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Good options for young adult novels I can read with my community college developmental writing classes?

  • What are some good options for young adult novels I can read with my community college developmental writing classes? The novels don't have to be "young adult" per se, but they should be engaging and high interest. The developmental writing curriculum where I teach has been recently changed to include a literary analysis unit. Because this change is new, no one has figured out what works best, so I am experimenting. I am going to have the class read summaries and reviews of 5 novels and vote on which one to read. The novel will be the basis for the analysis essay. What would be good options for this assignment? Some helpful information: The book should be on the short side. ~200 pages is a good target. I would like recent publications, very new if possible. There should not be a movie version of the novel. However, I am going to try to link the chosen novel to a film or documentary for the comparison/contrast unit, so if the novel's theme connect well with a film, that's a plus.

  • Answer:

    How about Ender's Game? It's been in development hell; there still isn't a script for it AFAIK. Animal Farm isn't "new," but the odds are very low that they've seen (or even know about) the (weird) film version. I can't remember how long Starkid is, but it might work, too.

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1984 I guess? The Handmaid's Tale might be well suited to our times. Seconding The Great Gatsby, as the movie is coming out soon* *I dislike this book somehow but remember many of my classmates finding it moving. Really though-- Avi's books are firmly Young Adult and may be too "young," but very much gripping well written and filled with adult themes. If you've read them, remember how intense they were? If not, they're still worth it. There's the parodic Emily Upham's Revenge (one of his least appreciated, but one of favorites... would be great if shown with a Coen Brother's movie)... Nothing But the Truth is about a teenager expelled from school for refusing to say the pledge of allegiance. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle is great. Joyce Carol Oates may have something suitable- Firefox, as I remember, is about a girl gang set in an industrial upstate NY town. There may or may not be a movie version with Angelina Jolie; I don't believe there's any connection to the browser though.

kettleoffish

kbar1

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ender%27s_Game_%28film%29 is actually out of development hell. Writer/director Gavin Hood has recently finished shooting the film for a 2013 release.)

thesmallmachine

Full disclosure: I work on this website. These articles have some good recommendations: - http://www.adlit.org/article/42153/ - http://www.adlit.org/article/24554/ - http://www.adlit.org/books/c809/ (a booklist)

sa3z

I think that both Starters by Lissa Price (about old people who rent out the bodies of the young) and False Memory by Dan Krokos (action-oriented novel about genetically engineered soldiers) would appeal to readers in a developmental writing class. They're both short, with fairly simplistic writing, but also action-oriented and high interest.

PhoBWanKenobi

A couple classics: Erich Marie Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front, and Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart. Both are under 200 pages and are very simply written, and both are likely to engage male students who need more encouragement to read.

tully_monster

Maybe Emma Donoghue's http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0316098337/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/? It's a bit longer than you specify but it reads pretty quickly, and the child's voice is amazingly well sustained. And it's comparable enough to Jaycee Dugard and other similar cases in the news, so you might be able to make that linkage.

dlugoczaj

You might find thishttp://www.npr.org/2012/08/07/157795366/your-favorites-100-best-ever-teen-novels as a helpful cross reference to the books listed here.

spec80

I'll second Feed by M. T. Anderson. http://lazyreaders.com/level/index.php?level=Young+Adult&order=title a website dedicated to reviewing short novels; the link goes to the "YA only" sorting section.

kyrademon

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