Good Children's and YA Fiction

[Anonymous No.7030015]

A thread in which the /lit/erary masters give suggestions of books for younger people that are actually good, fun, and thought provoking to the youthful imagination.

My entry is the sublime Chronciles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander

[Anonymous No.7030021]

>>7030015
Choose Your Own Adventure books.

They instill in children a capable spirit and a sense of their own volition.

[Anonymous No.7030032]

>>7030021
A worthy class. Any worthy titles of the genre you would care to impart?

[Anonymous No.7030059]

>>7030032
Not specifically. I last read one about 15 years ago. They're pretty short and easy to pick up/drop, so it's not hard to find a good one.

I liked the Lone Wolf series, which is pretty much Conan Lite, but YMMV.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamebook

[Anonymous No.7030079]

Diana Wynne Jones' Howl's Moving Castle, Castle in the Sky and House of many Ways
Peter Beagle's The Last Unicorn
Astrid Lindgren's Ronia Robber's Daughter
Ursula LeGuin's A Wizard of Earthsea and it's sequels

[Anonymous No.7030093]

>>7030079
>Le'Guin
up to and including the Farthest Shore. Tehanu is a soapbox

[Anonymous No.7030094]

>>7030015
I liked the series A LOT as a kid, but it seems too similar to the lord of the rings for certain plot points. Were the authors friends?

[Anonymous No.7030189]

>>7030094
I think it seems similar because of archetypical story structures inherent in High Fantasy, rather than through direct copyong or influence on anyones' part

[Anonymous No.7030200]

>>7030189
I think it's possible they just shared the same influences.

Like The Princess and the Goblin or The Mabinogion.

[Anonymous No.7030235]

Great choices so far.

I want to recommend to books I didn't read as a child but recently. They're beautiful, thoughtful, and I think I would have gotten a lot out of them as a kid:

Phantastes by George MacDonald
Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees

Phantastes is the story of a young man who, upon coming into his inheritance, is whisked away to fairyland where a dreamquest slowly unfolds: he gets into fairytale-inspired mishaps, is haunted by his own shadow, and slowly learns himself.

Lud-in-the-Mist is about a stuck-in-the-mud society living on the borders of Fairyland, but which officially disavows the reality of all things fairy. The hero, a middle aged respectable citizen with a pedestrian, prosaic exterior masking a dreamy inner life described as "feeling nostalgic for things present," turns out to be just the man to save him homeland when an ambivalently insidious plague of fairy-influences start infiltrating his society, including but not limited to a epidemic of addiction to fairy fruit-- a druglike food which induces madness, poetic ecstasy, despair, and death.

[Anonymous No.7030271]

Some of the Disworld books are pointed at YA, I have only read the "adult" ones though.

[Anonymous No.7030277]

>>7030235
I think Phantates is appropriate for older teens, around 16. Sometimes the language MacDonald uses can be very...obtuse, and his sense of plotting and pace would probably be difficult for children to follow.

Lud-in-the-Mists I firmly believe is good for older teens and adults.

[Anonymous No.7030290]

>>7030277

I preferred to throw myself into the deep end as a kid, but if we're going younger:

The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper. Great Arthurian lore mixed with adventure with teens.

[Anonymous No.7030327]

Watership Down

[Anonymous No.7030335]

>>7030290
I hear you, friend. My first few books I read were Victorian classics like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and others, and I read Ivanhoe in 6th grade, whichn excellent book for teens that I greatly suggest anyone read.

[Anonymous No.7031471]

>>7030015

I recently came across my old set of these and read them for the first time as an adult. There's no doubt that they're written for an audience of children, but I was very impressed at how well they hold up from an adult perspective. The language is simple, but he does a fantastic job of working in lessons about duty, sacrifice, loyalty, and what it means to be a man without beating you over the head with it.

>tfw you will never be an Assistant Pig-Keeper

Oh and to answer your actual question: I remember loving his other books as a kid as well (especially Time Cat).

[Anonymous No.7031698]

>>7030015

Mah nigga, this is the exact edition of these I have. Bloody amazing stories.

