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Positive YA Fiction
Return to Fiction_L Booklists Menu
June 2003
Compiled by Deborah Mullen,
of Willoughby-Eastland Public Library (OH), from contributions by the members of Fiction_L.
(To use this list in your library, book club, etc., please include the following credit line: "Compiled by the subscribers of the Fiction_L mailing list." This list may not be used for commercial purposes.)
- Love Among the Walnuts / Jean Ferris
- Son must save his parents from greedy uncles trying to steal the family fortune. Humorous.
- Gold Dust / Chris Lynch
- An Irish Catholic boy and a Haitian immigrant find friendship through baseball as Boston deals with racism in the 1970s.
- Long Way from Chicago / Richard Peck
- Brother and sister spend summers in a small Illinois town with their one-of-a-kind grandmother. Humorous.
- Oddballs / William Sleator
- Stories based on Sleators childhood. Laugh-out-loud funny in places.
- Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones.
- Very funny, but also deals with some serious issues, like violence and parent/child relations. Great for boys, the main characters are Blade (14), his father, Derk and his brother, Kit (15) and a griffon!
- Will Hobbs
- Books are great, the boys get into trouble but face the consequences and they always have a positive outcome. Great adventure stories.
- The "Blue Avenger" series by Norma Howe might work The Adventures of Blue Avenger; Blue Avenger Cracks the Code; and Blue Avenger and the Theory of Everything.
- The books are quite humorous, but still manage to deal with weighty issues like heroism and free will versus determinism
Upbeat endings and general humorous nature:
- Joan Bauer -- Back Roads, Thwonk!, Squashed
- Angela Nissel -- The Broke Diaries: Confessions of a Good Girl Gone Broke
- Meg Cabot-- Princess Diaries series
- Louise Rennison -- Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging
- There's an entire Georgia Nicholson series following this one
- Louise Plummer -- The Unlikely Romance of Kate Bjorkman
- Very funny
- Patricia Kindl -- Owl in Love
- Megan McCafferty -- Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings
- Catherine Clark -- Truth of Dairy
A few for the boys too:
- Anthony Horowitz -- Point Blank
- Stephen Chbosky -- Perks of Being a Wallflower
- Not exactly light-hearted, but I (the recommender) have yet to give it to a guy who didn't like it
- Rob Thomas -- Rats Saw God
- Chris Crutcher -- Iron Man
- Crutcher always goes over big with the fellas
- Sue Townsend -- The Adrian Mole Diaries
- Bridget Jones for the male teen set
Fun YA titles for guys:
- Anderson, M.T. Feed, Burger Wuss, Thirsty.
- Diary of a Teenage Stud , Star Wars, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms series.
Anything Randy Powell, Rob Thomas.
- Gospel According to Larry by Janet Tashjian.
- Colfer, Eoin, Artemis Fowl series.
- Pinkwater, Daniel, Education of Robert Nifkin.
- Lansdale, Joe R., The Boar, Magic Wagon, Fine Dark Line, The Bottoms
- The last 3 are not YA per se, but all feature positive young male central characters that may be suitable for most teen. There are minor sexual references and fairly considerable language/violence issues in the latter 2, i.e. murders, foul-mouthed racists, etc., but nothing as extreme as in Lansdale's other adult fiction.
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