80's-90's young adult fiction....do you remember the greats?

[AnnabelleLee]

I loved all the post apocalyptic stuff best: Brother in the Land, Plague 99, Empty World, Children of the Dust etc...but also all the Point Horror, Christopher Pike as well.

What camp were you in?

And does anyone remember one where a teen girl could astrally project herself? It's annoying me.

[AnnabelleLee]

Robert Cormier...my favourite was one called Fade about a boy who could become invisible.
I remember pretty much all of the ones mentioned so far, I think I did nothing but read for about 7years!

[ElephantsAndMiasmas]

I loved Plague 99 and the rest of the trilogy (After the Plague and er...Watchers and the Shrine!) They've REALLY stayed with me. In Watchers at the Shrine the women who give birth to malformed babies are made to work as prostitutes, it's horrific.

Does anyone remember The Boy in the Bubble by Ian Strachan?

What about (less serious) the Alice books by Phyllis Reynolds-Naylor?

[FrigginRexManningDay]

Yy to the point horror books and I also have a collection of them in my mums.

[AnnabelleLee]

After the Plague was also published under the name Come Lucky April, for some reason, which was the name I read it under. Great trilogy, I read Plague 99 again recently but can't get the others.

[manicinsomniac]

Nocomet I was a teenager in the late 90s and early 00s and I recognise almost all of them - maybe we're not posting as early as the thread title suggests. I think most were published in the 80s though.

Greenandforge - yes, it was. Very simplistic but I loved it in an obsessed teen kind of a way.

Yes to Dear Nobody, Across the Barricades and Boy in the Bubble. I liked some of Judy Blume and Paula Danziger but wasn't overly keen on Robert Cormier.

What about Anne Fine 'The Flour Babies'?

[ElephantsAndMiasmas]

Yeah that's right Annabelle, that was the one where some radical feminists had set up a man-free commune wasn't it?

Manic - I found the Flour Babies really sad and didn't really understand it (would probably enjoy it more now) but I do love Anne Fine. A Pack of Liars (about these kids getting penpals, and how weird teenagers really are) and The Book of the Banshee especially. There's this line about how, as they get bigger, because they're growing at the same rate the narrator's younger sister always leaves snot trails at the same point on his jumper, that really got to me. I have a lovely big brother and he'd probably say the same about me.

There were some good ghost/time travel stories around then weren't there? Can't remember any names...

[Thisvehicleisreversing]

Does anyone remember a book about a girl who's bike gets run over by some rich bloke while she's buying an ice cream?
I can't remember anything that happens after that but think she lived next to a train track.


I think the front cover has a girls face half in shadow or half black and half white.

[BumpyGrindy]

I read one which was written in the late 60s or early 70s and it was the true account of a girl who went off to be a hippy in the 60s in America. Really amazing book actually. I am off to google!

[BumpyGrindy]

Oh my! It was Go Ask Alice I remember that it's a bit of a classic in the US still.

[Nocomet]

I guess I'm a touch too early I don't remember there being any teen fiction I started on Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christy and my mums spy thrillers aged 12 around 1980.

Our local library was spectacularly awful and had one shelf of books for children under about 6 and that was about it. No teen stuff at all.

[madamginger]

Point horror- I had about 50 of them, I donated them to my school library when I left!
I was really into Stephen king at about 15, but had a secret love of sweet valley high and the baby sitters club

[manicinsomniac]

Elephants A couple that I mentioned up thread were ghost/time travel (Wait till Helen Comes and Charlotte Sometimes)

Others -
A Stitch in Time (Penelope Lively)
The Ghost of Sir Thomas Kempe (Penelope Lively)
The Summer of Lily and Esme (John Quinn)
Indian in the Cupboard series (sort of) (Lynne Reid Banks)
Tom's Midnight Garden (Philippa Pearce)
The Doll in the Garden (Mary Downing Hahn)
The Children Next Door (Jean Ure)
The Children of Green Knowe (Lucy M Boston)

[madamginger]

Oh oh does anyone remember those books where you could choose the plot and that had different endings depending on which page you chose to read next, I loved those!

[Pixielady83]

I loved a point fantasy series about a girl training with a young (and hot in my imagination!) wizard called Numair.. anyone remember those?

[CatThiefKeith]

Clearly I aw too busy with Virginia Andrews why the fuck did DM let me read that at 14

I remember none of the above, but would like to add PS I love you to the mix!

[AnnabelleLee]

Choose your own adventure!

[Tallalime]

They have the kindle edition of the plague 99 trilogy on pre-order for 2.99 at the moment (Amazon). It's released in May.

[Onepactupac]

Erm, Judy Blume's Forever?

Flowers in the Attic?

Maybe I was a bit behind...

[TheIncredibleBookEatingManchot]

I remember so many of these, Children of the Dust, Second Star to the Right, Stranger with my Face, Sweet Valley High, Point Horror. And I'm also feeling a bit remembering my teacher letting me take out all the Flowers in the Attic books from the school library when I was 12.

[fruitpastille]

This time of darkness, H M Hoover.
Also pretty much any John Wyndam, although not really 80s,90s.

[EverythingCounts]

The Virginia Andrews books seem to exert a strange fascination for 11-12 year old girls I read those, plus Sweet Valley High, Cheerleaders, Freshmen (glad RabbitPie someone else remembers them! may still have them at my parents' house somewhere...) The Outsiders, Paula Danziger, Judy Blume, Z for Zachariah. Anyone else remember some of the other romance ones - Couples, or Sweet Dreams?

[chaosmonkey]

Pixielady - thats a Tamora Pierce series 'wild magic' with Daine.

I think its quite clear that Numair is hot!

[ZebraZeebra]

YY to the Changover - that was brilliant! I could read that now. And Christopher Pike, who I loved enormously because he wasn't just horror...it was really soulful stuff. See You Later is awesome. I read them all again recently And then that one that was like the story of Hotel California - four friends staying in a hotel that totally fucks them up.

The Point Horrors were awesome - Trick or Treat, April Fools, The Babysitter, The Snowman, The Waitress, The Cheerleader, The Quarter-Back, The Girlfriend, The Boyfriend...I had EVERY SINGLE ONE, including some obscure ones because we went to Florida when I was 13 and found loads in a bookshop. My friends were sooooo jealous! They always had titles like The WHATEVER. I had one about a killer flu thing

Along the lines of Point Horror but not - there was a trilogy about some foster children who were staying at a woman's hotel/boarding house. I think it was set in Maine or Vancouver - there was a mainland and an island. The eldest girl recognised the foster mother to be some kind of evil witch and she was being terrorised. Each book had a theme - like ice/frozen and fire. I can't remember the third one. I wish I could remember them!

[Cadsuane]

What about Diana Wynn Jones. I loved Howels moving castle but my favourite was Fire and Hemlock.