[Anonymous No.7031719]

>>7030094
Both are pretty heavily informed by the actual mythopoeic themes of their locale.

Prydain is deeply grounded in Welsh mythology, but Tolkein's purview is a little shallower and broader, touching lightly on Norse, Celtic, Finnish and other themes.

[Anonymous No.7031725]

>>7030015

[Anonymous No.7031728]

The Neverending Story is an obvious choice.

[Anonymous No.7031747]

Some of the more adventurous Waverly novels by Sir Walter Scott, like Ivanhoe and the Talisman are excellent booka suitable for teens up to adults. The language can be odd at times, but they're well worth it. Ivanhoe has retained its place as my favorite books for about 15 years

[Anonymous No.7031767]

Alice in Wonderland is endorsed by Wittgenstein

The works of Kenji Miyazawa are endorsed by anyone who is worth a damn in Japanese Literature, after him.

And the Little Prince, of course.

[Anonymous No.7031788]

>>7030015

[Anonymous No.7033040]

Anything by Howard Pyle is solid children's literature. His rendition of Arthurian myth is actually my favorite...

[Anonymous No.7033045]

The Jungle Book

[Anonymous No.7033054]

>>7030015
Ah, I love Chronicles of Prydain to this very day. Yes, the stories are simple, but the characters are just so charming and witty. Eilonwy was my first crush.

[Anonymous No.7033056]

I loved Robinson Crusoe as a kid, read it for the first time when I was 10/11 and couldn't put it down.
Just re-read Treasure Island and that's also nice.

>>7031767
I second Alice in Wonderland.

Aside from classics, I also liked Philip Pullman's trilogy. Northern lights, subtle knife & amber spyglass.

[Anonymous No.7033082]

>>7033056
>>7030015

This thread is actually quite relevant to something that's happening to me. I have a little sister, or half-sister (9, I'm 23) to whom I would like to introduce the wonders of lit.

She saw me reading aforementioned Treasure Island and asked me if she could borrow it when I was done. I think she must have read all of two pages before she put it down and complained that she was bored because there were words she didn't understand. I explained that it was written over a hundred years ago and that there are words in the book that are no longer used in every day speech, she seemed relatively shocked then asked me what a 'hedge' was...

Anyway, I think that because she grew up (/is growing up) in a bilingual household in a non-english speaking country (France), her ability at each respective language isn't as good as it should be, or would be were she to only use one language.

I'll keep looking at the suggestions given here but if anyone has any particular (case-specific) recommendations then that would great.

not op btw but thanks for making a nice thread.

[Anonymous No.7033184]

>>7033082
I'd say Astrid Lindgren isn't too hard.

[Anonymous No.7033283]

>>7033082
I'd say introduce her to more modern works. Treasure Island, while explicitly a children's book, is a bit advanced for today's children purely because of the archaic language contained therein. It's the same with anything by Howard Pyle.

I second Astrid Lingden, and once again recommend Prydain. Try also the fairy tales of Madame d'Aulnoy

[Anonymous No.7033532]

Shame this thread isn't getting more traction.

For the younger readers, anything by Laura Ingells Wilder is great for girls. And the classic children's story, Charlotte's Web, should be in any kid's library

[Anonymous No.7033574]

>>7033056
I found Pullman too preachy and bitter as a kid to get the most out of his works, and for some reason was really put off by the sudden, inexplicable romance at the end between what i had perceived as a fantastic example of strong platonic cross-gender friendship.

Pic related was great, though. A little dark for younger kids, but charming, funny and clever; great for anyone that likes elaborate fantasy worlds but dislikes the self-importance of most fantasy novels.

[Anonymous No.7033643]

>>7030015
I loved Lloyd Alexander when I was a boy. His books have a lot more heart than Tolkien's.

Another book I loved as a boy was The Count of Monte Cristo, which also has a lot of heart.

Cool thread, by the way, OP.

[Anonymous No.7033966]

>>7033643
Ah, the Count of Monte Cristo! Good suggestion, friend. I second it, and add that the Three Musketeers (abridged if the reader is rathed young) is another excellent book for adventerous youths.

