What classic book did you live when you were 13?

Little Women and Heidi.

I definitely read Flowers in the Attic around then

Me too, and Lace as well. I know I loved To Kill a Mockingbird at that kind of age, which is more obviously classic. I read a few Agatha Christies at that age. But I still read children's novels as well (Swallows and Amazons, Anne Shirley, Little House on the Prairie, The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge, when Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, etc) and only moved completely to adult books about 17. Oh, I loved Paul Zindel The Pigman as a teenager, that would definitely be considered a YA classic these days, not sure if it's in print in the UK though.

I read a lot of Thomas Hardy at that age. Also the All Creatures Great and Small books, my Mum’s Agatha Christies, Watership Down, and anything I found in the house that looked interesting. Will scour my bookshelves now for things I might have missed.

The book I remember reading at that age is The Far Pavilions. I read an awful lot as a child/ teenager so this is one of many. I was at boarding school and we passed books around so there was a wide range of subjects including some unsavoury ones!

Rebecca, Wuthering Heights and Watership Down were all life savers for me at that age. Apart from those I didn't know how to find post - childhood books even though I was in the library every day. I ended up reading a lot of James Herriot and Miss Read. I'm not sure if any 13 year old would be interested in those now.

Goodnight Mr Tom and there were some other books by the same author that I also loved.

I also read all the tuppence to cross the Mersey series and loved them in my early teens.

Oh no!! @BloodAndFire re JG! Really? Back to drawing board for me re books.

Twopence to Cross the Mersey by Helen Forrester

Depending on the 13 year old, by then I was devouring ‘adult’ books, so yes to Jane Austen, Agatha Christie, Bill Bryson, PG Wodehouse and Terry Pratchett. I’d have been a bit offended by being given Anne of Green Gables (although I love it again now I was touchy about such things at 13).

Mine was Anne of Green Gables too. And The Secret Garden.

Brilliant book, it has stuck with me forever.

Did you read Candy Floss and Impunity Jane? Or the one about the family of dolls where the mum burned 😥?

Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer. Great time travelling-y mystery.

Moondial by Helen Cresswell. Not sure if counts as a classic but it's pretty old now and still excellent. Inspired by Belton House (NT) in Lincs and filmed by BBC so you can even visit the 'set'.

I'm 61 and when I was in my teens there was no publishing category called Young Adult. There were children's books and as we outgrew those we went straight onto adult books, as I recall. I read voraciously as a child and teenager (no internet! how lucky we were). Here are some I remember from roughly that time.

My Family and Other Animals - we read that as a set book in what you'd now call year 7 and I loved it.

I saw the brilliant 1974 film of Murder on the Orient Express in the cinema not long after it was released and that was one of the things that got me reading Agatha Christie. I would strongly recommend The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, And Then There Were None and Murder on the Orient Express as (arguably) her three best books.

Read Jane Eyre as a set book at school around then, and probably Wuthering Heights not long after. I read several Dickens novels as a child and young teenager. I'd read The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins a year or two earlier and loved it. (I love Victorian fiction, but I know not all adults share my taste there, never mind teenagers.)

The one book I distinctly remember reading then because there was an excellent TV adaptation around that time is South Riding by Winifred Holtby, which remains one of my all-time favourite novels. Quite long, but not a difficult read.

The Diddakoi by Rumer Godden. I still have it and I am ooollldddd!

I loved (& still love) historical & detective fiction

Nora Lofts House books, Sharon Penman 'Sunne in Splendour' & Josephine Tay's 'Daughter of Time' (both on Richard III).

Dorothy L Sayers Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries.

Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - either book or radio (but not TV or movie versions).

I've just checked my bookcase and I've only got two of my old copies left. Need to buy What Katy did at school so my kids can read them. Loved those books

Also, don't think anyone has mentioned Diana Wynne Jones or Margaret Mahy - both brilliant.

I would recommend (DWJ) Fire and hemlock, the time of the ghost, and archer's goon

(MM) The changeover, the tricksters, the catalogue of the universe

Great list. My daughter is 12 and loves many of the books already mentioned.

I will add my own suggestions when I think of them but just wanted to mention that while I also loved Sophie's world when I was younger, unfortunately Jostein Gaarder turned out to be virulently antisemitic, so I won't be giving it to my kids 😥

I am aware that there is a slight hypocrisy in that we all still read and enjoy Roald Dahl, but somehow that feels different, maybe because he died so many years ago, or maybe it's just that I think his books are too good not to read...

The Time and Space of Uncle Albert is a fab fictional book about quantum physics and relativity. Just remembered that

I read a lot of Gerald Durrell at that age too.

Black Beauty

I loved the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, Agatha Christie and Anne of Green Gables plus various Judy Blume ones.

I was really into Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes. Also Sci fi- Wyndham, Asimov, Ray Bradbury

Jane Eyre of course and Robin McKinley's books - Beauty, the Blue Sword, Sunshine.... all brilliant