For this month’s edition of “The Teen Pager” I asked three of my biggest reader friends to recommend one of their favorite books and share what they love about it. The results ranged from a true classic, to fantasy, to dystopian.
I love getting a good book recommendation from friends and hearing what resonated deeply for them about a book. Now I’m passing their recommendation on to any bookworms reading the column so we can all be connected by these cherished books
The books they named are “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, “Once Upon a Broken Heart” by Stephanie Garber, and “Warrior Cats” by Kate Cary, Cherith Baldry, Tui T. Sutherland, and Inbali Iserles, writing together under the pen name Erin Hunter.
“Once Upon a Broken Heart”
This one comes from my friend Klara. We met a few years ago at camp in upstate New York, and one of the reasons we are such good friends is because we connect through our favorite books. She’s my favorite person to get fantasy book recommendations from, and we frequently converse about our favorite female book characters. Stephanie Garber wrote one of my favorite book series, “Caraval,” and “Once Upon a Broken Heart” has a few crossover characters from that series. The first in the “Once Upon a Broken Heart” series, this book focuses on a male protagonist named Jacks, an ancient fate whose alter ego is the Prince of Hearts and whose kiss is supposedly deadly.
In this series, Jacks was freed from an enchanted deck of cards in which he was imprisoned by the female protagonist, Evangeline. Evangeline is an imaginative young girl who is deeply in love. When she finds out her one true love is planning to marry another, she is desperate to do whatever she can to stop their wedding, even if that means making a dangerous deal with the Prince of Hearts. What does he ask for? Evangeline must kiss three people of his own choosing. After her first kiss, it appears as if Jacks wants more than just entertainment out of Evangeline. As they spend more time together, tension grows, and their feelings for each other start to skyrocket, leaving their deal in great jeopardy.
Klara’s quote of choice from this book is, “I believe there are far more possibilities than happily ever after or tragedy. Every story has the potential for infinite endings.” In Klara’s words, “This quote inspires me to make the best decisions for myself and to persevere, because there is always a light at the end of the tunnel if I choose for it to be there.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
“Warrior Cats”
Andrey, one of my good friends from school, is one of the most sophisticated readers I have met.” His book of choice is “Warrior Cats.”
He loves a classic dystopian novel, but this series will always have a special place in his heart, as it was the one that got him fully into reading. “Warrior Cats” is a 47-book series. Yes, that’s right, 47! Here, we're just going to focus on the first book, called “Into the Wild.”
The book follows an orange housecat named Rusty who is tired of his mundane life when he takes notice of a group of wildcats from a nearby forest. They call themselves the ThunderClan. Rusty becomes so infatuated with the clan, that he leaves his former owners to join this group of fierce, sharp-eyed cats, who agree to train him and treat him as one of their own, despite some clan members' reluctance.
After Rusty is thrust into what seems to be the middle of a fight between rivaling clans and defends his own, the clan bestows a new name upon him: Firepaw. Just as Firepaw, formerly Rusty, starts to feel comfortable, he is exposed to all kinds of horrors he never thought he would experience, becoming ensnared in murder, lies, and betrayal. It seems the ThunderClan isn’t what he thought, and suddenly, he must figure out what is going on under the clan’s tough exterior and who he can really trust.
Andrey’s favored quote from the series is, “He’s dying nine times, Firestar realized. Oh, StarClan, no. . . .”
In Andrey’s words, “It really sets the tone of a certain character as a villain. It’s brutal and shocking, but that’s what I like about it.”
“To Kill a Mockingbird”
The final book comes from my close friend Brynn, who I have known since we were babies (way before we could even read). This book is an absolute classic that Bryn read last year in eighth grade, and it has stuck with her ever since. Her tastes are a lot like mine in that we both love fantasy and romance but also appreciate a true classic that has stood the test of time.
Published in 1960, the book is told from the perspective of Scout Finch, recalling a time when she was a child in her small Southern town. Scout's father, Atticus Finch is a lawyer defending a black man wrongly accused of a terrible crime and one of the themes of this book is racial injustice and moral courage. It also tells the story Scout, her brother, Jem, and friend Dill and their fascination with the Radley Place, a house in their town that is rumored to be haunted by Boo Radley, who has not left his home in years. Although the children think Boo is a monster who can't be trusted, Boo often leaves them presents outside of the Radley Place and will come to help them in unexpected ways.
Scout learns early that what people may say about others isn’t always credible. Over the course of the book, she starts to understand the unfairness of her own town, and to question the often fair picture painted of the law. Brynn’s quote of choice from this novel is, “When enough years had gone by to enable us to look back on them, we sometimes discussed the events leading to this accident. I maintain that the Ewells started it all, but Jem, who was four years my senior, said it started long before that. He said it began the summer when Dill came to us, when Dill gave us the idea of making Boo Radley come out.”
The quote “really captures the essence of how this story is through the eyes of a child, which is one of the many ways it makes the story so unique,” Brynn said.
Maybe reading this column is a sign to give your friend a book recommendation. It may become one of their own favorite books.
Happy reading!
If you have any suggestions for other book recommendations, you can email me at [email protected].