Top 100 YA books as chosen by nerdfighters

[Clover]

NPR has created a list of top 100 YA books (http://www.npr.org/2012/08/07/157795366/your-favorites-100-best-eve...) and happily, a lot of John's books have been included. I'm a little disappointed/underwhelmed by the rest of the list and figure us nerdfighters can do better.

So do your worst! Nominate your top YA reads, I'm curious/fascinated to see your nominations! Go!

[Summer Thyme]

I would have definitely put 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn' on the list of my top YA novels.  I was really disappointed/surprised to see it wasn't there!  Also, 'The Bell Jar' basically got me through my last few years of high school, but perhaps they weren't counting that as fitting in the 'young adult' genre?  I also remember really enjoying 'Bless Me, Ultima.'  Also, where's 'Ender's Game'?!

I recently re-read the Tamora Pierce 'Song of the Lioness' quartet, and I have to say I was a little disappointed.  That series is generally hailed as being "pro-lady power," yet nearly every time the heroine encounters a male figure, she gets all weak and emotional and stereotypical "female."  Of course, I didn't realize it when I read them (I was probably... 12?).  For very similar reasons, I would not have put the 'Twilight' series anywhere near this list.  Those books don't really present a very healthy image to young women ("Oh, I will cease to be without you!").  

I was stoked to see the Abhorsen series though :)

[Emily Kleinschmidt]

I agree with The Bell Jar. Many teens an relate to themes in this book. Also, why was Twilight on the list? :)

[Stefan Farrell]

I would nominate the Mortal Engines series by Philip Reeve which have remained favourites of mine since I first read them four/five years ago.

Also, I was pleased to see The Chocolate War on the list and I would nominate a similar book: Inventing Elliot by Graham Gardner which I think is fantastic.

Lastly, I was disappointed to see nothing by George Orwell; 1984 and Animal Farm are two of my favourite books. Maybe they wouldn't be considered YA though.

P.S I wouldn't have put Twilight on the list. I did try to read it but wow was it awful

[Ryan Gatts]

Hey guys, I'm pretty sure this list is arranged by voting. That explains the presence and order of the Hunger Games and Twilight series as well as Harry Potter's position as number one. They have a blog post (http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2012/07/24/157311055/best-ya-fic...) that explains why some excellent (and obvious) books were excluded from the poll due to maturity and others snuck in due to popularity. I think I would have preferred a more curated list, personally or maybe a "vote for three" system so the results weren't so skewed toward the currently popular.

As for my nominations, Ender's Game (Card), The Thief of Time (Pratchett), Frankenstein (Shelley), and Grendel (Gardner). Also, are we allowed to include excellent comic books? If so, Scott Pilgrim (O'Malley) did an excellent job of making me assess who I was and how I treat people.

[Clover]

Whoops! I started this discussion and then forgot to add anything to it!

When I first saw the list, my immediate reaction to it was 'WHAT?! No Melina Marchetta?! or Sara Zarr?' so I'd definitely have loved to have seen any of their books on the list. I'm really happy that the Chaos Walking trilogy is on the list as well as the Tiffany Aching books.

I think I still need to think of what other books SHOULD really be there.

[Kate]

Totally agree with you! Twilight makes NO sense. It's about fake love with fake creatures...what?
Classics are the real books!
That and Harry Potter and John Green's books.

[Clover]

Less of the 'this book shouldn't have been there' and more nominating the books that should? :)

[Brie Cheesman]

I was incredibly surprised (and slightly upset) that The Lovely Bones and George R.R. Martin's books weren't included! I did like their variety, though. For this I would nominate Daddy Long Legs, Breathing Underwater, and Daughter of the Forest.

[Vylot Hart]

Tithe and Demon's Lexicon are both fantastic, and I would highly recommend both.

[rc]

This is actually a really solid list. I'm surprised anyone would say otherwise. Look at the top 20! Every one of those books needs to be on this list (save those that you could argue as not actually being YA novels). And there's a great amount of inclusions to legitimize it beyond that: Flowers for Algernon, Speak, Howl's Moving Castle, Forever..., Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, Something Wicked This Way Comes, The House of The Scorpion... and that's just me picking out random deserving names. I mean, I'm eager to see nerdfighteria make their own list, but they could do worlds worse than starting from this one.

My issue is gonna be figuring out what constitutes a YA novel among the classics. Is Great Gatsby YA? Animal Farm? Brave New World? Things Fall Apart? The Kite Runner? They're all taught in my local schools, but I'm not sure if that's a good measure to use.

Anyway, I was surprised not to see Life of Pi on there. 

[Clover]

My criticism is that they've relied too heavily on the classics. This is a list created by people who don't read much modern YA apart from the huge titles and authors (The Hunger Games, Divergent etc)

[rc]

I suppose we just disagree. Nearly 3/4 of the list are novels from the last 20 years. It hit a lot of the obvious choices (because most deserve the spot), but also threw in a ton of titles I could easily see being glossed over by less careful eyes.

I agree with you on making our own list. I LOVE making lists. But I won't be surprised if more than half of the titles from the NPR make it on ours.

Off the top of my head, I nominate TFIOS, Looking for Alaska, and Paper Towns. (But not Katherines, because I only gave that book a 4 out of 5. :P)