Recommended Mainstream/Children's Fiction
"Never judge a book by its movie."--J.W. Eagan
Louisa May Alcott
Little Women. A touch on the moralistic side, but I remember it fondly.
Lynn Reid Banks
The Fairy Rebel. A sweet children's fantasy about two rebel fairies and the changes they bring into a sad, lame woman's life.
Melusine. A moody YA love story that draws upon the French legend.
One More River. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the eyes of two teenagers.
Nick Bantock
Griffin and Sabine: An Extraordinary Correspondence. An epistolary with the letters in envelopes so you can take them out, giving you a clandestine feeling of snooping on someone else's correspondence. It chronicles the tempestuous relationship between an artist and a mysterious woman.
Nina Bawden
Carrie's War. A girl who's sent to the English countryside during World War II, and the power of belief.
Peter S. Beagle
A Fine and Private Place. A ghost story about love and murder, or a love story about ghosts and murder, or a murder story about ghosts and love.
Gillian Bradshaw
The Beacon at Alexandria. Historical fiction. Charis is the daughter of a well-to-do nobleman in the Eastern Roman Empire, with an unconventional passion for the medical arts (although the family tutor refuses to touch Galen because of his "common" language). When she is promised in marriage to a cruel but powerful man by her weak-willed father, her outraged older brother and nurse hatch a plan to send her to Alexandria in the guise of a eunuch seeking to study medicine. The story follows her struggles as a putative eunuch, her involvement in religious conflicts (Nicenes vs. Arians, and she serves as assistant to a Jew) and military dangers--and the tangled trajectory that finally allows her to be a woman and a doctor. Thanks to my sister.
Island of Ghosts. Historical fiction concerning a group of Sarmatian cavalry who, after being defeated by the Romans, are obliged to swear service to the Roman Emperor and are shipped to Britain as defense against the Picts. Ariantes, the commander of one dragon of Sarmatians, is torn between the need to "Romanize" to assure the best for his hot-tempered men, and to preserve his own honor and culture. Even worse, a conspiracy against the Romans reaches out to touch him.
The Sand-Reckoner. Historical fiction about Archimedes in Syracuse during the First Punic War. The absentminded but brilliant mathematician/engineer finds himself embroiled in duty to his city after his return from Alexandria, and an inadvisable love for his tyrant's daughter; his slave Marcus is torn between loyalty to his people and to his master. This sounds grim, but the tale is warmly and humorously told, with well-drawn characters all around.
Barbara Cohen
Unicorns in the Rain. A retelling of the Flood from a curious, not-quite-sf perspective, with a bittersweet ending.
Paulo Coelho
The Alchemist. A boy's quest for the secrets of alchemy leads him to a deeper understanding of the world.
Susan Cooper
What Katy Did. The story of a rambunctious tomboy who not only changes after she is crippled by an accident, but changes the lives of those around her.
Robert Cormier
The Chocolate War; Beyond the Chocolate War. Life and rivalries at a Catholic boys' school form the backdrop to a deeper exploration of individuality and social pressure. The first is better; the second has some interesting ideas, but the ending is a cop-out, flinching at the last minute from various issues that have come to a head.
Jennifer Crusie
Faking It. Women's fiction. Tilda, a muralist from a long line of art forgers, is put in the uncomfortable position of attempting to steal back her past works from an overzealous collector, which results in her hiding in a closet after breaking in. A reformed con man who has had money taken from him by way of his predatory ex-lover and his accountant is put in the uncomfortable position of attempting to get it back, which results in his hiding in a closet after breaking in. Yes, the same closet. And from there things just go downhill: lovers meet, sparks fly, family secrets are upended, and even an exasperated hit man is dragged into the resulting tangle. Hilarious stuff. I almost couldn't stop laughing.
Tell Me Lies. Women's fiction. Maddy's day goes from bad to worse when she discovers crotchless black panties while cleaning out her husband's car, said husband having cheated on her before. What's more, an old lover, C.L., chooses this time to show up back in town. For the town is Frog Point, which few people escape, and no one is entirely free of their past, their reputation, their family history. Part romance, part mystery, part comedy (though with darker underpinnings).
Roald Dahl
Matilda. About a sweet-natured, misunderstood genius named Matilda, who flourishes under the tutelage of her teacher Jenny despite Matilda's father, the sleazy used-car salesman; Matilda's mother, who is empty-headed; and the school headmaster, the formidable and frightening Miss Trunchbull. Quentin Blake's illustrations are perfect for the writing.
The Witches. Witches plan to take over the world, and a boy with species problems has to stop them, along with his redoubtable grandmother.
Liza Dalby
The Tale of Murasaki. Historical fiction set in Heian Japan. A luminous yet convincingly personal fictional account of Murasaki Shikibu, who wrote The Tale of Genji. The portrayal of court life in particular suggests ennui, pettiness, and splendor all at once. Thanks to Paul Thorgrimson.
