Shelf discovery: What books to recommend to an (almost) teenager

An unusually thoughtful question set me to thinking; what books did I love reading when I was younger, and what ones would I recommend to my 12-year-old son?

This weekend, while out with my eldest son, who’s 12, we went to a bookshop to kill some time before a trip to the cinema (Mission Impossible; The Final Reckoning. Too long. First hour’s basically an info-dump. Main villain's a bit 'meh'. But if you like the M:I franchise, you’ll probably end up loving it. I did).

As we all know, bookshop browsing is the best way to kill time, even if it does usually end up costing you money and adds to that already vertiginous bedside ‘To Be Read’ pile that, if accidentally toppled during the night, would require heavy machinery to pull you free. Anyway, while perusing the shelves, my son sidled up to ask me a question. I was fully primed for the usual queries, of which the the top hitters are;

-              ‘Can I borrow some money?’

-              ‘Can I have something to eat?’

-              ‘Can I borrow some money for something to eat?’

However, none of those were what he asked. Instead, he looked around the shop, taking in all the shelves and the thousands of book it held, and said;

-              ‘I’ll be a teenager next year, Dad. What books do you think I should have read by now?’

So, my in-built, automatic response of, respectively, ‘No’, ‘Maybe’ and ‘In a bit’, was somewhat thrown by this unusually thoughtful question, and I was stumped. Luckily, 12-year-old boys have the attention span of... well, a 12-year-old boy... so I didn’t need to answer the question there and then. But the next time we go to a bookshop – or at some random point in the coming days –  I know he’ll ask me that question again, so I started wondering what books I should recommended.

"My in-built, automatic response of, respectively, ‘No’, ‘Maybe’ and ‘In a bit’, was somewhat thrown by this unusually thoughtful question."

For me, being 13-years-old was eons ago, but I tried to recall what I read around that age and what books really resonated with me, nurturing my love for storytelling and reading. There are some books that I was forced to read at school which, for many of my classmates, automatically meant they must be boring (some absolutely were) but one of those books was Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. To this day, To Kill a Mockingbird is my favourite book.

I can’t remember exactly how old I was when we read it in class, probably 13 or 14, but while some of the subject matter is adult in theme if not in actual language, it was – and still is – a beautifully told and impactful story with characters that live long in the memory, and is a book that should be at the top of his reading list.

Other similar books in this particular area would be John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men and William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. The former was one I read around that age, again at school and, again, I loved it. The story of George and Lennie's friendship, the struggles they face and the situation they find themselves in is timeless, and resonates just as much now as it did 90 years ago (when it was released, not when I was at school. I'm not quite that old).

"The language can seem a bit old fashioned (there’re no mentions of Jem having ‘rizz’, Jack being ‘sigma’ or Lennie being 'swole')."

As for Lord of the Flies, stories about kids aren’t always for kids – The Cement Garden and The Wasp Factory, for example – but Golding’s classroom classic has, if memory serves, just the right amount of tension, danger, drama and violence to keep almost-teens hooked without causing nightmares.

The language used in Lord of the Flies, and similarly in To Kill a Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men, can seem a bit old fashioned (there’re no mentions of Jem having ‘rizz’, Jack being ‘sigma’ or Lennie being 'swole'), but the writing is so sharp and the characters so well-drawn that, to more modern ears, the language hopefully feels appropriate rather than alienating.

There’re also the modern classics, of course. He has already read and re-read the Harry Potter books a number of times and while I only read the first couple in the series, I can fully understand the appeal. Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, however, I tried and failed to get into so it’s hard to recommend a book when it wasn’t one that grabbed me, however popular and well-reviewed that trilogy was.

"I remember being sightly obsessed by the book and the details it held about a new biological and emotional world that was waiting for me."

One book I did love, and which also acted as a guide for life at that age, was Sue Townsend’s The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, aged 13-and-three-quarters. I remember being sightly obsessed by it and the details it divulged about a new biological and emotional world that was waiting for me. Again though, I can’t remember exactly how old I was when I read it, and whether 12 is just a bit too young to be dropping such teenage time-bombs. Possibly the clue’s in the title…

Another I'll definitely be recommending is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, Mark Haddon's category-defying story (it was released as an adult fiction novel and, simultaneously, as a children's book) about being an outsider and is a brilliant, thought-provoking and exciting novel.

There are others, of course: The Hobbit [not a huge fantasy fan, but loved it. Less so the ponderous Lord of the Rings trilogy, which I gave up on half-way through The Two Towers]; Treasure Island [a proper, old fashioned adventure story]; pretty much anything by Roald Dahl [Boy was always my favourite]...

... but there must be loads of other great books that I'm missing off my list. Books that passed me by because they were released when I was already too old to be attracted by them, or ones I'm simply unaware of because I never read them.

"If there are other books that my son should place on his own 'TBR' pile, I'd appreciate you letting me know what they are."

So, if there are books I should know about, ones that my son should place on his own 'TBR' pile, I'd very much appreciate you letting me know what they are. There are so many amazing stories out there, so many books I know I'll never read... but that doesn't mean someone else can't.