The best novels every teen must read before they turn 18

I came across this science fiction book since my children studied it in Junior High school in Canada. The protagonist in the story is a young man, 32-year-old Charlie Gordon who has a low IQ. The setting of the story is New York City in the USA in the 1960s. Charlie has battled disability since his childhood and yearns to be smart. Having observed discrimination towards people with disabilities, I was curious to find out what happens if we increase human intelligence artificially. What piqued my interest were the letters Charlie wrote. Upon reading the book, the message that resonated with me was that humanity is not measured by how smart we are, but by our kindness, love, and interaction with other people.

I studied this great work of literature in the 1960s in Secondary School in Mombasa and the injustice of humanity in this tragic story is still indelibly etched in my heart. The story is set in Ndotsheni, a poor, agricultural village in South Africa but with a strong sense of community and in the city of Johannesburg a corrupt, big city where it's every man for himself. It is about a Zulu pastor, Stephen Kumalo, who receives a letter that his sister in Johannesburg has fallen sick. Kumalo undertakes the difficult journey travelling from his village to the city in the hopes of aiding his sister and of finding his son, Absalom, who left to go to the city and never returned. What really moved me is the estranged relationship of two fathers and their sons that evoke anguish in the fathers. Upon reading this book the message that resonated with me was how apartheid rule destroyed traditional families.

Once again, I read this book as my children studied it in school. I especially liked the story since I belong to a visible minority community and this story posed the fundamental question: how do I get along with people who are different from me?

The book was published in America in 1960 but the story is set in the mid-1930s in the small town of Maycomb in the state of Alabama. The story is told by Scout Finch, a six-year-old girl who lives with her lawyer father, Atticus, and her ten-year-old brother Jem. Their father, Atticus, defends a Black man falsely accused of rape. Scout and Jem view the residents of their town with compassion and understanding, rather than bitterness and anger. They empathise with Tom Robinson, the accused black man, and the recluse Boo Bradley.

I especially liked how the author used mockingbirds to symbolize innocence. In the story, innocent people like Tom Robinson and Boo Radley are like mockingbirds who bring happiness but are shunned by the society. I found this book to be very important as much of white America in the 1960s viewed the coming together of different races as immoral. What resonated with me was that this story inspired Americans and helped prepare the way for reforms such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The story is set in the Cholistan Desert in Pakistan near the border between Pakistan and India. I so admired the young 11-year-old girl Shabanu, who is strong-willed, independent, and ‘wild as the wind.’ It tore my heart to read about the tragic encounter with a wealthy landowner that ruined Shabunu’s older sister’s plan of marriage and when Shabanu was called upon to sacrifice all her dreams. A girl in a Muslim family always obeys her father’s wishes so when Shabanu is betrothed to an older man, I was anxious to find out if she would honor her family and heritage or follow her heart and flee.

I found this modern story empowering. In fact, I did not want this gut-wrenching, gripping story to end. The story is set in Nigeria in 2014, a pre-election year, the year in which Boko Haram kidnapped 276 schoolgirls. It is related in pidgin English by a naïve 14-year-old girl Adunni, who lives in a village in Nigeria. After Adunni’s mother dies, her father pulls Adunni out of school and marries her off to an old man using the bride price to pay the family’s rent. Later, Adunni is tricked into becoming a housemaid to a rich, abusive lady, Big Madam.

Adunni is abused and undergoes a lot of pain and misery, but she has the strength and resilience to persevere. She educates herself, gains confidence, her self-worth, and a ‘louding voice.’ The story will inspire teens, especially girls, to pursue education to seek their ‘louding voices.’