Any ideas?

Last Edited on: 8/19/07 5:20 PM ET - Total times edited: 1

If it's for a girl, I'd recommend the Jennifer Scales books.  She's a teen who shapeshifts into a dragon.  There are three books in the series.

Cornelia Funke's 2 Inkheart books are really good. Not related, but just as good, is her Thief Lord.

Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising series is excellent.

Peter S Beagles books are also terrific. I especially liked Tamsin.

And haven't been a YA for a long time!

Might want to look into Tamora Pierce. Also, Diane Duane has a series called So You Want To Be A Wizard that is pretty good.

I guess I'm a little slow - it took me a minute to figure out what YA meant.  I would recommend (if you have the time) going to the bookstore like Borders or Barnes & Noble and looking in the Young Adult section.  I think that there are more Young Adult fantasy books than Adult books.  I am always envious of those kids. I read some of them and I do enjoy them, but they are just not quite dark enough for me.  But they sure do have alot of them.  Check them out and then write down what you are interested in and see if its posted.

Stephanie Meyer has a new series out starting with Twilight, New Moon, and just released Eclipse. Tamora Pierce is wonderful, so it Patricia Briggs. Then of course there is the Lemony Snicket books. I love YA fiction.

Besides the obvious  Harry Potter series ...

My sons really like Eragon and Eldest.

Also the Pendragon series by DJ MacHale.

The Children of the Lamp series by PB Kerr is fun - both my sons and myself have read them.

Your signature already has two others I'd recommend - the Earthsea set, and the Dragonriders of Pern.

Oh, Garth Nix's Sabriel series and his Keys to the Kingdom (Mister Monday, Grim Tuesday, and so on) series are both great. The second isn't finished yet, but is a more exciting read, I think.

Stardust (Neil Gaiman) is good too. They just made that into a movie.

I'd second So You Want to Be a Wizard, or at least the beginning of the series. I haven't been keeping up with it lately.

I just finished Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr, it's about faeries....although it's on the darker side. Also Holly Black has a series about faeries that is also dark urban fantasy.

I second Tamora Pierce and Garth Nix (note my username ;)  and Eragon.Also, some of Madeline L'Engles books especially a "Wrinkle in Time" and "Many Waters"  I love the Bartmas (sp?) series by Jonathon Stroud for snarky narrator.  I love the footnotes, but if they annoy you, you can pretty much skip them.

"College of Magic" by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermore(sp?) might interest you, especially if you like Harry Potter, it is set in a girls boarding school.  I guess it might be appeal to girls more but "The Enchanted Forest Chronicles" by Patricia C. Wrede is just great, funny read.  Although definitely more for girls, "The Great and Terrible Beauty"  and the sequel "Rebel Angels" are great gothic fantasy.  Gosh, I didn't realize girly I am.

I just started reading a series by Scott Westerfeld called the Uglies trilogy. The first one is called Uglies, the second one Pretties and the third one, Specials. The first one was very intriguing and hard to put down. It's more post-modern fantasy, directed primarily at teens I think but I sure enjoyed that first one! Gives you a bit of something to think about, too.

Cheryl

I'm surprised no one mentioned the Xanth series by Piers Anthony. These books are filled with young characters going on crazy adventures in a world full of puns (don't laugh). The best thing is, there's a lot of them (31 and he's still pumping them out). I'm pretty sure most of the early ones are readily available on PBS. 

Alan

Megan Whalen Turner's series is excellent.  It starts with The Thief, and then The Queen of Attolia, and her latest is the King of Attolia.  A lot of twists and turns with intricate plotting.

I'd recommend Mercedes Lackey. She has several series, all very good.

The merlin series by TA Baron is excellent, i read them when i was 14 and recently reread them because i love em.

Pamela Dean's Hidden Land trilogy is excellent.