National Public Radio came out with their list of 100 Best-Ever Teen Novels. What’s missing? Our Little House books. I guess this depends on where one would categorize the Little House series.
This blog post explains why some of the books you might expect to see on the list are noticeably missing. Still…Laura’s Little House books took me through my teens. So, she’s still tops on my list.
What do you think?
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Did I miss it or were none of Louisa May Alcott’s books on there as well? I like Little Women, but I know I didn’t make it through some of their play acting chapters until I was in junior high.
Lists are just for provoking discussion. I can see, looking through NPR’s list, that a great many of their book recommendations are MUCH too dark for the child I was in my teens. Though I have read many of the books I have always been drawn to stories that are uplifting, not depressing or worrying. And I’ve always been less interested in dwarves, hobbits, and vampires than in real people.
I still have the inscribed copy of BY THE SHORES OF SILVER LAKE that my big sister gave me in 1966, when I was seven years old. She had given my younger sister LITTLE HOUSE IN THE BIG WOODS the same year. I’m sure I’d read all the Little House books by the time I was 10 or 12. However I’ve re-read them almost every year since (I’m now 53) so I think they are ageless in their audience.
Funny that ANNE OF GREEN GABLES made the NPR list, but not LITTLE WOMEN. I love both and don’t think one is more “teen” than the other. There is also quite a bit of discussion in the comments about A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN, left off the list … considered too dark! In that case I wonder at the inclusion of some of the modern stuff.
But lists really are just meant to provoke discussion.
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