This month's topic: Books that we have read as adults and wish we could give to our younger selves.
Looking back, my childhood reading was really limited. I read all the time, but after I got to about age 10-11, what I read was The Babysitters' Club and Sweet Valley Twins/High almost exclusively. If I ever picked up anything else, it was almost always another series like Sweet Dreams, Sunset Island or Katherine Applegate's teen series. I don't think I read anything that was particular acclaimed or still regarded as a great book to pass on to the next generation. I read a much more varied choice of YA now.
If I made a post about all the children's and YA books I've read and enjoyed since becoming an adult, this post would be a million words long, so inspired by Crystal at Vanilla Hearts, I decided to narrow it down to books I really think would have helped me in some way when I was younger; given me confidence and helped me feel better about myself.
Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli
Every young person who is a little different and doesn't quite fit in should be given Stargirl. The character of Stargirl has an infectious personality and I think she'd make any oddball feel proud to be one, too. The whole book really celebrates marching to the beat of your own drum and not letting what other people think of you hold you back, which is a message I really needed when I was a kid.
I love Ruby Oliver as a heroine and I recognise many parts of my 15 year-old self in her, so it would have been nice to have met at the same age. Ruby goes through a lot of the problems I did: panic attacks and being ostracised from friendship groups. I think the fact that Ruby has such a good relationship with Dr. Z would have made me feel better about seeing a shrink, because I was really resistant to the idea when I was a teen.
Some Girls Are by Courtney Summers
I think this book would have helped me because I dealt with mean girls and being bullied and I think if I'd read this book as a teen, I would've been able to say: "Yikes! At least what's happening to me isn't that bad!"
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
Two E. Lockhart books on the list! I guess she really speaks to Teen Me. Seriously, when I was a teenager and was just starting to think about things like feminism and why it was always the boys who lead the classroom discussions even though the girls knew as much, and why when we went out as a group, we always ended up going where the boys wanted to go (the arcades), having a role model like Frankie, who could actually articulate these things and do something to challenge it, would have been great.