Lois Duncan
Daughters of Eve. Feminism twisted, in the guise of a teacher who inspires young women for better and worse...and a biting criticism of American society's treatment of women. Somewhat dated.
Down a Dark Hall. Students at an exclusive school discover they're victims in a parapsychological experiment.
Walter Farley
The Black Stallion. First in a children's series centering around a boy who survives a shipwreck with a hot-tempered stallion known only as the Black, and their entry into the world of thoroughbred racing. Later entries range across various subjects, and even take a turn for the psychedelic in places.
John Fischer
Dark Horse. Christian allegory from a horse's viewpoint. No relation to the Farley books.
Esther Forbes
Johnny Tremain. A children's historical bildungsroman about a smith's arrogant but talented apprentice and his involvement in the American Revolution after an accident cripples his hand.
Jean Craighead George
Julie of the Wolves.
Barbara Hambly
A Free Man of Color; Fever Season; Graveyard Dust; Sold Down the River. Historical mysteries set in 1830s New Orleans. Benjamin January is a colored pianist and surgeon newly returned to the city of his birth, New Orleans, from Paris after the death of his wife. However, a chance encounter with a former creole piano student, now a widow, coincides with the unexplained murder of Angelique Crozat, a notorious octoroon, at a Mardi Gras ball. January finds himself sucked into the city's byzantine social and racial politics, the plans of American capitalists, and even the world of voodoo as he seeks to clear his name of the murder. Hambly depicts the hothouse Mardi Gras atmosphere and the subtleties of creole/colored/black culture with breathtaking delicacy, and the first novel's memorable characters include not only January, but his two sisters, a policeman from Kentucky, and a Prussian dueling master. So far I liked the first the best, but the others are good reading as well.
Rosemary Harris
The Moon in the Cloud; The Bright and Morning Star; The Shadow on the Sun. Biblical fantasy.
Marguerite Henry
King of the Wind. One of Henry's many fictionalized accounts of historical horses, in this case, the Godolphin Arabian, one of the three foundation sires of the thoroughbred.
Victor Hugo
Les Misérables. Jean Valjean, a man condemned to prison for 16 years after stealing bread for his starving sister and her children, is pursued across the years after he is freed by the unrelenting Javert; along the way he brings hope to an ailing prostitute, adopts a daughter, and becomes embroiled in the bloody fight for freedom.
Shirley Jackson
We Have Always Lived in the Castle. A mystery in reverse from the viewpoint of an eccentric girl living with her eccentric sister after their parents were murdered.
M.E. Kerr
The Books of Fell (Fell; Fell Back; Fell Down omnibus). A tangled young adult mystery series told by John Fell, a young man and trouble-magnet who ends up involved in a private school's prestigious club, the Sevens, and its dangers. Though the plot wears thin at times, especially in the 2nd and 3rd books, Fell is a sardonic, sensitive, and altogether likable character.
Deliver Us from Evie. YA fiction. Duffton is a small, conservative farming community. Parr Burrman is the third and youngest child of a farmers' family: his older brother Doug is smitten with a girl who disdains the farming life, his older sister Evie--who strikes people as "butch"--is increasingly ostracized when she takes up company with the town banker's beautiful daughter, and Parr himself is afraid that, if even Evie leaves, he'll be stuck with the farm. Rumors start to spread about Evie, who is tough, masculine in affect, and sweetly funny, and Patty Duff. Evie is hit hard by the rumors (for Evie is, indeed, lesbian), but a family friend, Cord, who has been in love with Evie for a long time, is hit even harder. Meanwhile, Parr has just fallen in love with Angel, and is desperate for Angel's approval and escape from Duffton. All these factors lead to Parr's single irrevocable act, for which I despised him (let's just say I can't imagine doing anything analogous to my sister)--but he suffers for his decision. This is sensitive, with a lot of great characters who veer away from the expected stereotypes.
"Hello," I Lied. YA fiction from the viewpoint of a gay young man whose identity is thrown into confusion by the arrival of a feisty French-American girl, Huguette. This is both funny and poignant, and unlike in many of Kerr's books, the relationships don't go in terminally depressing and screwy directions.
Rudyard Kipling
The Jungle Book; Just-So Stories.
E.L. Konigsburg
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Two children run away from home to live in a museum and become entangled in the mystery of whether a newly-uncovered statue was, indeed, by Michelangelo.
A Proud Taste for Miniver and Scarlet. Children's historical fiction through the eyes of Eleanor of Aquitaine.
Madeleine L'Engle
(A Wrinkle in Time); A Wind in the Door; A Swiftly Tilting Planet; (Many Waters). Religious allegory that makes for unconvincing sf, but effective Christian fantasy.
Namioka Lensey
Village of the Vampire Cat; Island of Ogres; Lair of the White Fox. Children's mysteries set in feudal Japan: in their wanderings, two ronin are confronted with many strange and seemingly supernatural goings-on. There are others in the series that I haven't tracked down.
