Having a YA habit as an adult used to be, well, a little embarrassing. Fans would lurk in bookstores, waiting for the opportune moment to snag Weetzie Bat from the tween section, or carefully hiding Perks of Being a Wallflower in between the pages of Crime and Punishment. Obviously, that's no longer the case, and it hasn't been for a number of years. TIME magazine tallied up the top 100 young adult books of all time — with help from independent booksellers, the Young Readers Center at the Library of Congress, the National Center for Children's Illustrated Literature, and other experts in the field — and the results they came up with probably won't surprise you. They do make up a heckuva reading list, though.
There are plenty of classics like Lois Lowry's The Giver, Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, and S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders, as well as Judy Blume's seminal menstrual novel, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. Modern authors like John Green and J.K. Rowling are cuddled up next to Louisa May Alcott and Mark Twain, and fun stuff like Lemony Snicket's Victorian-style tales are given equal footing as A Separate Peace and Lord of the Flies. Of course, tons of these have already been turned into movies — with mixed success — but nothing compares to reading words with your very own peepers.
Did your favorites make the cut? What do you think of their number one pick? Vote over at TIME's website.
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT