William Kent Krueger Shares His 10 Favorite Coming-of-Age Tales

September 25 2019
Share William Kent Krueger Shares His 10 Favorite Coming-of-Age Tales

When it comes to the bildungsroman—coming-of-age stories—here are my favorites. Because they span such a broad time period, I’ve listed them in the order in which they were published.

Great Expectations
by Charles Dickens

This was the first Dickens novel I ever read, and it’s still my favorite. The story of Pip, orphaned at an early age and carried throughout life on the changing whims of fortune good and bad, is Dickens at his funniest and also most poignant. From Pip’s chance encounter with the convict Magwitch in a graveyard, through his emotional torturing by the beautiful but cold Estella, into his manhood, which is complicated as only Dickens’s fruitful imagination could make it, Pip finds his way mostly with the kindness of others. In large measure, this is a story of hope for anyone with expectations in life both great and small.

Amazon logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo iBooks logo
Great Expectations
Charles Dickens

Enriched Classics offer readers accessible editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and commentary. Each book includes educational tools alongside the text, enabling students and readers alike to gain a deeper and more developed understanding of the writer and their work.

Set in nineteenth-century England, Great Expectations is Dickens’s timeless tale of an orphan boy’s extraordinary journey through life.

Enriched Classics enhance your engagement by introducing and explaining the historical and cultural significance of the work, the author’s personal history, and what impact this book had on subsequent scholarship. Each book includes discussion questions that help clarify and reinforce major themes and reading recommendations for further research.

Read with confidence.

Amazon logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo iBooks logo

MENTIONED IN:

More Money, More Problems: 8 Novels About Rich People Who Don’t Have It All

By Tiffany Tsao | January 6, 2020

11 Books We’re Thankful to Have on Our Shelves

By Off the Shelf Staff | November 22, 2019

William Kent Krueger Shares His 10 Favorite Coming-of-Age Tales

By William Kent Krueger | September 25, 2019

8 Great Books Told by Child Narrators

By Off the Shelf Staff | November 6, 2014

Close
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain

Hemingway famously said of this American classic, “It’s the best book we have. All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before.” A bit of hyperbole, in my opinion, but he’s on the right track. The story of Huck and the runaway slave Jim as they raft down the Mississippi River in pre–Civil War days is quintessential coming-of-age. Not only did Twain invent a kind of idiomatic vernacular for the voice of Huck, the novel’s narrator, he bejeweled the novel with a plethora of wise observations that are sometimes sidesplitting and often deeply poignant. This is the book that inspired my own novel, THIS TENDER LAND.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo

MENTIONED IN:

William Kent Krueger Shares His 10 Favorite Coming-of-Age Tales

By William Kent Krueger | September 25, 2019

Close
The Red Pony
by John Steinbeck

I write profoundly out of a sense of place, and my love of Steinbeck is part of the reason. THE RED PONY was my introduction to his work, required reading my freshman year in high school. Written as a series of short stories, it’s the tale of a boy Jody Tiflin growing up on a ranch in the Salinas Valley, learning the difficult lessons as he prepares to cross the threshold into his manhood. A mix of both harsh realities and dreamy sequences, the story of Jody’s struggle to understand the world spoke to my adolescent self in a deep way, and Steinbeck’s stunning evocation of the landscape, which shaped so many of his stories, gave me an early appreciation of the importance of setting.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo
The Red Pony
John Steinbeck

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo

MENTIONED IN:

William Kent Krueger Shares His 10 Favorite Coming-of-Age Tales

By William Kent Krueger | September 25, 2019

Close
A Separate Peace
by John Knowles

Although it’s often taught as a novel for adolescent readers, I didn’t discover this fine work until I was in my early twenties, and I loved it. It’s a tale of rivalry, real or imagined, between two friends. Like so many young men, I grew up being told that competition, athletic or otherwise, was a good thing because it made you strong. I competed with others but never comfortably. This story, set during World War Two in an exclusive boy’s academy called Devon, spoke to me deeply. The profound humanity of the Leperian Refusal has been with me all my life. Read this book and you’ll understand what I mean.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo Bookshop logo
A Separate Peace
John Knowles

Set at a boys boarding school in New England during the early years of World War II, A Separate Peace is a harrowing and luminous parable of the dark side of adolescence. What happens between two friends one summer, like the war itself, banishes the innocence of these boys and their world.

