Click here for some authors we’ve talked to about their books and their process.

And click below for some recommendations from some authors we trust.

 

Click here for Everyone

David Yoo

  • The Last Picture Show
  • Although it takes place in a tiny, dusty Texas town that's nothing like the New England town I grew up in, this is easily my favorite coming-of-age story, ever, period.
  • Then Again, Maybe I Won’t
  • Given the fact that I asked for a pair of binoculars for Christmas (for "bird watching"), too, this was the teen novel that spoke to me when I was 13.
  • The Postman Always Rings Twice
  • My favorite noir writer, this is one of the best plotted stories, ever, in my opinion, with one of the most satisfying endings to a story to boot.
  • Rats Saw God

  • This was the first recent(ish) YA novel that got me excited to write about teens, because it made me think I was reading about, well . . . me.

  • Rosemary’s Baby
  • This horror story is just about perfect in every way, and I've read it maybe 50 times in my lifetime. The movie's one of my favorites, too.
  • Franny and Zooey
  • A decidedly strange little novel that for the life of me I can't quite describe why it's one of my favorites, but it just is.

Tony DiTerlizzi

is the illustrator of The Spiiderwick Chronicles, The Spider and the Fly, Ted, and many more.  He uses his powers for good.

  • Peter Pan and Wendy

  • J.M. Barrie's classic has surly pirates, bloodthirsty native Americans, a hungry crocodile, feisty faeries and flying kids with weapons . . . what more could you ask for?

  • Watership Down

  • Richard Adams takes you on an incredible quest from a home colony that’s completely eradicated to Shangri la. One the way, there are monsters, villains, allies, oh, and a fascist leader trying to seize the hero's new home . . . and its all told with rabbits. You read that right — rabbits.

  • The Mouse and the Motorcycle

  • Mouse buddy + toy motorcycle = Awesome!

  • The Lorax

  • In my mind, this one of Dr. Seuss’s undisputed classics. Sadly, we need the Lorax now more than ever.

  • Lafcadio: The Lion That Shot Back

  • One of Shel Silverstein's lesser known titles, but one of my all-time favorites. Actually, I learned about this one when my younger brother read it for school and had me help with his book report. It is one of those stories that you will always remember.

Alison DeCamp

Alison DeCamp is the author of My Near-Death Adventures (99% True!), as well as a former teacher and current booksller at Between the Covers bookstore in Harbor Springs, Michigan. 

"I have a daughter and a son, I've taught middle school and high school and worked at a bookstore. These are all books I love, can sell, and that my children loved as well."

  • Across the Nightingale Floor, Tales of the Otori, Book 1
  • Lian Hearn

  • Kind of a Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon fantasy set in an alternate Japan where people can have superpowers. It's really well-done fantasy.

  • Knucklehead
  • Jon Scieszka

  • A fantastic graphic novel about Jon's boyhood in Flint, Michigan, where my husband is also from. It's funny and real and mostly funny.

  • Out from Boneville, Boneville Series, #1
  • Jeff Smith

  • These are so imaginative, innocent, and creative. I am a big fan of smart graphic novels and how they make us think.

  • The Eddie Dickens Trilogy
  • Philip Ardagh

  • There's a stuffed stoat in these books. I'm not even sure what that is, but do I really need to say more?

  • The Willoughbys
  • Lois Lowry

  • Same Lois Lowry as THE GIVER, but a completely different kind of story, one where the kids are super smart and the adults need to get a clue.

  • Winger
  • Andrew Smith

  • My 16 y.o. has read and reread this book about a 14 y.o. rugby player. It's a story about all the confusion that's part and parcel of growing up while simultaneously injecting humor and love and redemption into the entire mix.

  • Nicholas
  • Jean-Jacques Sempe

  • Nicholas is irreverent and slightly naughty and a bit clueless but always funny.

  • How They Croaked, The Awful Ends of the Awfully Famous
  • Georgia Bragg

  • (by Georgia Bragg & Kevin O'Malley)

    Just like the title says, this is a book about how famous people died. But really it's a history book.

  • We Were Liars
  • E.Lockhart

  • I read this book in three hours. Granted, I told my family I wasn't feeling well so they actually left me alone for that amount of time, but I devoured this book. There's an unreliable narrator and a shocking ending and a slew of open-ended questions that we still argue about in our house.

Micol Ostow

Here are some of my favorite spooky novels (in some cases thrillers or otherwise twisty), and in particular books that influenced me while I was working on Amity!

  • The Haunting of Hill House
  • Shirley Jackson

  • "The ne plus ultimate haunted house story, I like to think of Amity's Gwen as sort of a modern spin on Eleanor, a young woman seeing and experiencing ghostly things, whose mind and perceptions can't be trusted."

  • We Have Always Lived in the Castle
  • Shirley Jackson

  • "A slow-burner filled with atmosphere. Merricat is the platonic ideal of an unreliable narrator."

  • The Shining
  • Stephen King

  • "A suggestible man, prone to violence, isolated in a hotel that exerts evil force over his will... Jack Torrance is to Amity's Connor as Hill House's Eleanor is to Gwen."

  • Tighter
  • Adele Griffin

  • "A modern take on The Turn of the Screw, Griffin draws from chilling source material and makes it her own for today's teen readers."

  • To Die For
  • Joyce Maynard

  • "A dark and twisty thriller (the movie's great, too) that serves up multiple POV's on a platter. I spent a lot of time poring over the many distinct voices of that book."

  • The Maddaddam trilogy
  • Margaret Atwood

  • "Epic and sprawling, boldly visionary, and still she manages to tie all of her narrative threads together by the series' conclusion. To spend ten minutes in that woman's head!"

  • Dangerous Girls
  • Abigail Haas

  • "Pacing, pacing, pacing. Totally un-put-downable."

  • The Amityville Horror
  • Jay Anson

  • "(That one probably goes without saying.)"

  • We Were Liars
  • E.Lockhart

  • "The pages turn and the ending twists!"

Patrick Jones

is a Senior Librarian at the Hennepin County Library in Minneapolis, MN.  This is what he says:

The Great Eight: great books (kind of) for guys.  Also: Magazines. Anytime I’m asked for booklist, I ask, “What about magazines, don’t they count?” Well, it’s my list so they count.  Read a magazine every month or week.