Alison Morris

New Adult Books To Give to High School Students

Here at the store, my fellow children's booksellers and I have been putting a lot of thought into our holiday gift lists, which we assemble in similar format to our summer reading lists in a big combined booklet for all ages (adults, teenagers, and kids). The high school portion of the list is often the piece that I find hardest to put together. Since the focus is on books that would make good gifts, we try to choose newer books (usually hardcovers) and try also to make the bulk of our selections ones that parents or grandparents or long-distance aunties will think sounds appealing.

This gets tricky with the high school set. Since so many adults are oblivious to the existence of, let alone the quality of, good young adult literature, I feel compelled each year to include some titles from the "adult" section of the store (meaning the books for grown-ups, not the books behind a black curtain in a dark corner -- we don't have one of "those" sections). Sometimes, too, I'll find that our young adult section doesn't seem to be home to, say, a good, new recommendation for 12th-grade boys that doesn't sound too edgy or sexy or young. Or I'll find that our staff (myself included) has been reading a lot of heavy, depressing books, as much of what's published for young adults (especially at the older end of YA) seems to fall into that category. While I can include a couple titles that are less than "cheery," on our holiday gift list I can't fill the list with those or we simply won't sell ANY.

But, as many of you reading this probably experience as well, in order to keep up with what's happening on the children's and YA end of the literature spectrum, I simply don't have time to read much on the adult side. This means that choosing YA-appropriate books from our adult section is a challenge for me. Sometimes a couple of our booksellers will have suggestions, but often they're stumped by these requests. If you don't currently live with teenagers or know a lot of teenagers or read a lot of books for and about teenagers, it's often hard to know if a book is teen-friendly or if it will have teen appeal.

Enter Susan Taylor. Susan was the adult book buyer at our store for several years, during which time she shared an office with me, later with both me and Lorna. She now works for Market Block Books, an affiliate of the Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza, in Troy, N.Y.

Susan is, for lack of a better term, a reading FIEND. I have never in my life known anyone who could devour books at such a high speed as Susan, let alone remember those fast-read books in such detail. On top of that, she has great taste and great insights into what readers will and won't respond to in a story. When I worked with Susan she would often tell me, on a Monday, about the three or four books she'd read over the weekend. Sometimes one of those would have been a middle grade or YA novel, which obviously had a lower page count, but usually those books were adult books. And often the weekend books were in addition to the two or three books she'd read during the work week. And, yes, Susan also had a social life, so, no, she wasn't communing with books all weekend. As I said, she's a reading fiend.

When Lorna suggested we contact Susan for adult/YA crossover suggestions, I applauded this brilliant solution to our brainstorming dilemma. And when Susan responded with (as expected) a list of what I can only assume are great recommendations, I asked her permission to share it with you.

Here, without further ado and in no particular order, are Susan Taylor's seven suggestions for great new high school-appropriate adult books.

The Little Book by Selden Edwards
(Dutton, August 2008)
Time travel back to fin de siècle Vienna. I have no interest in Vienna, but this was great. It reminded me of The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay, one of my favorite novels ever; it has the same type of heroic protagonist with the same sort of boarding school/wise mentor trappings.

Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron
(Grand Central Publishing, September 2008)
Heartwarming animal story entwined with a tale of small-town renewal.

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
(Harper, May 2008)
Told by a dog, the story of his life with his master and his family. Loyalty and good win out over duplicity and bad; trials and tribulations abound, but justice prevails.

American Savior: A Novel of Divine Politics by Roland Merullo
(Algonquin Books, August 2008)
What would happen if Jesus returned and ran for the presidency of the United States? Morality tale clothed in satire. I loved Merullo's previous book Breakfast with Buddha; that's why I read American Savior immediately.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
(Dial Press, July 2008)
Epistolatory novel, fast reading, set right after WWII.

The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti
(Dial Press, August 2008)
Cross John Irving with Oliver Twist, add a dash of magical realism, and you'll get this entertaining novel of an orphan's search for a family.

Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream by Adam Shepard
(Collins, October 2008)
A college graduate decides to see if the American Dream is still attainable. He picks a city, takes a bus there with the clothes on his back and $25, and tries to make a go of it. His goal: an apartment, a working vehicle, and $2500 in savings in a year. Inspirational!

Would you also recommend these books for high school students? Can you think of others that should be added to this list? If so, please comment!

Posted by Alison Morris on November 12, 2008 | Comments (29)