So when I was a teenager there wasn’t a lot around that was aimed at me. Girls books went: Little House on the Prairie, Little Women, and oops - now you’re an adult!
But I was very lucky because my Mum ran a bookstore and we lived right upstairs. There was a carousel of books between the kids and adults section and on it there was Forever by Judy Blume and there was Fifteen by Beverly Cleary. I read them. I put them back. I read them. I put them back. Eventually someone bought them but by then I’d practically memorised them.
Now you have a whole world of teenage and Young Adult stuff out there and it is truly fabulous. Here are some of my personal favourites:-
Meg Rossoff - How I live now
Jenny Valentine - Finding Violet Park and The Ant Colony
Rebecca Stead - When You Reach Me
Sacci Lloyd - The Carbon Diaries
Dyan Sheldon - And Baby Makes Two
Meg Cabot - Teen Idol
Frank Cottrell Boyce - The Unforgotten Coat & Millions & Framed
Mark Haddon - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
Jacqueline Wilson - Queenie
Order them all from the best bookshop in the world:-
