Climbing the Stairs is a young-adult novel written by Padma Venkatraman. It was published on 1 May 2008 by Penguin USA. The novel depicts fifteen-year-old Vidya, who is coming of age in a tumultuous time as her native India struggles for independence and the world battles in World War II. When her father suffers brain damage during an Indian independence protest, Vidya is forced to relocate with her family from Bombay to her paternal grandfather’s traditional home in Madras. In this new home, Vidya fights the subservient role assigned to her as a woman and finds sanctuary in the men’s library where she studies and dreams of freedom and college. [1]
The novel received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly which stated, "This novel vivifies a unique era and culture as it movingly expresses how love and hope can blossom even under the most dismal of circuces" and Booklist which wrote, "In her first novel, Venkatraman paints an intricate and convincing backdrop of a conservative Brahmin home in a time of change." [2] The Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literature stated that by writing Climbing the Stairs, "Venkatraman fills an important place in YA historical fiction. The book is well researched, politically balanced, and based on real experiences." [3]
Susan Eloise Hinton is an American writer best known for her young-adult novels (YA) set in Oklahoma, especially The Outsiders (1967), which she wrote during high school. Hinton is credited with introducing the YA genre.
William Warner Sleator III, known as William Sleator, was an American science fiction author who wrote primarily young adult novels but also wrote for younger readers. His books typically deal with adolescents coming across a peculiar phenomenon related to an element of theoretical science, then trying to deal with the situation. The theme of family relationships, especially between siblings, is frequently intertwined with the science fiction plotline.
Abarat (2002) is a fantasy novel written and illustrated by Clive Barker, the first in Barker's The Books of Abarat series. It is aimed primarily at young adults. The eponymous Abarat is a fictional archipelago which is the setting for the majority of the story.
Young adult fiction (YA) is a category of fiction written for readers from 12 to 18 years of age. While the genre is targeted to adolescents, approximately half of YA readers are adults.
Laurie Halse Anderson is an American writer, known for children's and young adult novels. She received the Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American Library Association in 2010 for her contribution to young adult literature.
David Almond FRSL is a British author who has written several novels for children and young adults from 1998, each one receiving critical acclaim.
Carmelina Marchetta is an Australian writer and teacher. Marchetta is best known as the author of teen novels, Looking for Alibrandi, Saving Francesca and On the Jellicoe Road. She has twice been awarded the CBCA Children's Book of the Year Award: Older Readers, in 1993 and 2004. For Jellicoe Road she won the 2009 Michael L. Printz Award from the American Library Association, recognizing the year's best book for young adults.
Deb Caletti is an American writer of young adult and adult fiction. Caletti is a National Book Award finalist, and a Michael L. Printz Honor Book medalist, as well as the recipient of other numerous awards including the PEN USA finalist award, the Josette Frank Award for Fiction, the Washington State Book Award, and SLJ Best Book award. Caletti's books feature the Pacific Northwest, and her young adult work is popular for tackling difficult issues typically reserved for adult fiction. Her first adult fiction novel, He's Gone, was published by Random House in 2013, and was followed by several other books for adults, in addition to her many books for teens.
Gay teen fiction is a subgenre that overlaps with LGBT literature and young adult literature. This article covers books about gay and bisexual teenage characters who are male.
Gallows Hill (1997) is a supernatural thriller novel for young adults by Lois Duncan. It was her first and only young adult novel written after the death of her daughter. It was written eight years after her previous young adult novel, Don't Look Behind You. It is about a girl who moves to a small town with a secret.
Jacqueline Woodson is an American writer of books for children and adolescents. She is best known for Miracle's Boys, and her Newbery Honor-winning titles Brown Girl Dreaming, After Tupac and D Foster, Feathers, and Show Way. After serving as the Young People's Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017, she was named the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, by the Library of Congress, for 2018–19. She was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2020.
Jennifer Donnelly is an American writer of young adult fiction best known for the historical novel A Northern Light.
Lyudmila Stefanovna Petrushevskaya is a Russian writer, novelist and playwright. She began her career writing and putting on plays, which were often censored by the Soviet government, and following perestroika, published a number of well-respected works of prose.
Padma Tiruponithura Venkatraman, also known as T. V. Padma, is an American author who was born in India. Before she became an award-winning novelist, she spent time on and under the oceans, acted as chief scientist on research vessels, directed a school in England and led diversity efforts at a university.
The Hunger Games is a 2008 dystopian novel by the American writer Suzanne Collins. It is written in the voice of 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives in the future, post-apocalyptic nation of Panem in North America. The Capitol, a highly advanced metropolis, exercises political control over the rest of the nation. The Hunger Games is an annual event in which one boy and one girl aged 12–18 from each of the twelve districts surrounding the Capitol are selected by lottery to compete in a televised battle royale to the death.
Kristin Cashore is an American young adult and fantasy writer.
Graceling is a young adult fantasy novel written by American author Kristin Cashore, her literary debut.
Charlotte Agell; a Swedish-born American; was born in 1959. Agell is an author for young adults and children who currently lives in Maine. Her second novel; Shift; was featured on the front cover of the Brunswick Times Record in October 2008. In addition to working on novels and children's books, Charlotte Agell also teaches in Maine.
Prada and Prejudice is a young adult novel by Mandy Hubbard, published by Razorbill in 2009. The novel tells the story of Callie, a 15-year-old girl who buys a pair of designer heels while on a school trip, falls, and wakes up in 19th-century England.
Ally Condie is an author of young adult and middle grade fiction. Her novel Matched was a #1 New York Times and international bestseller, and spent over a year on the New York Times Bestseller List. The sequels are also New York Times bestsellers. Matched was chosen as one of YALSA's 2011 Teens' Top Ten and named as one of Publishers Weekly's Best Children's Books of 2010. All three books are available in 30+ languages.