Books to get a teen started on classic literature

[scifisam]

Charles Dickens' short stories are much easier to read than his full-length works, and they gallop along in terms of plot. A Christmas Carol, of course, the Cricket on the Hearth and The Haunted Man.

I third Alice in Wonderland. It's not just for kids, and has lots of ideas that influenced later literature.

Do you have any that you personally like? J read Wuthering Heights, not for school, and partly found it easy because we could talk about it, because I like it, and I like it partly because older epistolary novels tell the story in such a removed, "did this really happen or is this their interpretation" way that actually makes even more sense in this post-truth age, and kids often get that pretty quickly.

 

[BigMoaner]

dosteyovsky (sp)

 

[BigMoaner]

especially Notes From The Undergound and Crime and Punishment

 

[xenon]

The ccount of Montecristo. I’m not a big classical literature fan and I don’t even know if that counts but it’s a cracking story. Obviously it was serialised originally but yeah that’s a good one to read.

 

[xenon]

poor old smarty pants amis, i miss him. despite the annoying contrarian "just asking questions" postering in his later journalism, i loved him books. loved them. they provided so much in my twenties. was like having a hillarious friend.

i don't think writers will appear like taht again. don’t know if that counts as classical fiction though. But I’d love London Fields and money. Horrible people very cynical maybe not for a 13-year-old though.

 

[xenon]

Edgar Allan Poe definitely. If they like a bit of the old gothic stuff.

 

[xenon]

Wuthering Heights actually. I read that for A-level English and it’s a great story.

 

[rubbershoes]

Dracula has lots of weird sex stuff and Conan Doyle is full of racism. Silas Marner is a good beginner's Victorian novel though if that's difficult maybe start with Alice in Wonderland or even Kidnapped/Treasure Island. Gulliver's Travels is great fun but even older so the language can be a little tough.

Silas Marner is on the GCSE syllabus

 

[ice-is-forming]

Short stories of HG Wells

 

[purenarcotic]

John Buchan - absolutely cracking adventure stories. The 39 Steps is a classic for a reason, but all of the Hannay stories are great.

 

[maomao]

Silas Marner is on the GCSE syllabus

So are books by Conan Doyle, Wells, Stevenson, Shelley and Dickens mentioned above. Doesn't mean you can't read them earlier. Lots of schools do A Christmas Carol in Year 7. I like Elliot and Silas Marner's a good book.

ETA: and technically that's not a syllabus. 19th century literature is specified on the national curriculum, AQA offer SM as a set text, it's only on a syllabus if a school actually teaches it, which seems to be rarely.

 

[Saunders]

Bullwhip griffin and other books by whoever wrote them, one about something on a paddle steamer, might lead ziggy back into mark twain and then further into literature of that time? I read them when I was 9/ 10/ 11 and they’re quite pacey easy reads
rider haggard, again very quick reads but also jingoistic, so maybe not ideal.
Mills and boon or similar pappy regency/ historical romances, to get the feel of the language and social landscape?
Philip Pullmans Sally Lockhart books, compare the last one ‘Tin something’ to the prisoner of Zenda.
beau geste, and the MASH books together

 

[Aladdin]

Under The Hawthorn Tree by Marita Conlon McKenna...
I think that she wrote a trilogy?

Anything by Dickens..And Ursula Le Guin..(The Earthsea Series)
Tolkien obvs.
Terry Pratchett...
Eoin Colfer..Artemis Fowl.
Oscar Wilde ..The Happy Prince

 

[Humberto]

I'd give another shout for Huckleberry Finn if there's a list needed. Not sure what the youngster would choose if there's a few options. There's the whole short chapters with chapter description header thing. I knew when I read some of the language it wasn't on but wasn't 'mean' given the context and age of the work.

 

[Superdupastupor]

Not Victorian but made me feel like a very grown up 12yrold; the books of Melvin Burgess.

Junk, Bristol 80s, Tar and Gemma become H users. Absolutely stunning.

Bloodtide/Bloodsong
post-apocalyptic retelling of vinking sagas set in 21st UK, full of semi-gods, beast humans captures the very alien culture of prechristian Scandi lore.



,.. Philip Pullman, his dark

trilogy, northern lights, the subtle knifen, the amber spyglass.

..
Philip Reeves
Mortal Engines, Cabalistic cities go hunting and gathering each other.

..
Eoin Colfer
Artemis fowl. Sci fi fantasy, why not both?? Morally dubious characters galore!

