Kids Books are for Grown-Ups, Too!

As an adult, you might think I have an unnatural addiction to Children’s literature. Sure, I read an adult book every now and then, or tackle a tome of poetry or a lit mag, but most of my literary diet these days consists of books for young readers. Books written for young readers have a lot to offer older readers as well, especially right now! Here are some of my recent favorites for all you supposed grown-ups to check out:

Angus, Thongs, & Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison
Georgia is a pretty typical English 14-year-old. Her best friend Jas is useless – she has accidentally started a rumor that Georgia is a lesbian and doesn’t understand subtlety whatsoever. At school Georgia is always in trouble since she is always getting roped into the pranks of the chain-smoking school bullies. Georgia’s mother and father are suddenly making googly-eyes at each other again and Georgia is stuck as a substitute parent for her baby sister. Worst of all, Georgia can’t help but really really like Robbie, her sworn enemy. The honest hilarity of Georgia’s diary will have you in stitches, with no awkward moment of teenhood glossed over for the sake of decency.

Crank by Ellen Hopkins
Written entirely in verse, this is a gut-wrenching purge of a novel. Visiting her deadbeat dad in New Mexico, 17-year-old Kristina discovers Bree, the other side of herself that seems not to mind her dad’s dingy apartment on the wrong side of the tracks. Bree is the kind of girl who can fall for Adam, the boy downstairs who introduces her to “the monster.” By the end of her stay, meth is all Kristina can focus on, and she has to fight to find her real self inside the girl that Bree constructed.

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson
From page one, Pearson’s narrative fills your head with questions that can only be answered as you turn each page. Jenna has just woken from a coma, was transported across the country in secret, and can’t remember a thing about herself before “the accident.” Her parents treat her like a fragile keepsake, but her grandmother, a doctor, will barely acknowledge her. Jenna comes to realize a few things: her father is a doctor who engineered BioGel, a substance that has allowed for medical miracles never before imagined; her parents have a strange computer locked in their closet; she remembers things from her infancy. Jenna starts to wonder how she really survived “the accident,” and why it’s such a secret.

Sweethearts by Sara Zarr
Jennifer (or Fattifer, as her classmates call her) is a nine-year-old struggling to fit in at an all-Mormon school in Salt Lake City. Her one friend, Cameron (whose abusive father does not mince words), disappears the day after Jennifer’s ninth birthday. No one knows what happened, and the kids at school tell Jennifer that Cameron is dead. At seventeen, Jennifer is now Jenna – she is thin and healthy, her mom and new stepdad have good jobs, and she goes to a progressive high school where she has a ton of friends and even a boyfriend. Then Cameron appears in her homeroom, and the past comes back to Jenna whether she can handle it or not. Sweethearts touches the struggle that is growing up, and the parts of ourselves that we can never leave behind.

Graceling by Kristin Cashore
In Katsa’s world, some people are born with a Grace. Katsa is one of those people, and her uncle the king uses her Grace – the ability to kill – to his full advantage. But with a few nobles, including her cousin, the heir to the throne, Katsa forms the Council, who run counter missions to undo the wrongs of wayward rulers. It is through this council that Katsa meets Po, a Graceling prince who is in search of his kidnapped grandfather. Soon Po and Katsa find themselves together on a journey to right the most appalling wrong of all. A mystery to the very end, it also has a refreshing feminist voice that doesn’t leave a bitter aftertaste.

Savvy by Ingrid Law
In Mibs Beaumont’s family, when you turn thirteen, you get a special power called a savvy. Mibs is terribly excited about her special day, but just before her birthday, her father is in an accident. She is determined to help, but how can she? Her Momma and oldest brother go to visit Mibs’ Poppa in the hospital, leaving Mibs and her younger siblings with the preacher’s wife. Mibs, more determined than ever to get a great savvy stows away on a pink bus with her brothers and the preachers kids, only to find out that the bus is going in the wrong direction. The five kids are inadvertently knee-deep in adventure and when Mibs’ savvy comes, it is not only less than extraordinary, but it threatens to drive her to the brink of insanity. Savvy incorporates elements of faith, family, and, of course, magic into the charming tale of one girl’s fight to overcome the trials of adolescence with as few scrapes and scratches as possible.