Please tell me what books your teenage children have enjoyed

[fivecandles]

Looking particularly to order books to appeal to girls in Yrs 7, 8 and 9.

Would also be interested to hear about books that have appealed to boys of the same age.

Could you indicate whether the books are ones that your dcs have read in class or at home independently.

Thanks so much.

DD (now Y9) read The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas as a class reader in Y7. She has since done Far From The Madding Crowd, but not sure whether that was this year, or Y8.

Choosing herself, she would pick Twilight or Hunger Games books. I was surprised to see Room by Emma Donoghue on a recommended reading list for her age supplied by her school. I would've thought Y9 was a bit young for that!

Y9: Jane Eyre, Rebecca (compare and contrast), Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey novels, The Scarlet Pimpernel, I Capture the Castle, Ivanhoe. I have boys, so these are some of my own youthful favourites.

DS1 Y8 has been a very reluctant reader up until quite recently due to undiagnosed eye tracking problems. Now this has been just about corrected his reading has really taken off.

In the last few months he has enjoyed reading the Alex Ryder series, Cherub series by Robert Muchamore and the Hunger Games Trilogy.

DD year 9 loves reading she has read so many books I can?t keep track of them all but I know her favourites were private life of bees, Wuthering Heights (all time favourite she read it 5 times) Jane Eyre, the Twilight series, To kill a mockingbird (reading this now) she?s read them all at home recently at school they had to read The woman in Black and she enjoyed that too.

Dd has enjoyed books by Courtney Summers and Sarah Dessen working her way through all of their books.

Should add that dd read all of these at home. I don't know if they'd appeal to boys though but she has passed them around her friends who all seem to enjoy them too.

My dd (13) loved Holes, Noughts and Crosses, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time.

She has read so much and so many different types of books, these are the ones that came to mind straight away. She was particularly moved by Noughts and Crosses - we discussed it after she read it and still mentions it from time to time.

At the moment she's into Manga - the Deathnote series is really good and she also got the dvd - which I loved! :)

TBH I dont think it matters what they read as long as they enjoy it.

Thanks, that's all very useful. I agree about personal reading, shooting, but I'm looking for texts that are also good for teaching.

Well, my 13.10yo Ds reads at the rate of a book a day! and he reads and re reads the Cherub books. I bought him Itch by Simon Mayo and he loved it, said it was the best book he's ever read ~ huge praise!! I bought him the Hunger Games and also Gone, Hunger and Lies.

The zombie Charlie Higson ones (The Dead, The Fear, the Enemy). Sophie McKenzie's Medusa Project series (both for girls and boys) .My Y7 DS loved these - and is currently reading Holes by Louis Sachar.

One of the teachers at the school I work in uses "Tribes" by Catherine MacPhail as a class reader for her bottom set Year 8 group of boys. She says she finds in a lot of their cases, it is the only book they have ever read and enjoyed.

School - Lord of The Flies, Animal Farm, War of the Worlds, Holes, Noughts and Crosses...

Home - Unisex - Slam, Curous Incident, About A Boy, The Hunger Games, The Jericho Files, Junk.

DD loved Ways to Live Forever, You Against Me, Missing, The Other Boylen Girl.

DS liked anyhting by Darren Shan, High Fidelity, Lord of the Rings, Carrie, Misery...

OP, Slam and Curious are excellent when considering voice and POV.

Ways to Live Forever is just a beautiful tale of a boy's final weeks. And I think it was released as a low budget film so you might be able to get a DVD too.

Dd thought the Boy in the Striped Pyjamas was badly written and implausible. She didn't like the Twilight series much either. But has enjoyed Ruth Rendell (the Wexford mysteries), Rumpole, Jane Austen, the Hunger Games and anything by Daphne du Maurier (especially Rebecca).

I haven't got a teen but I always buy 'How I live now' and 'I capture the castle' as gifts for girls that age and they go down well.

DD now 14 (very young yr10) but below is a selection of what she has read and enjoyed in years 7 to 9.

School - Noughts & Crosses, Animal Farm, To kill a Mocking Bird,

Home - remainder of Noughts & Crosses series, Anthony Horowcize power of 5 series, Boys Don't Cry, Thief, The Curious Incident, A Spot of Bother, Down & Out in Paris & London, it's Not Summer Without You, The Summer I Turned Pretty.

Currently reading My Sisters Keeper, but I think the film may have spoiled it for her.

The Philip Pullman series (golden compass etc) is very good..I bought it for my DD1 some years ago and promptly couldn't put them down myself!

Divergent (Veronica Roth) and the follow up Insurgent is also very good (especially teen girls.. quite empowering stuff too)

Delirium and Pandemonium (Lauren Oliver) also good for your age group:)

Anything by Michael Morpurgo! Maybe aimed a little younger but I read them as my DS2 did and enjoyed!

DD reads a lot but I do remember discussing with her; The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton, The Trial - Franz Kafka, The Handmaids Tale - Margaret Atwood and all of Jane Austen's work.