Christian YA Books and the Peculiarity of Peretti

Okay, so let’s take a break from deep thinking and politics and head down the Young Adult fiction world. Thank you to The Little Engine that Couldn’t for the brilliant idea to host a blog party! This post is the result of that party, so here we go.

Most Christians know the stigma of Christian young adult movies (or Christian movies in general). They are usually low budget and badly acted. Up until a few years ago, this was the norm. Finally, Christian YA movies are starting to get a little better. But you what in the YA realm of Christianity has been good for a really long time? Books.

That’s right, Christian young adult books are a thing! And they are actually really good. One of the first Christian series I ever read was the Left Behind Series. I have to say, these adult books were pretty heavy reading for a 9-year-old, but I loved them. After I finished that series for the second time, I naturally thought that the kid’s version of the series would be just as good. I was right. Although technically not YA per se (see what I did there?), they were my first foray into the world of Christian fiction written for non-adults. While I never did get to read all of them (there’s like 50 of them, and my library didn’t carry them all), I would still recommend the series.

My next introduction was of the Frank Peretti variety. If you don’t know who he is, I highly recommend picking up a copy of This Present Darkness to acquaint yourself. It’s an adult book, but it’s a good one. It was the first Peretti book I read (shortly after reading the Left Behind Series). However, I’m not here to talk about books for adults. I’m talking about YA books. The second Peretti book I got was the first of the Cooper Kids Adventure Series. It’s called The Door in the Dragon’s Throat.

Now, there’s something peculiar you need to understand about Peretti books. Namely, most of the time, his adult books are not nearly as scary as his kid and teen books. Weird right? But it’s true. I speak as someone who has read every fiction Peretti book except the newest, so I can tell you with a degree of certainty that his YA books are terrifying. Let me use the first Cooper Kids book The Door in the Dragon’s Throat to illustrate this point.

SPOILERS!!! Do not read the next paragraph if you do not want spoilers!

Okay, now that that’s out of the way, let me give you a brief plot synopsis for The Door in the Dragon’s Throat. Basically, these two teens go with their archeologist dad to find a big, deep, dark hole in the middle of the desert in some foreign country. They go into this hole and OPEN THE GATES OF HELL!

Yeah, that’s not scary at all. But if that book wasn’t scary enough for you, you can read either one of the Veritas book. The names of the two books in the series are The Hangman’s Curse and Nightmare Academy. So, yeah, those are scary. Those two books combined to give me creepy spider and never-ending holographic maze nightmares for a week— each.

If scary is not your cup of tea, then maybe you’d prefer something more mystery-like, then alright. I give you the Red Rock Mystery Series by Chris Fabry and Jerry B. Jenkins. This series is about a set of Christian twins (brother and sister) who like to solve mysteries. This one I have read all of. It’s a really great series. Besides the whole mystery-solving thing, these books also highlight the twins’ everyday lives as they struggle with regular teen stuff like surviving high school and back-stabbing friends.

Well, those should be enough to convince you that there are decent Christian YA books on the market. What about you? Do you have any favorite Christian YA books? Favorite non-Christian YA books?