The Curious Lives of Teenagers: Which Books are Exciting Teen Readers Today

When posed the question “what was the last book you read that captured you and stuck with you?” one honors sophomore English class responded.

Data suggests: a strong victory for The Hunger Games, many classics , a majority of  YA with some readers beginning to bridge into adult, and a disconcerting but small leaning to the primary source documents of dictators. Also notable: only one nod to the juggernaut of Harry Potter (I attribute this to Harry Potter readers having gone on to reading many more works after HP and this question only asked for the most recent work that touched the reader).

 Here are the books that move my students :

• The Hunger Games  (9)
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2)
• The Giver (2)
• Forrest Gump
• Transworld Surf Tahiti
• Crank
• Go Ask Alice
• The Host
• The Atlantis code
• The Codex
• Harry Potter
• The Alphabet Book
• The Help
• I don’t read
• Tunnels
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• Beautiful
• Looking for Alaska
• The Last Child
• The Firm
• The Westing Game
• 8-Lives Down
• Mein Kampf (???)
• Communist Manifesto
• Elsewhere
• Cat in the Hat
• Narnia
• The Book Thief
• The Hobbit
• The Fault in Our Stars
• The Mortal Instruments Series
• The Lucky One