Which books have you borrowed from your DCs and then really enjoyed?

[5Foot5]

About 4 years ago while on holiday I had got fed up with exahusted my own holiday reading so borrowed one of DDs (she was 10 at the time) It was one of the Robert Muchamore "Cherub" books and I found it fun, escapist stuff and have read several others since then.

While on holiday this year she was in stitches over a book called "Spud" by a South African writer called John van de Ruit. I borrowed it at the weekend and have just finished it. Marvellously funny book!

However, she still has not managed to interest me in the Twilight saga.

Which books have your DCs introduced you to?

Burgess bores me tbh. He seems just to write for shock-value, rather than for any actual plot or style merit.

Lady: My Life As A Bitch was silly. Sara's Face was freaky but not well written. Junk has dated really badly.

I did like the R&J style one though - is it Bloodtide?

Can't remember the author, but a series of books called 'uglies' 'pretties' - I was hooked, bought DSD all the rest in the series (but read them before I gave them to her)

Isn't that Scott Westerfield? I read Uglies but didn't love it enough to buy the others.

Unwind - Neal Shusterman: that is a book and a half. Not perfect but unforgettable and very thought-provoking.

R&J style? Richard & Judy? Romeo & Juliet? Bloodtide and Bloodsong are the dystopic Norse myth ones - the best thing he's written.

Dandydan I also would be very about letting a child read it, it made me laugh at his audacity but that's all. It was far better, however, than his rather yuck one about boys and sex, the name of which escapes me.
However, I think it's interesting - and great- that many children's writers are so daring, inventive, outspoken etc, often more so than those who write for adults. The His Dark Materials books come to mind obviously, but plenty more. It's a good time for children's books and yet a bad time too with things like the school library service being shut down in places, and even schools being built without libraries .

Romeo and Juliet - the gang one. Can't remember the title but it was good, albeit very, very gory.

Lol at Richard and Judy. :)

Heh! The one about boys and sex was "Doing It" - I am still pretty ambivalent about that one too, because of the ways it objectifies girls and sex (which of course I know is common at the teen age he is writing about) and encourages (I feel) disrespectful thoughts about female teachers.

The more distance I get from His Dark Materials, the less I think they were so great. I still really rate them, but not to madly as I initially felt.

I think YA writers do take more risks and are more innovative than adult writers, and they are more concerned with 'story'. Often they handle subjects and issues a lot more deeply and more maturely than a lot of contemporary literature. However, I've not had a lot of brilliant YA reading experiences in the last year - everything is very repetitive and trying too hard to be up to date and 'issue-led'.

Dandy - have you read the Chaos Walking trilogy? If not, do please check it out. It will restore your faith in teen fiction, I'm sure.

I loved the Pullmans - except for the silly mules on wheels things. I liked the Sally Lockharts better though.

Have we mentioned Robert Westall? The one that is generally around in print is The Machine Gunners, which ds says is pretty good , but I came across a book of his shorter pieces - Christmas Ghost, I think it was called - and they were really marvellous, particularly the title story. He's not nearly feted enough.

On Wyndham, ds joke (you have to say the punchline fast):

Knock knock
Who's there
Dave
Dave who
Dave the Triffid

I generally like Robert Westall - certainly his most well-known The Machine Gunners; and also The Watch House and Futuretrack 5, and a few others. But his best book (which I'm just re-reading for the n'th time) is Devil on the Road: one of the best YA books ever.

Chaos Walking - very clever, pretty well executed. I've just received today on loan a hardback copy of Monsters of Men, since I am waiting for the paperback before I fork out for it. I just don't love it though: I find both Todd and Viola hugely unsympathetic as central characters - though obviously lots of people like them - and that's disappointing in a YA book; in a book for adults, you just get on with the story regardless of your feelings for the characters. Having been spoiled for a bit of the last book, I feel disappointed that Ness didn't go the whole hog with a certain character's journey but pulled back at the very very last moment. I'll be interested to see how the characters justify and come to terms with the ways they have behaved towards others.

