Books for 14 year old girl published before 1990

I don't know if she's still read but Judy Blume was pretty big around that time, in approximately that age group. You could also consider the Nancy Drew mysteries.

If she's a bright kid, another option might be introducing her to the classics. Jane Austen is certainly accesible to a fourteen year old.

I know some will say this is really old-fashioned but when I was down, these are the ones I'd read to cheer me up at that age: The Anne of Green Gables series

The Famous Five by Enid Blyton, pretty much anything by Enid Blyton, I think there was also a series called Secret Seven (she wrote millions of books, but these are the ones I remember off the top of my head) and Mallory Towers. They might be for younger readers and only really known in the U.K. but hey, if one of the parents travels, they could get her a copy . And for me in that state the idea was always about light reading, books I already know or that are easy to get into because you don't want to get into a very intricate plot. Then again, some might argue that it should be something that will demand her attention so she can get her mind off it.

Judy Blume had some pretty chaste stuff, from what I recall.

Travel books or coffee table books on things she likes, just to get her mind off with the photos and the text.

There were a lot of series I remember from the mid-eighties, Sweet Valley High being the most obvious, Sunset High was a bit grittier. Then there was one about some sorority girls in high school in VA, can't remember the title now, so if anyone else can weigh in . . . ?

The Girls of Canby Hall by Emily Chase. About three girls in boarding school.

If she's into that kind of thing, they could also get her Enid Hamilton's Greek Mythology (IIRC). We had to read it my freshman year, when I was fourteen, some of the stories you could really get into.

That same year we got given some books by our English teacher and there was one, set in England (this was in high school in the U.S.). It was K.M. Peyton's So Once Was I. Not too heavy.

M.E. Kerr's I Stay Near You was one of my favorites.

LOTR

My daughter liked the Babysitter's Club books, in addition to Sweet Valley High, already mentioned.

Not sure if V.C. Andrews (or her many ghostwriters) would qualify, but the books certainly fit into the category of adolescent potboilers...

I read Austen and Tolkien when I'm depressed. Well, Tolkien is also good when you have flu.

L.M. Montgomery is a good suggestion. I reread Anne of Green Gables and Emily of New Moon for years.

But at 14, I was pretty much only reading adult fiction. A lot of the things mentioned above, I would have stopped reading by 12 or 13, if not earlier (like BSC).I think Jane Austen is not a bad idea.

Maybe "I Capture the Castle"? I didn't read that until I was older, but I think it would be a good, rather light book for a girl that age. This would probably be my best suggestion.

I agree with the above poster - a fourteen-year-old will probably be too old for many of the books mentioned.

How about "The Dragonriders of Pern" series by Anne McCaffery? Those were popular when I was that age.

I think I read The Hobbit at around that age, though.

I remember VC Andrews going round the school like wildfire!
At that age I remember finding one book I liked and then reading everything I could find by that author. So prolific authors were good. You might also consider Jeffrey Archer, Roald Dahl's short stories (and his excellent biographies) and also Agatha Christie's Miss Marple series. Ok they are murder mysteries but such genteel murders.
I love this thread, takes me back!

Victoria Holt (one of the many pen names of Eleanor Hibbert) had lots of romantic suspense books that came out in the 70s and 80s. Nothing racy in them and many teen girls read them.

eta: many of them were set in exotic places or in the past, so they were nice escapist light fiction.

I was 14 in 1990, and I was just falling head over heels in love with science fiction and fantasy. Dragonriders of Pern was a huge part of my bookshelf, as was Piers Anthony's Xanth series (despite that I can't reread either these days; they got visited by the suck fairy since my teen years and now). I would probably have been rereading Madeleine L'engle's Time Trilogy, too. I'm pretty sure I'd come across Margaret Mahy's awesome supernatural YA books by then (still on my shelf: The Changeling, The Tricksters, The Catalog of the Universe).

Meanwhile, my grandmother kept giving me Nancy Drew books, so I read them. And my friend down the block was mad about Sweet Valley High, so I borrowed those too. I was still quite impressionable and extremely omnivorous.