Jack London
Call of the Wild.
Jean Merrill
The Black Sheep. A lovely children's fable about an outsider black sheep who likes to garden, to the ridicule of his fellow sheep.
Haruki Murakami
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. This starts out about a man whose marriage is slowly falling apart, then becomes bizarre, starting with a phonesexcall from a mysterious woman whom he doesn't recognize, but who claims he knows her, if only he would realize it. More mysterious women appear in his life, from the cynical but refreshingly straightforward 17-year-old girl next door, who dubs him "Mr. Wind-Up Bird" after something he shares about the bean-sidhe-like bird whose creaky call he describes as "winding up the day," to the seeress Malta Kano and her prostitute sister, Creta Kano.
The disappearance of their cat, an old prediction that water will prove dangerous, and the machinations of the man's brother-in-law begin weaving together into a pattern pointing at atrocities in Japan's WWII past. Emptiness and spiritual deadness, the moon (women, waxing/waning phases), and water (that which fills emptiness, conveys emotion, drowns) are pervasive motifs, and while I started tracking the water-imagery early on, I'm pretty sure that there are depths beyond my ken. Beautiful and elliptical, disturbing as much as it entrances.
Scott O'Dell
Island of the Blue Dolphin. Children's historical fiction.
Sing Down the Moon. Children's historical fiction.
George Orwell
Animal Farm. A disturbing animal fable that also doubles as allegory for the Communist revolution in Russia.
Linda Sue Park
When My Name Was Keoko. YA historical about a Korean family toward the end of the Japanese occupation. The book is not without its flaws; the alternating first-person POV between the girl and her brother is initially awkward, but Park's tale of confused loyalties, survival beneath a foreign power's heel, and love of family is engrossing. The other quibble is that part of the ending feels like a cop-out. Nevertheless, Park's tale is earnest and moving, with an afterword that, among other things, highlights the dilemma of the Korean "comfort women," who are briefly and obliquely alluded to in the narrative.
Ellen Raskin
The Tattooed Potato and Other Clues. An odd, edgy and wry series of mini-mysteries that lead up to an unexpected dénouement. Worthwhile for the eccentric characters alone, and the subtle sensitivity to personal dilemmas of various stripes.
The Westing Game. A truly original mystery about an inheritance it takes years to find.
Wilson Rawls
Where the Red Fern Grows. Children's fiction about a boy who goes hunting with his coon hounds.
Murasaki Shikibu
The Tale of Genji (trans. and abridged by Edward G. Seidensticker). Thanks to Paul Thorgrimson.
Marilyn Singer
The Course of True Love Never Did Run Smooth. YA. A high school performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream becomes a stage for the development of the relationship of two childhood friends. Warm and witty.
Zilpha Snyder
The Egypt Game. A group of kids form an imaginary kingdom in which they seek to recreate some of the exotic mysteries of ancient Egypt.
Elizabeth George Speare
The Witch of Blackbird Pond. Semihistorical fiction set in colonial England around the time of the American Revolution. Kit is a rebel from Barbados who has a hard time adjusting to the Puritan ways of her New England relatives after her grandfather dies. While she slowly wins the affection of her new family, she lands in trouble by befriending an old Quaker woman and teaching a girl to read; and when disease spreads through the settlement, the whispers point first to her.
Jerry Spinelli
Maniac Maggee. A runaway boy bridges black-white racial boundaries with his love of running.
Antoine St. Exupéry
Le petit prince (The Little Prince). A heartbreakingly sweet fable of a little prince from another planet and his travels/travails for the love of a flower.
Mildred Taylor
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry; Let the Circle Be Unbroken. The travails of a close-knit black family--landowners resented by many whites in the community--during the Depression.
James Thurber
The Wonderful O. A feast for word-lovers and pun-makers: when a land is stripped of the letter O by a tyrant, rebels rally to take it back.
Gloria Whelan
Angel on the Square. YA historical fiction from the viewpoint of Katya, daughter of a waiting-woman to Tsar Nikolai II and Empress Alexandra. While Katya is at first naïve and sheltered, unwilling to hear her orphaned cousin Misha's indictments of the Tsar's rule, war comes inevitably to Russia, and Katya must come to a new understanding of her land and her place therein. Whelan's depiction of hardship is honest yet compassionate.
Homeless Bird. YA fiction. An Indian girl, Koly, has a marriage arranged for her at the age of 13. But her husband is a sickly boy with tuberculosis, her husband's parents are more concerned about the dowry money to cure their son with than with Koly, and she takes a tangled road until she finds a future that brings her joy. Beautiful and poignant.
E.B. White
Charlotte's Web. A children's animal fable. On a farm, a young pig learns wisdom, nad the nature of death and birth, from a spider.
Trumpet of the Swan. A mute swan's enterprising father steals him a trumpet so he can "sing."
Paul White
Jungle-Doctor's Stories. Lovely Christian animal parables.
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