Six Books of Young Adult Fiction

Young Adult Fiction (YAF) is a category of writing for readers ages 12-18. The key characteristic of YAF is that the protagonist be a teenager. The themes are usually those of self-discovery, coming-of-age, figuring out the world and one’s role in it.  What is my purpose in life? What do I believe? Why am I here? Who am I?  The writing is in-the-moment as opposed to reflection or reverse chronologies.  The books I’ll discuss here are not current titles in YAF.  They are mostly nostalgia reading on my part.  By the way, 55% of YAF readers are adults.  I am not alone. 

First up, A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L’Engle (1980).  The protagonist is sixteen-year- old Vicky Austin, a sensitive and smart teen who writes poetry and is choosing among three very different suitors.  The story opens with the funeral of the father of one her suitors, Leo, a still-gawky but good-hearted adolescent. The next is Zachary, an urbane, rich boy.  Then there’s Adam who studies dolphins at the nearby Marine Biology Station for the summer.  Adam is college-age and suavely intellectual.  

The Austin family is also quite intellectual as well as refined and accomplished.  They read Shakespeare after dinner.  They sing together accompanied by their almost-professional mother on the guitar.  The oldest brother goes to MIT and Dad is a doctor doing research.  Grandfather is dying and he’s benevolent and patient, filled with the wisdom of the ages.  I felt overwhelmed by the lofty perfection.  

My introduction to Madeline L’Engle was A Wrinkle in Time in the 5^th grade.  I loved the book.  As with that book, this book also has elements of the supernatural.  Although L’Engle’s overall message is one that reflects a tenderness for adolescence guided by traditional values and Christian teachings, I found unsettling her particular admixture of traditional and Christian with a New Age, sixth-sense-supernatural perspective.  This short bio of Ms. L’Engle explains her outlook well I think and helped me understand why she writes as she does.  While I can see the value in this book for some readers, it did not resonate with me at all nor would it have resonated had I read it at 16.  Vicky was likeable, but even at my advanced age, I still can’t imagine why anyone would want to swim with dolphins let alone talk to them.  That is just not real life.     

Next on the list are four books with a male protagonist. The Story of Mad Anthony Wayne by Hazel Wilson (1953) tells of the life and times of Revolutionary War hero, Anthony Wayne.  This is a volume in the Signature Books series by Grosset & Dunlap. Wayne is from my hometown area in southeastern Pennsylvania.  This book is well-written and takes us through Wayne’s childhood, military career and later life. This is an excellent and thorough biography of a man who exhibited fire and courage and love of country.

Adam of the Road (1942) is by Elizabeth Janet Gray whom I’ve written about here. This is a father-son story set in late 13^th century England.  Eleven-year-old Adam is separated from his minstrel father, Roger, about midway through the book. Adam’s literal search for his father is a spiritual sort of search for himself.  Adam loves and reveres his father and wants also to be a minstrel. This book of historical fiction is not heavy on plot, but there are good guys and bad guys along the way.  There is challenge and adventure and plenty of information about the era (the book could have used a glossary for all the medieval vocabulary). The story is charmingly told and has an important message about fathers and sons.  The last words of the book are Roger speaking to Adam.  “You have done well, son.”  What young man would not want to hear those words from his father.

The Sign of the Beaver (1983) is written by Elizabeth George Speare.  Here is young Matt, about to turn 13, left to mind the family’s new frontier cabin and property while his father goes back to civilization to pack up the household and then return to the wilderness with the rest of the family. The year is 1769 or so and the setting is Maine. Like My Side of the Mountain, this is a wilderness survival tale, but Speare is more clearly intent on presenting a coming-of-age story.  Matt grows up by developing the virtues of loyalty and courage.  He learns about himself and the world through friendship with others. Matt perseveres and his father’s words to him at the end of the book are: “You’ve done a grown man’s job, son.   I’m right proud of you.”  More words for young men to grow on.

Sam Gribley is another young man on a journey of sorts. The book is Jean Craighead George’s My Side of the Mountain (1959).  Sam runs away from home, which is an apartment on Third Avenue in NYC, and lives off the land in the Catskills.  His home away from home is a large hemlock tree.  He hunts, fishes and gathers based on an encyclopedic knowledge of the flora and fauna of the woods.  To keep warm and cook, he constructs an indoor fireplace.  He sews his clothes from animal furs and skins. He befriends weasels and raccoons, and he raises and trains a hawk. Sam doesn’t get fleas or even mosquito bites and he is only sickly once.   Whew! 

The author clearly knows whereof she speaks when describing wilderness survival. She offers some explanation of her knowledge in the introduction.  The illustrations of plants and objects are her own. Yet, while it’s an engaging story, it was entirely unbelievable to me, fantasy without a purpose.  I simply could not relate. Despite the author’s introductory remark that there is a universal kid-desire to run away from home, I never even remotely considered such an awful thing. 

Maybe this is more of a boy’s passage-into-manhood book.  Young Sam certainly does very manly things and exhibits a lot of gutsy confidence to spend so much time all alone with forest animals, snowstorms and passing strangers.   I won’t give away the ending except to say that Sam’s father is more of a 60s kind of free spirit.     

I’ve saved the best for last.  In my opinion, everyone should read The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare (1961).  The author has ingeniously and succinctly explained what it means to be a man (and indirectly a woman) and to follow Christ.  That’s a pretty tall order for a work of YAF.  The setting is the Holy Land in the year 30 AD or thereabouts.  Jesus is one of the characters in the story as is Simon the Zealot who will become one of Christ’s twelve apostles.  The protagonist is Daniel, a Jew of probably 15 to 18 years of age, whose rage against the Romans along with his expectations of the coming Messiah have driven him to an outlaw’s life.  Daniel has a choice to make as to what kind of man he will be and how he will fight for freedom.  There’s action and suspense right up to the end.  In fact, I became quite agitated reading the last ten pages as I awaited Daniel’s choice. 

I read this as a younger self not knowing much about the life and times of Christ. Nonetheless, Speare’s young protagonists and their concerns must have emerged to me as understandable and genuine. Their thoughts and dilemmas must have drawn me in.  The inclusion of Jesus as a walking, talking character in the narrative must have brought the past into the present and, again, I was drawn in.  So it was this time reading as an adult.  Ms. Speare is a wonderful writer. 

I hope you'll choose from among these titles to read for yourself or pass along to kids and grandkids.