Don't knock it until you've tried it. Sometimes the best thing to get back your inner child is to live their life for a couple hundred pages. Or it's the best way to live vicariously through a rebel, the opposite gender, someone more charming than you, someone with a different passion than you, or just a different culture or sex drive. How else can you experience life as someone else? That's truly the best thing about literature.
When I was younger I would read a book or two a day (another good thing about young adult lit is that it's quick to read, even though the themes and plot can be as emotional and struggling as many adult texts). I remember a reading log I had to keep in 5th or 6th grade and I read over 100 books that year. I think my teacher thought I was making some of them up but I promise I read them all cover to cover.
Just recently I got rid of hundreds of books I had kept from my childhood. We tried to sell them at a garage sale but I suppose no one wants children's/young adult books from 10 years ago. That's sad. I ended up donating many of them to the Goodwill. However, there were many that had emotional significance for me and had to be kept. Such as the Sweet Valley High: Senior Year books from Francine Pascal, the Fearless Series from Francine Pascal, and many of my more recent young adult picks, such as Meg Cabot, E. Lockhart, and the classics like Catcher in the Rye and Weetzie Bat. Speaking of which, Weetzie Bat's author, Francesca Lia Block, has written a new book of poems, the cover of which I simply adore!
How cute is that?! Plus the excerpts I have read from it seem emotionally captivating. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post an excerpt here due to the copyright, but I am taken aback by "thirteen: the little oven ..." so if you have a chance to read it, go for it! If that's an example of what's to come, I definitely will need a copy of this book.
My recommendations for the moment are on the left of my page. There are so many books I want to read at the moment, however my unemployed status has significantly limited the amount of books I can buy, and my lack of mobility due to my learner's permit and my mom's constant double shifts have limited the amount of libraries I can visit.
However, if you have a chance to pick up any young adult books at the moment, I recommend Audrey, Wait! if you want to know how one girl's life can change due to an ex's song about their break up, Cathy's Book if you want to know about a teenage female artist and her encounter with an interesting group of individuals who don't appear to age, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower if you want the perspective of someone who feels like they're on the outside looking in.
Of course I have a million more recommendations, so as soon as I have a new place and a bookshelf with all of my books proudly displayed, I'll let you know some more wonderful finds. I can't wait to rediscover them with you.
P.S. Until then, lit city events in Buffalo courtesy of Artvoice: http://artvoice.com/issues/v8n24/literary_buffalo/lit_city .
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