Borrowed Diary of A Wimpy Kid from DD - really funny, only meant to read a couple of pages, ended up reading the whole book. The film really does not do it justice.

DH got several of the Alex Rider stories on talking books supposedly to keep the DCs occupied during long drive on holiday in France in July - we ended up completely hooked!

Would love to know what you thought of Monsters Of Men, after you've finished it. Lots of good stuff in there (and one really interesting idea later on) but the whole is the mayor good or bad thing got a bit irritating after a while.

I'll let you know, somehow, BG!

I like Gulf by Robert Westall as well as The Machine Gunners. I am so out of date these days though, this thread is really helping get my list together. People say Siobhain O Dowd (?) v good? Are they right?

Re Pullman I liked the mules on wheels!!!!

Siobhan Dowd is the name. She wrote four children's books before she died. I have read two - A Pure Swift Cry and Bog Child. I think they're okay - certainly they raise a lot of issues but Bog Child dodges issues, and being set at the time of the hunger strikes, has a wealth of political detail that is not explained at all.

I'm commuting by train at the moment, and my resolution is to read all the stuff on my childrens' shelves that I have bought for them over the last couple of years and wanted to read/re-read myself, as I find good childrens fiction stands up well to the distractions of other people on their mobiles, my tiredness etc. I'm notionally working through themes - my current theme is books about travelling back in time/memory - enjoyed An Angel for May by Melvin Burgess, Tom's Midnight Gdn - lovely to go back to as an adult, about to read Alison Uttley's Traveller in Time, liked Catherine Stott's two books - Marianne Dreams and the Mirror Image Ghost. Any suggestions for any other time/memory travel childrens' books I can try??

Some lovely books there, Cym

Time travel / back in time type things - try Charlotte Sometimes. Also Playing Beatie Bow. Bedknobs and Broomsticks is also more interesting than the film would suggest iirc.

Oh and maybe The Wolves Of Willoghby Chase.

And what's that series that was made into a terrible, Americanised film fairly recently? It will come to me....

time/memory - When Marnie Was There

The Green Knowe series (starts with The Children of Green Knowe) - laps over into ghost territory, is that OK? It's the gentlest ghost story there ever was.

I have never read a book all the way through apart from last week i was waiting at dd2's school to collect her with dd1's library book in the car to return so i thought i would have a gander and suddenly i was addicted to Bram stokers dracula, great book

DD2 liked a book called Century which is time/memory related - I was underwhelmed by it tbh but it gets v good reviews.

Have you read Coraline?

Nothing much better than Robert Westall's The Devil on the Road.

Another rec from me for Charlotte Sometimes, and also the rather excellent "The Amazing Mr Blunden" by Antonia Barber (which you might have seen as a film directed by Lionel Jeffries).

We've got Charlotte Sometimes - I'll try it. And Wolves of Willougby. Never heard of some of the others - great to have so many suggestions - thanks! I shall look them up and report ...

Hunger Games (well, the first one, anyway) anything by Meg Rosoff, and also absolutely anything at all by Philip Pullman. Also discovered a fantastic new writer who writes for teenagers - (www.jodanilo.me)- she has two books available on Lulu.com, completely different but both gripping.
These are all teen books, and I don't have a teenager but read them anyway.
My five year old daughter and I both adore Andy Stanton's Mr Gum series. You read for a few pages and it makes you smile, and then, all of a sudden, you get it and it makes you cry with laughter. By far the funniest things I've ever read.

Anyone read Gareth Thompson's books??

They are in young adult category and not a series as such, but read really well.

They tick all the boxes for me: real settings (Cumbria or thereabouts), present time but with historic connotations, coming-of-age stuff, not fantasy and very human and thoughtful generally, but not preachy.

He is a new writer and having just read Sunshine to the Sunless, I am reading the Anarchist's Angel.

I would love more of this type of literature as can't see the point of pure fantasy.