My Mom rarely forbade me any books, but she specifically forbade me to borrow my friends' copies of V.C. Andrews or her own collection of Harlequin Romances, so of course I snuck copies of both and read them. V.C. Andrews was OK, but only that; it nevertheless led to me borrowing and adoring the Christopher Pike books, so that was cool. (Teenage murder mysteries involving the supernatural! Awesome!) The Harlequins bored me after I got over the novelty of more-explicit-than-I-was-used-to sex scenes. Anyway, this is why to this day I believe that the only reason to forbid a kid a book is if you secretly do want them to read it. Another good way to get a kid to read, depending on the kid, is to tell 'em "This is probably too hard for you." This is precisely why I read A Swiftly Tilting Planet at age 7.



I came across a copy of Vonda McIntyre's Dreamsnake at a friend's house during a sleepover, round about then, and stayed up all night reading it. My friend sent me home with it in the morning. I don't know whether it would meet your criteria, though; it all turns out happily and does a great job questioning societal prejudices, but there's some trauma in it that may or may not be up your character's alley at this time.

Watership Down.

Lots of good suggestions here. I turned 14 in 1990. I was a very advanced reader--A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle at 6, Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid at 7, One Child by Torey Hayden at 8. But I also enjoyed age-appropriate characters and stories, so I read a lot of those as a child too. Anyway, at 14, I was reading VC Andrews and Victoria Holt and LOTR for fun, as well as various teen and adult supernatural thrillers. But whenever I was sad and depressed, I liked to reread my favorites from a few years previous: Babysitters Club, various Judy Blumes, Are You There God, It's Me Margaret, Nancy Drews, the Oz books--kind of like going back to a more innocent, less depressing time.

It's not exactly angst-free, but I remember adoring The Outsiders at about that age, and ripping through all S.E. Hinton's works. I might have been a bit younger, I guess, but there's something about a tortured, misunderstood underdog that appeals to readers of all ages, isn't there?

+1 on A Wrinkle in Time and Dragonriders of Pern.

As for "advanced" reading? At 14 my kid was reading Milton and Dickens. Nowadays she's a librarian. David Copperfield is still her favorite book of all time.

(At least, I think she's my kid. Not sure. The postman was pretty smart.)

14? I'm older than your character by about 20 years, so titles would have changed, but I read a couple (or more) paperbacks a week by that age.

As I recall - mostly Clarke/Asimov type sci-fi. anything with vampires, murder mysteries I borrowed off my grandmother. Or in a pinch, anything I could get my hands on, with the exception of the boring classics I was supposed to be reading for school. I never did get into LOTR - I tried it, and it was too much like reading Shakespeare.

I also second the Dragonriders of Pern books, or anything by Anne McCaffrey. Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, and Dragondrums are a trilogy expressly written for YA, while the rest of her books are more adult (with more adult content). Nonetheless, I read all of them voraciously when I was 12-13.

The Trixie Belden mystery series is good set of books for a young teen. Very clean, old-fashioned mysteries. I still enjoy them today and I'm in my 30s now. While written for adults, the Mrs. Pollifax mysteries by Dorothy Gilman might be enjoyable for a 14 year old, as might the Brother Cadfael mysteries by Ellis Peters, if she's advanced for her age.

William Sleator writes very good YA sci-fi, if a bit mind-bending. House of Stairs, The Boy Who Reversed Himself, Singularity, and others. I still enjoy them today.


The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (sci-fi)
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card (sci-fi)
The Neverending Story by Michael Ende(fantasy)
The Princess Bride by William Goldman. (fantasy/romance/satire)
Beauty: A Retelling of the story of Beauty and the Beast by Robin McKinley (fantasy/romance)

I would second Judy Blume and the Baby-Sitters Club series.

hannah montana? I know it's aimed at kids but my friend read a bunch of the novelizations and stuff when she was all messed up since it's so G-rated and positive. She was 19 too.

rachelmachelsmachel said:

hannah montana? I know it's aimed at kids but my friend read a bunch of the novelizations and stuff when she was all messed up since it's so G-rated and positive. She was 19 too.

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Hannah Montana didn't appear until 2006. Wouldn't work for a story set in 1990. My little sister loves her, though!