Children's Books

Hmm, I'm not sure if I've ever read that one, and I've read a lot of books by her.

Does John Bellairs count as children's literature or young adult or what? I liked those books, although I only was able to get a few when I was actively reading them.

I assumed he was kids' books. I read only one of his books, and I liked it: The Figure in the Shadows.

Now, could anyone help me with recommendations? I really like Pyrates, and this site introduced me to The Castle In The Attic (I prefer the sequel).

But basically, what I tend to like is adventure, more on the suspense rather than action side, in a contemporary setting. Mystery, as long as the focus is more on the suspense, can also work. Yes, I realize that's very specific, but when I find it, I gobble it up.

Examples include My Teacher Is An Alien (the first two, before the series changed genre and turned into drama), Pyrates, The Castle In The Attic and especially the sequel Battle for the Castle (well, that takes place in a fantasy setting, but it involves being transferred to another world, so it's still pretty contemporary), A Spy In The Neighborhood, and Janie's Private Eyes which is the last of The Stanley Series.

Checking their works pages could help go into detail about what makes these books what they are, rather than going into a lot of detail here. But they pretty much mostly involve kids who end up having to sneak around, avoid getting caught by the bad guys, and solve problems using their wits rather than fighting - a key component of what separates adventure from action to me.

Does anyone know some good stories that are pretty much of that type?

And sorry if this sounds rambly and hard to understand. I'm very tired and it's late at night.

If it's well written, incredibly entertaining, or simply looks interesting, then I'll take a gander at it. Though I never dive down into too young an audience, usually keeping the bottom of the barrel at young adult.

as a full grown teenager

i have only read Alice in Wonderland

all my other reads are Darker and Edgier cuz thats what all teens are

I read a variety of children's books in addition to regular books, but the ones I particularly want to mention and recommend are The Roman Mysteries, The Western Mysteries and the Alcatraz Series. The first two are historical mystery fiction. The third is an exceptionally funny series by Brandon Sanderson, who is finishing up The Wheel Of Time.

Also, the CHERUB Series is a pretty good young adult Spy Fiction series and is FAR superior to Alex Rider in the teenage spy genre, with the kids using tecniques closer to Real Life undercover cops than the over the top James Bond rip offs.

edited 12th Jul '11 9:55:12 AM by Auxdarastrix

But what if you prefer over-the-top?

I've started tracking down and reading the Nintendo Adventure Books from The '90s. They were for kids, but sometimes I wonder how the Hell young children were supposed to solve the randomly complex puzzles in some of them, though maybe I just suck at math.

And so very, very many Incredibly Lame Puns.

Still fun, though.

edited 13th Jul '11 3:21:54 AM by LordCrayak

I really enjoyed The Little Prince.

I'm a little suspicious of anyone who didn't enjoy The Little Prince.

edited 22nd Jul '11 9:32:30 PM by Bur

I personally thought The Little Prince was depressing as all hell.

As for relatively new books, has anybody brought up The Shakespeare Stealer? It's completely awesome.

Haven't heard of it; what's the synopsis?

Basically, there's this ill-treated apprentice to a country pseudoscientist of some kind who invents a form of shorthand, which the boy proves very apt at. The scientist's lessons don't attract much of a market on account of his being an eccentric douche, but the boy's skill does catch the interest of rogues who have expended a lot more effort than shorthand would promise to pirate plays, and in return for his piracy at the next performance of Hamlet, they'll have him sitting pretty. After the usual round of things going haywire that happens with these "in and out missions", he ends up inducted into Shakespeare's company and there are divided loyalties and buttloads of compelling if rather two-dimensional characters and just a lot of awesome going around. If I had to compare the general feel of the story to anything, it'd be Zilpha Keatley Snyder.

edited 23rd Jul '11 9:45:33 PM by DomaDoma

Huh. Unusual. I'm not too sure how I feel about the concept overall, but I do really like Snyder, so that's a pretty hefty recommendation to me... What's the author's name?

Speaking of books set in historical times, I found a book recently called Eye of the Moon that looks interesting. It's set in ancient Egypt. I have a huge weakness for anything Egyptian, so I'm going to see if any local library has a copy (it looks rather new) and see if it's any good.

I just finished Sharon Creech's Walk Two Moons, a proper Newbery Award Winner. I remember really liking Creech's The Wanderer, and appreciating it more the older I get — both books are about girls who go on long voyages with their extended families in search of more family and tell stories along the way, and it leaves the exact nature of what happened in the girls' past a mystery until the very end.

Also, a bit of a Tear Jerker.

I really liked Walk Two Moons. The stories that are told are mostly family dramas, and I felt that they had a lot of verisimilitude — especially that of Phoebe, who can be so annoying, and who insists that her family is rosy-happy-picture-perfect, even when Sal (our narrator) can see the cracks at the seams. And Sal's own family drama is very well-rendered, too — a heck of a lot better than Out of the Dust. (Both books feature trauma that happens to the narrators' pregnant mothers, but Moons has much more subtlety and depth than "One day I accidentally set my pregnant mother on fire.")

Anyone else read Walk Two Moons? Thoughts?

I have, but it's been too long. All I remember of Walk Two Moons is a scene with blackberries or... something.

I found a book at the library today called Belly Up, and am reading it. It's interesting thus far, if occasionally a tad on the preachy side.

how did i forget the little prince
gaaaaaah

I always liked Roald Dahl's children's books. Never read any of his adult stuff, which I've heard can be incredibly twisted. And come to think of it, the kid stuff had its fair share of twisted too. Willy Wonka in particular seems like a much more suspicious man when you revisit that story as an adult.

Check out Skin, which is a collection of his adult works. It's the best kind of twisted!

my sense of twisted dark humor comes from roald dahl
his autobiography, Going Solo, is hilarious

I am reading a kids' book right now.

Granted, it was written for kids living in the 1910's.

I tried to read Peter Pan once, but it had that particular variety of Show, Don't Tell endemic to children's literature for a good long while, where they'll tell you the kids did exciting and fun and dangerous things, but heaven help you if you show kids in actual peril!

Wendy got shot with an arrow to the chest.

She mysteriously got better despite incredibly incompetent medial attention by kids playing doctor, but still.

In any case, Peter Pan is surprisingly and deliciously dark for a kids' book. No kids died (so far, anyway), but many of them did get pretty close.

I really like Captain Hook, too, he's an interesting villain (though his obsession with Peter borders on irrational and you don't know ow it started), very clever and dangerous, hardly at all the buffoon he was portrayed as in the Disney version.

edited 30th Jul '11 1:02:49 PM by annebeeche

Oh, Peter Pan is quite dear to my heart. It's quite a misunderstood work: people use it as shorthand to talk about a work that praises neverending childhood and being a kid forever, when the fact is that Peter proves how that's a horrible, lonely way to exist.

Has anyone read the little companion story, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens? Talk about paranoia fuel.

So in my quest to read every book by the late Diana Wynne Jones, my most recent read is The Lives of Christopher Chant.

...I am kicking myself for never having read this book before. It uses one of my favorite plot devices/settings/whathaveyou: Casual travel between multiple worlds, which are all quite different. I love that "many worlds" feel. It's one of the reasons I got so frustrated with the One Hundred Cupboards series—it uses that as a setup, but completely ignores it in favor of using maybe two alternate worlds and ignoring the rest (and those two alternate ones are the most generic fantasy worlds ever). But I love the Anywheres in this book. And the way Christopher goes between them.

And Tacroy is just... Gah! (I haven't yet finished it, so I seriously hope he doesn't turn out evil, since he's working with the Obviously Evil Uncle Ralph.)