The Awesome thing about being an 8th grade language arts teacher is reading all the YA books. I mean really, one of my job requirements is to read young adult books so that I can recommend them to my students- how cool is that?!? I have my students complete a 30 book challenge, so I try to have a stocked classroom library with good books for my kids.
I was thinking about some of the top ten YA books from my room that my students have loved year after year. I started by just jotting down a few titles and then I realized it was so hard to just narrow it down to 10, so I thought I would do a general top 10 , a top 10 list for reluctant readers and then a top 11 books in a series list because I couldn’t decide which one to take out!
Please note that not all of these are new books; some are older ones that some of my most reluctant readers love. I also didn’t rank them in a particular order.
Maybe some of thee books are new to you, or maybe you know someone who would love one of these books for Christmas?
So without further ado here are my lists:
Top Ten YA books:
- The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen
- Drums, Girls & Dangerous Pie by Jordan Sonnenblick ( all his books are hot picks in my classroom!)
- Life As We Knew It by Pfetter If you Find Me by
- The Fault Among Our Stars by John Green
- Prisoner B3087 by Ruth Gruener, Jack Gruener and Alan Gratz
- Forgive Me MatthewPeacock by (contains some language and mature content).
- The Absolutely True Diary of Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
- Sleeping Freshman Never Lie by David Lubar
- The Girl Was Supposed to Die by April Henry (also wrote Girl Stolen- which was AMAZNG!)
- If I Stay by Gayle Forman (she also wrote Just One Day & Just One Year- Also awesome!)
Top Books for Reluctant Readers:
1.The Juvie Three by Gordon Korman
2. The Limit by Kristen Landon
3.The Silence of Murder by Dandi Daley Mackall
4. Gym Candy by Carl Deuker
5. Food, Girls & Other Things I Can’t Have by Allen Zadoff
6. Give A Boy a Gun by Todd Strasser
7. Acceleration by Graham McNamee
8. Chasing Lincoln’s Killer & The President Has Been Shot by James Swanson
9. Life As We Knew It by Pfetter
10. Vietnam#1-4 by Chris Lynch. He also just came out with World War II books (quick historical fiction books)
Top Eleven Series Books:
- Ashfall- Ashen Winter- Sunrise by Mike Mullin (due to come our Spring 2014). Click here to read my recent post about this author and books.
- Unwind- UnWholly, UnSouled by Neil Shusterman
- Divergent- Insurgent- Allegiant by Veronica Roth
- Warrior Heir- Dragon Heir- Wizard Heir by Cina Williams Chima
- Maximum Ride- Nevermore (there are 7 books in series) by James Patterson
- Tears of A Tiger- Forged By Fire- Darkness Before Dawn by Sharon Draper
- Eve- Once- Rise by Anna Carey
- Red Kayak & The Journey Back by Priscilla Cummings
- Child Called It- The Lost Boy- A Man Named Dave by Dave Pelzer
- Battle of Jericho- November Blues-Just Another Hero by Sharon Draper
- Maze Runner- Scorch Trials- Death Cure and Prequel A Kill Order by James Dashner ** I know Hunger Games isn’t on here, but I was trying to get some different titles on the list and who hasn’t read that series yet?? 😉
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