<p>My son’s favorite books in high school were (he is now 21):</p>
<p>Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Great Gatsby…yes another teenage boy who enjoyed The Great Gatsby!</p>
<p>how about The passage, by Justin Cronin?</p>
<p>Many of the books that I would suggest have been listed already.
Will only try to list new ones:.
My DS likes humor AJ Jacobs: The know it all, the year of living biblically, my life as an experiment.
Davinci Code
City of Ember
The Giver
Flowers for Algernon</p>
<p>Lots of good recommendations here. I have two daughters, older now but both were very strong readers and both around age 15 fell in love with The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I had tried to push The Hobbit on older d a few years before but she couldn’t get into it. </p>
<p>Going out on a limb here but I am also going to suggest true classics such as Tale of Two Cities and The Count of Monte Cristo. Also The Scarlet Pimpernel… great reads. </p>
<p>Ok, there were already some amazing suggestions (Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, Patrick Rothfuss). Here are a couple that weren’t on the list: Cinder (Lunar series) by Marissa Meyer, Legend by Marie Lu, and The Rook by Daniel O’Malley. The Rook will grab him from the first minute. </p>
<p>I also agree with the graphic novel suggestion. My son reads them almost every night. I know they aren’t on most people’s radar as “great novels” but at least they are reading. </p>
<p>Audiobooks are another blessing. We are in the car quite a bit and listen to them all the time to while away the time. Books that might have been boring as written can sometimes come to life with a great narrator. I would highly suggest the audiobook version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.</p>
<p>Orson Scott Card, Ender series was enjoyed by S at that age. Redwall series was also enjoyed. D loved classics which were illustrated as comics–same plot and vocabulary, just lots of cartoons to move the story along. Our public library had them-- D read them in comic format then re-read the classic books. Dune series, Star Wars series were also popular with our kids. </p>
<p>
Sometimes things that we remember as great reads may not seem so great to kids of today. I remember, for example, thinking that “Last of the Mohicans” was a great read–until I took a look at it more recently. It’s really, really long, and the writing style is very old-fashioned. So don’t be disappointed if a kid–especially one who doesn’t read a lot–can’t get into something like The Count of Monte Cristo.</p>
<p>I used to read all the Edgar Rice Burroughs books (Tarzan and others), and my son read and enjoyed them also. They aren’t exactly great literature, but they are fun.</p>
<p>I’ve given Roald Dahl books to 2 boys in elementary school. Costco had a set of 12 of his famous books. While Matilda and The Witches may be too young, he has books for older children. Some of these were used in a former TV series. The stars of these books were generally HS kids.</p>
<p>Hate to revive such an old thread but, any reviews on the books?</p>