The Rough Guide to Books for Teenagers

This neat, chubby, pocket-sized guide consists of over 200 reviews, each 200 or 300 words long, of books with strong appeal to a teenage readership. The selection is split into 11 categories, most of them self-selecting: ‘love, sex and change’, ‘crime’, ‘adventure’, ‘horror’, and so on. Each review begins with a plot description, followed by enthusiastic recommendations in which critical reservations are perhaps too rare and rash superlatives too frequent. Since the main aim is to catch the interest of browsing teenagers this does not matter much, though it is a slight drawback for the teachers and librarians who will form the secondary readership. But every reader is likely to find the guide stimulating and helpful. The choice is catholic, ranging from established classics like Jane Eyre to novels (quite rightly culled from both the ‘adult’ and ‘young adult’ market) published very recently. Best of all is the generous space given to books now a decade or more old, high in quality but at risk of falling victim to turnover fever, such as Joan G Robinson’s When Marnie Was There or Robert Westall’s Falling Into Glory. Happily, too, there is no dumbing down: many of the books suggested are linguistically and emotionally demanding. Since all choices must be in print in a commercial climate of short shelf lives, the guide will need frequent updating, but as of now it is an admirable tool for every teenage reader.