Read the full review here.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo Bookshop logo

MENTIONED IN:

William Kent Krueger Shares His 10 Favorite Coming-of-Age Tales

By William Kent Krueger | September 25, 2019

Celebrate the Fourth of July with These 9 Great American Reads

By Off the Shelf Staff | July 4, 2018

13 Important Stories to Celebrate Banned Books Week

By Off the Shelf Staff | October 1, 2015

13 Enthralling Boarding School Novels

By Erin Madison | August 25, 2015

Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Wharton and Wolfe: 10 Classics You Should Never Live Without

By Off the Shelf Staff | November 20, 2014

A Reading List Classic You Should Have On Your Shelf

By Betsy Bloom | September 8, 2014

Close
To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee

This is my favorite American novel. Manifest in it for me are all the elements of great writing: powerful language, a stunning sense of place and time, memorable characters, and ageless themes. The voice of Scout Finch, the novel’s narrator, is one of the truest voices in all of literature. If you’ve never read this novel set in the 1930s, the story of a black man accused of raping a white woman and the effect this incident has on everyone in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama, it’s high time you did something about it.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo
To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee

Wendy’s Fictional Dinner Party Guest: Atticus Finch

Perhaps it’s a cliché to want to have dinner with Atticus Finch—lawyer, father, all-around good man. Atticus is known for his conscience, grace, compassion, and morality. I suspect that his words would be full of insight and wisdom, and challenge me to sit straighter in my chair.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo
Close
Horseman, Pass By
by Larry McMurtry

Larry McMurtry left a marvelous legacy of compelling stories, many set in his home state of Texas. I first discovered McMurtry through his Pulitzer Prize–winning epic LONESONE DOVE. The second McMurtry novel I read was his debut, HORSEMAN, PASS BY, published when he was only twenty-five and translated to the big screen as the classic Paul Newman film Hud. It’s a raw tale of harsh life on a cattle ranch, and of a teenager whose heroes do nothing but disappoint him. Like so many coming-of-age stories, it ends with an exit, the young man embarking on the life that awaits him now that he’s put his childhood behind. The prose is wonderful, and it’s easy to see in the setting, characters, and themes everything that, in the years to come, would mark McMurtry as one of our finest storytellers.

Amazon logo Barnes & Noble logo iBooks logo Bookshop logo
Horseman, Pass By
Larry McMurtry

The novel that became the basis for the film Hud, starring Paul Newman. In classic Western style McMurtry illustrates the timeless conflict between modernity and the Old West through the eyes of Texas cattlemen.

Amazon logo Barnes & Noble logo iBooks logo Bookshop logo

MENTIONED IN:

William Kent Krueger Shares His 10 Favorite Coming-of-Age Tales

By William Kent Krueger | September 25, 2019

The Essential Larry McMurtry

By Off the Shelf Staff | May 27, 2014

Close
The Body
by Stephen King

Most readers may be familiar with the 1986 film Stand by Me. But how many realize that this memorable film was based on a terrific Stephen King novella titled THE BODY? This story of four kids on the edge of manhood who embark on a journey in search of a dead boy may be the best evocation in print of the nature of adolescent male friendships. King’s breezy narrative voice rolls out the prose, and the dialogue is spot on. The film ends with a line not in the book, but perhaps it should have been because it sums up perfectly the sentiment of the story: I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12. Jesus, does anyone?”

