but I would add that many boys I know seem to put their spec fiction energy into graphic novels instead. They're not any more embarrassed to be seen with those than they were with Batman comic books as kids.

Re: persephone

[lynnet]

I would actually argue that they're adult books, although Ender's Game has been marketed both as YA and adult. I've never seen Songmaster marketed as YA, though.

Re: persephone

[leah_cypess]

I can't believe I forgot Ender's Game! It was an adult book when I read it, but on that very same trip to B&N, I saw it repackaged in the YA section. I'll add it - thanks.

Graphic novels are an interesting point, but since I believe they're a different genre from YA (i.e. shelved separately - correct me if I'm wrong), I'm not sure they should go on this list.

[raecarson]

Paolo Bacigalupi's SHIP BREAKER, for sure. A hard-hitting post apocalyptic romp through an oil-ravaged Gulf Coast. (Prophetic much?) It's a great becoming-a-man-in-a-violent-world story.

[leah_cypess]

Thank you! That one's on my TBR list, so I don't know how I missed it. I'll add it.

[anonymous]

The Keys to the Kingdom Series by Garth Nix (also the Seventh Tower series) 13 really great books for boys.

[leah_cypess]

Thanks! I have heard great things about those, but they are classified as MG, not YA. (As were a lot of the suggestions people originally came up with... those classifications can seem pretty arbitrary sometimes, but for simplicity's sake I'm going to stick to them.)

[srmcevoy]

Great list I have read 1/4 and have another 1/4 in my TBR pile.

Steven

[natalieag]

Great list. I've read some of the books. FYI, Mary Kole did a blog post earlier this week on why publishers aren't publishing YA books for boys.

[leah_cypess]

Thanks for pointing that out! Very fascinating post, especially hearing from an agent's point of view that a lot of publishers have one "YA boy book" slot per list.

[leah_cypess]

Thanks!

[catherinehaines]

The Skulduggery Pleasant series by Derek Landy? The first one or two are probably middle-gradey, but the POV character gets older and is definitely in YA age territory later on.

(Anecdata: When I went to a signing for this, I was one of only 5 or so girls. The rest of the 2 and a half/3 dozen people were boys, with the majority of those wearing the uniform of the local high school - so 13-16. When talking to them, none of them listed as their favourite character the walking, talking wizard skeleton that is the title character, but the 12-14 (so far - she grows with each book) girl POV character. They were also quite enamoured with the beautiful woman who kicks butt, and were very grateful that she wasn't killed off in the first book as originally planned.)

[leah_cypess]

That is really cool! The books themselves are all classified as mid-grade, though (publishers tend to do that with series, even if they age up; I'm guessing because any new readers will still start with the first ones?)

[dawn_metcalf]

Oh, I *adore* Skullduggery Pleasant books! (Even though the MC is a girl, this totally works for action-packed guy readers!)