Maricel Montero: Books I Read When I was a Teenager

Executive Director of Museo Pambata, Maricel Montero, shares her list and recommends books that teens should read!

Now you got me into remembering my teenage years and the books I read . Okay aside from the Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Bobbsey Twins, Mallory Towers, Mills and Boon and Barbara Cartland books and lots of Almanacs, hahaha!

I will never forget the following titles: Not in their order
Thimble Summer by by Elizabeth Enright (First book I really enjoyed reading, because I am a small town farm girl : )
Heidi by Johanna Spyri
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
The Gift of Acabar by Og Mandino
The Little Prince by Antoine Saint-Exupery
The Dune by Frank Herbert
The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M Auel
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
The Drifters by James Michener
Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck

Books I read from our personal library at home --

Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
Call of the Wild by Jack London
(We had a set of the Reader’s Digest collection of classics with themes e.g. Animals and I enjoyed reading them : )
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Chariots of the Gods by Erick Von Daniken and other UFO books
The encyclopedia ( I love searching the different countries and remembering their capitals and imagining how it looked like. I also enjoyed looking at different breeds of dogs : )
Greek Mythology by Edith Hamilton (of course!)

Recommended reading for young adults ( not in order)
Senior’s Ball by Rene Villanueva
Tall Story by Candy Gourlay
Barefoot in Fire by Barbara Ann Gamboa – Lewis
Harry Potter series by JK Rowling
Coraline by Neil Gaiman
Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Patterson
Island of the Blue Dolphin by Scott O’ Dell
And of course, a smattering of the classics.