Our readers have been discussing the key novels that helped them to progress from children’s to adult literature. Here are five examples they cited, from Animal Farm to Little Women. What are yours?

In a recent Tips, Links and Suggestions thread, reader judgeDAmNation asked a fascinating question:

For those of us who have been avid readers since childhood, what was the key book or books that helped make the transition from younger to adult fiction?

Of course that transitional period varies from person to person. But for many readers, there tends to be one or several works of literature that stick in the mind as the first incursion into a grown-up world or, as one reader puts it, as the book that was the “aha moment”. Here are some of the choices from our Tips, Links and Suggestions regulars:

1. Animal Farm by George Orwell (1945)

This Orwell classic is one of the most frequently cited transitional books. judgeDAmNation said:

Reading Animal Farm at such a young age, I hold it responsible for a) instilling a lifelong love of all things Orwell, and b) securing the complete transfer of my love of reading from children’s/young adult books to more “grown up” literature. Along with Orwell, I would say the other key title for me was The Street Lawyer by John Grisham – my grandmother lent me a copy when I was 15, which led to me steadily working my way through more Grisham, Michael Crichton and others ...

tinsleycollins added:

Whenever I hear it mentioned I’m subject to an adrenaline rush and want to talk about it at length. I read it for the first time aged something like fourteen or fifteen and had exactly the same thoughts about it then as I have now which is that all politicians of all persuasions should be made to sit down and read it not less than once a year. The lessons in it are international, timeless and universal and there is scarcely a day when our newspapers do not report examples of the self serving political duplicity that is so perfectly shown to us in this gem of a book.

There is always, of course, the risk of reading such a book too young. It happened to TamaraJ, who took it “totally at face value: a book about animal antics. Then read as an adult and saw it way differently!”

2. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (1952)

Ernest Hemingway’s novel of a fisherman’s struggle with a giant fish was an eye-opener for Oranje14:

My “transition” novel would be The Old Man and The Sea by Hemingway. I was an average student with an English teacher who I didn’t like and who I felt didn’t like me, and then we read this. Probably the only time in my academic life where I can pinpoint a revelation in understanding to a single moment. My love of reading can be traced to here.

And for TimHannigan:

The Old Man and the Sea was definitely a “bridging” book for me. I probably first read it at about 11, and enjoyed it as an adventure about fishing (I loved all that stuff). I read it again when I was about 13, I think, on the brink of adult tastes. And then I know I read it a third time at 18 and regarded it as the point at which I “discovered style” ...

TimHannigan made the good point that such transitions are rarely quick.



As far as I can remember it was a slow transition over several years, I know that by the time I was about 15 I had gone over from Robert Westall, Michael Morpurgo, and an awesome series by various authors called “Hauntings” (of which my read-again-and-again favourite was The Wooden Gun by Elisabeth Beresford of Wombles fame, but very un-Wombly this one), to a frantic fixation with Joseph Conrad and F. Scott Fitzgerald (a weird pairing, but there you go!)

3. JRR Tolkien’s body of work

Our reader elfwyn shared her discovery of Tolkien, which made the “Alpha girls” in school sneer:

Once I’d grown out of pony books, I launched straight into adult novels (there was no such thing as a “teenage” category then). And I read everything I could lay my hands on. [...] Two authors stand out, though. I discovered Tolkien at the age of about thirteen or fourteen, in my aunt’s bookshelves (where I’d also discovered Sergeanne Golon and Doreen Tovey – she’d had eclectic tastes too), and was completely hooked. I remember reading it at school, and one of the “Alpha girls” sneering – “You mean a fairy tale for grown ups?” When reading it became de rigeur a year or so later, I felt rather smug. The other author was Dorothy Dunnett. I read the first of the Lymond Chronicles at the age of thirteen, and became a devotee, even though, at that stage, I didn’t understand half of it. If you’ve never tried them, do. As one of my fellow enthusiasts once said, her books are an acquired taste, but if you do acquire it, you have it for life.

4 The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger (1951)

For tyorkshiretealass there were two defining books, both around the age of 15 – and she has a teacher to thank for it:

The first was The Child in Time [by Ian McEwan] – we read the pivotal scene as part of a mock exam and I mentioned to my English teacher that I’d really enjoyed it and wanted to read the rest of it. The next day she brought her copy in for me and I devoured it within days. Mrs Green, in the unlikely event you’re reading this – thank you. The real transition book for me though was The Catcher in the Rye – I read it the summer before I turned 16 and it was one of the first moments where I really felt that a book had “spoken” to me, in that teenage “nobody understands me” phase. I read it again a year later ahead of it potentially being a course book at A-level and, whilst I still appreciated it as a novel, I just didn’t connect with it in the same way. I think that was the point I knew I’d crossed over.

5. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1868-69)

The transitional book for JournoKaty was Little Women:

That was the first non series, non childish book that I read. It made me want to be Jo (the first time I ever wished to be a literary character), it made me want to write and it made me want to read more. Stephen King was also a big influence for me. I started reading his stuff at aged 11, after transitioning from the more YA Point Horror and Christopher Pike books.

What book was transitional for you and why? Let us know in the comment thread below, and we will publish a selection of your books in the piece.

