"challenging" books for teenage boys

[spendthrift]

DS's class (yr 9) has been told to read "challenging books" -assume fiction, well written, prob classics (not nec Dickens but eg Orwell). Assume also originally written in English. The shorter the better.

What do MNrs suggest?

Orwell a good thought, esp Animal Farm.
Ray Bradbury, Faranheit 451? Catcher in the Rye?? Lord of the Flies? To Kill a Mockingbird ?Huckleberyy Finn?

Second all jongleuse's suggestions (but read Tom Sawyer before Huck Finn).

Some non-fiction suggestions are Brian Keenan's An Evil Cradling, Rory Stewart Occupational Hazards or Stephen Levett Freakonomics would be worth a go.

If you don't think the drugs are a problem (and does it have to be fiction?) the one book that comes immediately to mind is Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, because it is a classic piece of journalism, and also a record of a particular point in history, and interesting writing style IMO. Its also a book best read in your teens, I think!

Fiction - and very short, but undoubtedly a classic - what about The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman?

If he reads 1984, what about Brave New World to go alongside it?

Agree with the Mark Twain recommendations. What about Call of the Wild or Flowers for Algernon?

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea? not too long, and I think it would be challenging for a modern reader because of the language, but not as "bad/hard" as say Shakespeare.
The Kraken Wakes, or just about anything else by John Wyndham really - again, more because the English he uses is "old fashioned" now, and he does deal with some major ethical issues in his work, albeit in a "cosy catastrophe" way.
Or Wrinkle in the Skin by John Christopher, that has a post apocalypse type story line, and deals with rape at one point, but is a product of its time so not at all graphic, more "off the page/left to the imagination" but still has the various ethical dilemmas around it.