Carica

quote=tbain]My 13 year old son read a book called Skellig which was from the school library and he recomended it.

Yes. those phrases are exactly the kind of thing I was thinking of. And "Emperor's New Clothes" fits too. I can think of plenty of books written recently that aren't cliched.

I'm gonna agree with those who didn't like it/didn't get into it. I read the whole thing and thought it ill-written and cliched in the extreme. The character of Death had very little to do, and very little connection to the main character: there was nothing that made her any more special to Death than any other child living through the War and the Holocaust. Death's little interjections were darn irritating and smelled of gimmickry. For such a long book, why the heck did the girl not kiss the boy? She put it off so many times, in really artificial ways, just so the reader could get the pathos of the ending of that situation. And the descriptions were so 'purple prose' you needed a filter to read them. Fine metaphorical words about the sky or about the process of reading do not a great novel make. There are good books written for the YA readership (and older) about WW2 (and from various perspectives) but this was the most codswallopy of the dozen or so I've read. Its sentiment and storyline was admirable but the execution was sentimental, IMO.

Can't think of any teen books that teens would want to read that didn't include controversy or mature themes. Swearing comes by the by with some but not all. Not everyone likes fantasy so you're presumably thinking about real-world kind of stories? Okay, how about books by David Almond? They are a little bit magical-realisty but deal with emotions and 'different' characters. Skellig, or Clay, or The Fire-Eaters, or Kit's Wilderness are all good. Michael Morpurgo writes pretty depressing books really but they have mature themes without going over the top: Private Peaceful, When the Whales Came,. Eva Ibbotson's Journey to the River Sea is a good story about family and 'green' issues. What do you mean by mature themes? Nothing to do with boy/girl relations at all? Or things like war (lots of good books around set in WW2). Books which are no way offensive are the Casson family books by Hilary McKay. There are five books in the set about different members of the family. But they don't necessarily appeal to all boys. Geraldine McCaughrean's books are usually very good and not "dealing with teen abortion" kind of thing. Any of her books would be good but Peter Pan in Scarlet is pretty ace. Or pick a classic like Black Beauty or Treasure Island. You won't read them over two sessions though.