[Anonymous No.7035062]

The Once and Future King by TH White

[Ignatius Neworleanus Rex Intel(...) No.7035082]

>>7030015
>A thread in which the /lit/erary masters give suggestions of books for younger people

you can just fuck right off and die scrub

[Anonymous No.7035084]

>>7033574
Not the same person you replied to, but Walter Moers is great. I've only read Rumo so far, but I have all his other books that have been translated into English. I definitely need to get to those soon.

[Anonymous No.7035796]

>>7035084
I've heard good things about this book too! It seems to be less heavy on the lavish descriptiveness that I enjoyed in The Alchemaster's Apprentice (which reminded me in some parts of À rebours, lol) but more "epic" than the story of a talking cat who is foiled at every turn trying to escape a death contract. When I was a kid, I registered an account on a wiki for Moer's work only to create a single article about a weird organ of one of his made-up creatures (not the creature itself, just the organ). It didn't play an important role in the narrative either; the main character ate it and said that it tasted weird and then it was never mentioned again. I suppose that says something about the kind of person that I grew up to be.

I liked Douglas Adams when I was in elementary school, even if some of the content in his books is a bit risqué for young readers. It might be good for children who don't have the attention span for slower-paced books, since he crams a gag into every other sentence. He rivals even Pullman in his preachiness, though.

[Anonymous No.7035935]

>>7030015

Read the Westmark series, and the Vesper Holly books.

Prydain gets all the love, but it's not the whole.

Other suggestions: Patricia A. McKillip, Anne McCaffrey, Lawrence Watt-Evans and Guy Gavriel Kay.

[Anonymous No.7035944]

>>7030015
GOAT children's book coming through.
I also will always have a special place for the little prince.

[Anonymous No.7035949]

>>7031788
holy shit this

[Anonymous No.7035954]

>>7030015
nop

[Anonymous No.7035999]

Moers loses some of it's genius in translation, but I suppose that's true for all literature.
I feel like his use of the German language is really nice and part of what makes his books so enjoyable.

I'm glad I was fortunate enough to enjoy the originals, the covers we got are much nicer, too

[Anonymous No.7036020]

The Edge Chronicles are pretty great.

It's one of the few YA fantasy settings that's not a Tolkien knockoff and it's world changes in terms of technology and society over the course of the series which is pretty cool
Also it features sky-pirates and wizards that live on a floating rock

The illustrations are fucking incredible as well, I can't overstate how top notch they are

When I was a child these books sparked my imagination and got me into drawing, they are great.

[Anonymous No.7037208]

>>7035944
I fully support this comment in its entirety.

[Anonymous No.7038658]

Anyone planning on going to the Plum Creek Children's Literature festival? I can't wait. October 3rd. Mark it.

[Anonymous No.7038704]

>>7030094
Alexander's prose is much better

[Anonymous No.7038724]

>>7033082
>people who are bilingual never get good at either language
wut? maybe your sister's just a retard

[Anonymous No.7038742]

>>7038724
Maybe you should shut the fuck up.

[Anonymous No.7038823]

C'mon, guys, no bully

[Anonymous No.7038839]

I remember that I once got a copy of Monsterblood Tattoo. Really nice job at world creation. Anyone else ever take a look at it?

[Anonymous No.7038840]

>>7038839
Never heard of it. What's the setting?

[Anonymous No.7038874]

>>7038840
Pretty neato. I read it a while ago, but I remember that it had heavy dickens and maritime influences. One of the major points was that there were monsters (of course), as well as a very acidic sea. Sailors were called vinegaroons. Monster blood would permanently stain your skin in a way specific to the type of monster (hence the tattoos). I'm talkin orphanages, I'm talkin overcoats, I'm talkin child labor, I'm talkin bags full of poultices and salves. I'm talkin dope shit. The only other thing I remember is that it was part of a Lamplighter Chronicle. Not sure if it ever got past the first book (which was incredibly thick for a childrens' book), but it focused on an orphan kid who got hired as a lamplighter: someone who goes along the roads from station to station keeping the lanterns lit.