....

*1 for John Grisham novels, so readable.

Ian Rankin
Maybe because it's my home city and the time and place but
Loved the Detective Rebus novels.(Boak: just read James Dellingpole, spectator review of new based on TV show, what a fucking wanker jeez)

 

[Plumdaff]

Orwell is very easy to read - Animal Farm or Down and Out in Paris and London reasonable jumping off points.

So much Victorian writing is uber dense but The Portrait of Dorian Gray by Wilde a good short introduction.

 

[frogwoman]

Got to second the Melvin Burgess recommendation

 

[scifisam]

Orwell is very easy to read - Animal Farm or Down and Out in Paris and London reasonable jumping off points.

So much Victorian writing is uber dense but The Portrait of Dorian Gray by Wilde a good short introduction.

Ooh, Dorian Gray is a good suggestion.

I wouldn't recommend Orwell as a way to get used to Victorian writing styles, though. I guess you could say that any good classic book is a gateway to reading older books, but it makes more sense to go directly to the more accessible older books and short stories written in that era rather than adding an extra step.

Bizarre, though, that Orwell was writing 40ish years after the Victorian era ended (depending on which book). I don't think books from the late 70s to early 80s have that big a difference linguistically to books now.

 

[Sue]

Second anything by E Nesbitt. Also The Lost Prince (FH Burnett) and The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge (set in Victorian times).

Has anyone mentioned the Chronicles of Narnia yet?

 

[Jammy smears]

Maybe he could try A Christmas Carol, it's a story he should already be familiar which may encourage him to read it or Oliver Twist.

Great Expectations was always my favourite Dickens but the two mentioned above are more familar stories especially if he's watched adaptations of them.

 

[Serge Forward]

A lot of the good Victorian novels, stories and authors have already been mentioned. But I'll also put a word in for G. Linnaeus Banks' (Isabella Banks) The Manchester Man. Sure, it's got that stodgy Victorian prose style and the story itself isn't that great, to be honest... but the social and political history it covers as a backdrop to the main story is brilliant: Industrial Revolution, Peterloo, Chartism, American Civil War, the mill workers' anti slavery response, the Emma ship disaster, and more. For all that, it's dead good.

 

[JimW]

Riddle of the Sands, Erskine Childers.

 

[Plumdaff]

Ooh, Dorian Gray is a good suggestion.

I wouldn't recommend Orwell as a way to get used to Victorian writing styles, though. I guess you could say that any good classic book is a gateway to reading older books, but it makes more sense to go directly to the more accessible older books and short stories written in that era rather than adding an extra step.

Bizarre, though, that Orwell was writing 40ish years after the Victorian era ended (depending on which book). I don't think books from the late 70s to early 80s have that big a difference linguistically to books now.

Tbh I think Victorian writing is often so challenging I was thinking about books that could help someone build up to it. I'd probably work my way back through Orwell, Hardy, James etc before tackling the 19th century stuff.

 

[hitmouse]

The children yearn for Gogol. Maybe Chekhov as well for short stories, but definitely Gogol.

 

[JimW]

Heart of Midlothian or Ivanhoe?

 

[rubbershoes]

So are books by Conan Doyle, Wells, Stevenson, Shelley and Dickens mentioned above. Doesn't mean you can't read them earlier. Lots of schools do A Christmas Carol in Year 7. I like Elliot and Silas Marner's a good book.

ETA: and technically that's not a syllabus. 19th century literature is specified on the national curriculum, AQA offer SM as a set text, it's only on a syllabus if a school actually teaches it, which seems to be rarely.

All three of my children have done Silas Marner, at two different schools.

 

[maomao]

All three of my children have done Silas Marner, at two different schools.

That's incredibly rare, probably a local teacher did a really good scheme of work on it. They only have to do one Victorian novel and the vast majority (70%+) do A Christmas Carol. I found an article that says only 2% of students read a book written by a woman for GCSE and there are a couple of others on the list (including the modern texts) so I'm guessing less than 1% do Silas Marner (though it's the easiest and shortest female-written Victorian novel on the list). I'd happily teach it but heads like familiarity and everybody's read bloody Scrooge.

 

[ska invita]

I dont think Ive ever finished a book wirtten before....1940 or thereabouts...i say finished, barely even started...Im with Ziggy

 

[Pickman's model]

..

 

[ska invita]

Ive read some Marquis de Sade short stories - they were good fun perfect for a teenage boy too