What classic book did you live when you were 13?

[Mardyface]

Hello!

Our family does a thing where we recommend a book we think someone else would like and then we rate it. It's my turn to recommend for my 13 yr old.

I'm trying to remember what I read and loved at 13. There are loads of brilliant YA books around but I think it should be one she wouldn't have come across or thought of for this exercise, and not necessarily a book aimed at children.

I've thought of Little Women and Anne of Green Gables but I know there must be loads more suitable ones!

Thanks in advance!

From 11-14 I read a wide variety of things -
The hobbit
Harry Potter (classic now, surely?!😁)
The railway children
Black beauty
Lord of the flies
Northern lights
Noughts and crosses

I enjoyed these ones.

I was reading Agatha Christie and the Jilly Cooper girl name books (a classic of their type?) at that age! In my defence it was a contrast to the serious secondary school set books I was ploughing through.

Oh yes all of the series of this for me too!

I lived and breathed Little House on the Prairie and wanted to live in our shed and pretend it was a cabin. It started my love of all things home made and I taught myself to knit and sew.

I loved these books as well.

A bit different from Helen Forrester but Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

I'm also impressed that your 13yo listens to your book recommendations. Whatever I suggest gets an eyeroll from my bookish 14yo. Amusingly enough her friends are recommending books I've already recommended and thanks to If We were Villians she now wants to read A Secret History and I'm getting serious boasting points for having read it 30 years ago qhen it first came out.

The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer.
I took it out from the school library and devoured it. I am ashamed to say that I never returned it and still have it.
It turned me into the feminist I am today.

I loved this. My daughters loved it. My granddaughter loved it. Rumer Godden was my neighbour for a bit.
I Capture the Castle.
Greengage Summer. Also Rumer Godden
Ballet Shoes which she's probably already read.
The Blue Door Theatre Company books
Katherine by Anna Seton.

Thanks everyone! So many lovely recommendations. I'll get started on some of these myself. I think I'm going to choose between Chocky and I Capture the Castle for my recommendation and buy loads of the others and leave them around (esp some Rumer Godden).

We're doing it as a game @JaninaDuszejko so she's up for it at the moment - who knows how long that will last (she tends to roll her eyes at everything else I say) but I'm enjoying it while it does.

Anna Karenin
Crime and punishment

Just a word of warning - I read Chocky at school at around this age and I really strongly disliked it and found it very disturbing. I think there are many better recommendations on this thread.

Ok thanks @BloodAndFire . Honestly it freaked me out too, but I sort of enjoyed it. I might let her choose between a different Wyndham and I Capture the Castle and be honest about the contents!

He's a funny choice for girls of that age. We read Chocky, the Midwich Cuckoos AND the Chrysalids at school, and maybe the Day of the Triffids too, and they're all really fucked up in various ways.

I also think there are so many young adult books written by women and with brilliant female protagonists - having a daughter of almost the same age, I would lean towards those as I can clearly see that she connects better with them (even those that are from different centuries).

Had completely forgotten:

The Gormenghast Trilogy - Mervyn Peake

Utterly superb. (The Folio Soc have a new limited edition for £750 - which fact is going to make me unhappy for days to come. But you can still get them as normal paperbacks!)

Flambards, One More River by Lynn Reid Banks, Summer of my German Soldier by Bette Greene, The Silver Crown by Robert C O Brian, Mrs Frisby and the rats of NIMH, all the James Herriot books

My faves were the green knowe series.
I love the Terry pratchet tiffany series starts with the wee free men

I was really into historical fiction so books by Rosemary Sutcliffe, Geoffrey Trease and Barbara Willard. I hated anything to scary/creepy or anything too full of teenage angst.

Loads of books on this thread strike a chord.

I loved Flambards! And Charlotte Sometimes, and The Diddakoi! Moondial and Tom's midnight Garden are similarity and brilliant. The House at Green Knows and Box of Delights were BBC adaptations that led me to the books

Also all the Michelle Magorian books and on the theme of WW2 I also liked books by Robert Westall and The Silver Sword by Ian Serallier. Carrie's War too. The Dolphin Crossing by Jan Mark was really good. We read The Endless Steppe at school and it stayed with me.

I also loved The Snow Spider trilogy (perhaps a bit younger but I reread a lot) and books by Philippa Pearce like The Way to Sattin Shore.

Berlie Doherty's books were good (especially Children of Winter), and A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley in a similar vein. Plus the plague book A Parcel of Patterns.

It worries me that children aren't half as bored as I used to be - I read voraciously and loved it. But there was v little else to do!!

If you after a classic I'd recommend Treasure Island or the Count of Monte Cristo.
I read both at around that age and still remember them fondly.

(The films just don't cut it!!!)

Sophies World as mentioned above is also worth reading.

When I was that age, I read My Darling Villain by Lynne Reid Banks about ten times and loved it. Made a big impression on me politically too.

She needs to read Anne Frank's diary at that age, as Anne was 13 when she began to write it. Best age to read it!

The ‘Gemma’ books by Noel Streatfeild. Anything by Antonia Forest.

A lot of the ones previously mentioned and i also loved the 'What Katy did' series...

On John Wyndham, my daughter loved Chocky at the same age, but if you're worried it might disturb her, my favourite was always Trouble with Lichen. I don't think Wyndham is a strange choice for this age group at all. Loads of young teens love dystopian fiction and his texts seem to me far less disturbing than the modern equivalents - Slated, Hunger Games etc
What about From the Mixed up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler? Best title ever

Jane Eyre. I loved that book.

LM Montgomery but not Anne of Green Gables- instead a series called Emily of new Moon.

I've not thought about these books in years but heading straight to Amazon ...