Amazon logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo Bookshop logo
The Body
Stephen King

Amazon logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo Bookshop logo

MENTIONED IN:

Staff Picks: Our All-Time Favorite Book-to-Screen Adaptations

By Off the Shelf Staff | November 23, 2022

Stephen King’s Top Books, According to Stephen King

By Aimee Boyer | September 21, 2021

William Kent Krueger Shares His 10 Favorite Coming-of-Age Tales

By William Kent Krueger | September 25, 2019

10 Books That Are Small But Mighty

By Sarah Jane Abbott | September 21, 2018

Stephen King’s Castle Rock Books: How Scary Are They?

By Shefali Lohia | July 26, 2018

Close
The Bottoms
by Joe R. Lansdale

This fine story won the Edgar Award for Best Novel in 2001, and rightly so. Set in East Texas, in the bottomlands near the Sabine River during the Great Depression, it’s a grisly tale of murder, racial prejudice, and poverty seen through the eyes of an eleven-year-old boy. Not only is the story a compelling thriller in the best sense of that word, but it’s also a realistic portrayal of a southern community divided by politics, wealth, and race. As with all my favorite novels, the marvelous sense of place, of the unique landscape along the Sabine River, contributes significantly to the story’s appeal.

Amazon logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo
The Bottoms
Joe R. Lansdale

Amazon logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo

MENTIONED IN:

William Kent Krueger Shares His 10 Favorite Coming-of-Age Tales

By William Kent Krueger | September 25, 2019

Close
Witness Of Combines
by Kent Meyers

This isn’t a novel but a memoir, a collection of essays about the important lessons we learn in our youth that serve us well as we grow into adulthood. When Meyers was a young teenager, his father died suddenly of a stroke, leaving his children and widow to do all the work of running a hardscrabble farm operation in southwestern Minnesota. With pure simplicity of language and a deft eye for both the beauty and the challenge of the land, Meyers recalls the events of his childhood and the firm guidance of his parents which made it possible for him and his siblings to face so many hard realities in the wake of their father’s passing. This is one of my favorite pieces of nonfiction and I recommend it constantly.

Amazon logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo
Witness Of Combines
Kent Meyers

Amazon logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo

MENTIONED IN:

William Kent Krueger Shares His 10 Favorite Coming-of-Age Tales

By William Kent Krueger | September 25, 2019

Close
Ordinary Grace
by William Kent Krueger

So okay, I’m including one of my own books in the list. This novel is the nearest I’ve ever come to a memoir. I drew on much of my own background and many of my own memories to create the story of a thirteen-year-old boy who, in the summer of 1961, sees death visit his small town in a number of forms—accident, nature, suicide, and murder. It also provided me with an opportunity to ruminate on the nature of our spiritual journey as seen through the eyes of a minister’s son. I put everything I know about storytelling into this novel, and I put my whole heart into it as well.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo Bookshop logo
Ordinary Grace
William Kent Krueger

When tragedy unexpectedly comes to call on his family, thirteen-year-old Frank Drum finds himself thrust into a world of secrets, adultery, and betrayal. Set in 1961, Ordinary Grace is the story of what a shocking murder does to a boy standing at the door of adulthood and the fabric of a small Minnesota town.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo Bookshop logo

MENTIONED IN:

8 Edgar Award–Winning Authors Every Mystery Fan Should Read

By Maddie Nelson | April 27, 2023

11 Authors We Can Always Count On

By Alice Martin | November 1, 2022

10 Historical Fiction Gems Perfect for a Summer Day

By Sarah Walsh | June 21, 2021

8 Trending Books That Live Up to the Hype

By Sara Roncero-Menendez | May 19, 2021

Readers’ Choice: The 10 Books You Hope to Unwrap This Holiday Season

By Off the Shelf Staff | December 8, 2020

Influential Fiction: 9 Popular Books Our Readers Can’t Get Enough Of

By Off the Shelf Staff | May 14, 2020

Close

You must be logged in to add books to your shelf.

Please log in or sign up now.