The movie based on King's "The Body", "Stand by me", is amazing as well, it always makes me very emotional, especially the last line: "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?" I first watched this movie when I was also like 12 and 20 years later I still love it so much. I'm happy that you put this story on your list.

Fifth grade, "Where the red fern grows" was soul crushing. So many good mentions on your list. Thanks for sharing.

A Tree grows in Brooklyn is my favorite coming of age story. The main family is full of complicated characters who are so flawed but you love anyways. Such a beautiful depiction of early 20th century America, which is one of my favorite eras in history

Just yesterday I went to Books-A-Million and purchased a copy of Malice (The Faithful and The Fallen) and Assassin’s Apprentice (Farseer Trilogy), I can’t wait to get started on those.

The Outsiders is a great one. Also love Huck Finn and To Kill A Mockingbird.

“Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father’s passin’.” still chokes me up every time. The movie nailed that scene as well.

You are delivering my childhood reading list! The book, Where the Red Fern destroyed me. I sobbed. Agree with you on Huck. Great vids and perfect examples of top coming of age stories.

TKAM is one of my top 5 favorite books of all time, as well as The Color Purple, IT, Fried Green Tomatoes, and The Stand. I guess they all have a little bit of coming of age in them, as well lol

So I’m just 100 pages into The Assassin’s Apprentice and can tell it’s going to be a great coming of age story and I’m so glad you included it.

Great list, some of these are some of my all-time favorites. To Kill a Mockingbird is so powerful, and the film is every bit as good as the book. Where the Red Fern Grows was one I read several times as a child and was eager to share with my kids. Ender's Game raises great questions and is just a great sci-fi book in general, good for anyone new to the genre. Boy's Life was my book of the year for 2022. I love Farseer and really have a soft spot for the Burrich/Fitz relationship.

Great list Mike. A Separate Peace by John Knowles (1959), is one of my favorites and 1 I’d recommend you trying if you haven’t yet.

Finally a video I can relate with again, I've read many of these books! Another one I always relate to Where the Red Fern Grows is a book called My Side of the Mountain. They're not all that similar but we read both in class one year and I always liked both of them.

I do not know if you would call it a coming of age story, but The Brothers Lionheart by Astrid Lindgren is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read!

I would also add Catcher in the Rye, Prayer for Own Meany, Outsiders and Lord of the Flies. PS - Had to back and add the Hatchet by Gary Paulson!

To Kill A Mockingbird was the first book our school made us read that I enjoyed. My senior year my English teacher made me read Enders Game… so glad she did

Such a wonderful list! I'm adding many to my TBR list! Thank you.

I've read all but 3 of these. Great list 👌 👍 Never would have picked Boy's Life or Assassin's Apprentice without your recommendation. Loved them both! I think coming of age is one of my favorite story types too 😁

Love coming of age books and this is a really great list. Really nice balance to classics and modern fiction. Many thanks!

Oh I need to read this books, I’ve only read Dune and Assassin’s apprentice. About coming of age, I really like Carlos Ruiz Zafón. He is mostly known for “The shadow of the wind” and the next 3 on the series , but he has 4 other books, all coming of age, a little spooky, some young romance, and fantasy elements 👌🏼 -The prince of mist -The midnight palace -The watcher in the shadows -Marina

Great list! To Kill a Mockingbird and Ender’s Game were two of my best rereads last year. Always great to see Hobb on a list too!

Awesome picks, Mike! I think I'm going to have to read Where the Red Fern Grows, like real soon. Dune is on my list for this year and Boy's Life was my number 2 last year 🙂

Have you read A Separate Peace by John Knowles? One of my favorite books we had to read in school, and a fantastic coming of age story.

Great list! I would add Summer of Night by Dan Simmons. Brilliant book! A couple of years ago I enjoyed CJ Tudor's debut, The Chalk Man. It's another coming of age story that was really enjoyable and a quick read. I'm new to your channel and am enjoying the content. Cheers!

Thanks for the Book Recs! I do love some good Coming of Age.

I just thought of one: The Great Santini. The boy is a bit older but there is definitely a growing up period. Plus you can’t go wrong with Pat Conroy books.

To Kill a Mockingbird is my favorite book of all time. Great choice!!

My favorite is The Outsiders. I bawled my eyes out at the end. And I'm going to throw Eragon in there as well. Mainly when he is trying to figure out how first love. As a teen it really hit home for me in a similar way.

The Belgariad and Harry Potter made me love reading and my dad read those to me when I was a little girl 📚

Wow, I was surprised to see "Where the Red Fern Grows" included and mentioned in so many of the comments as I'd always viewed it as something that was obscure that happened to get chosen by my middle school teachers, but was less well known elsewhere. In addition to it, most of what I was assigned were the usual suspects mentioned by Mike in this video and other videos. A lot of those books were okay, but the one that really jumped out at me was "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi." Reading that was an absolute jam and was by far my favorite thing that I was assigned to read in those years. My hat goes off to my seventh grade teacher for choosing that one.

I just red assassin’s apprentice and Fitz’s coming of age story is so great! And I feel like it continues in the second book. Really enjoyed it too!

Where The Red Fern Grows also emotionally scared me 😅My teacher must have been a sadist, because we read it as a class, aloud, and every single kid in that room was either openly crying or otherwise in some sort of twist of upset.

Highly recommend Summer of '42 for anyone looking for a good coming of age story not on this list! Such an interesting time to be a 13 year old boy, not old enough to go to war, but old enough to start to grasp whats going on. Seeing your older brothers/friends/community go off to war, and wrestling with typical puberty issues. Liked your list as usual Mike, currently reading Dune now!

Old yeller. Farewell, my lady. The black stallion. Member of the wyelled. The wizard of oz.

I came across my copy of Where the Red Fern Grows the other day. Read the last few chapters and bawled like a baby. Book wrecks me every time. Two coming-of-age tales that I would add are Little Women and the Anne of Green Gables books.

Great list! Love a good coming of age story. Need to read David Copperfield. And IT of course! To Kill a Mockingbird is amazing.

For me books that come to my mind are 1. Where the red fern grows 2. A taste of black berries 3. Harry Potter and the deathly Hallows 4.the first percy Jackson book series 5. The outsiders

Great job!!! I've need to read a few of these.

Wow! I had everyone of these on my favorite list except 2 of them and it makes me want to go back and read them all again. I have not read Dune or Assassin’s Apprentice, but maybe I’ll give them a shot since you hit the nail on the head with all of the others.

Great idea for a video, mate. 🙂👌🏻 I had exactly the same experience with Dune - I related to Paul so hard. ♥️

I know I’m a homer, but the coming of age process for Talkamar in the Licanius trilogy will always be my #1.

I'd like to humbly recommend the Monster Blood Tattoo trilogy as a great coming-of-age fantasy story. The first book is The Foundling. From orphan to military novice to assisting one of the most famous monster killers in the world, the protagonist goes on quite a journey of growth and discovery

Best coming of age story: “His Dark Materials.”

You have two of my favorite books of all time in here. I love to kill a mockingbird and also read that in high school for my english class. IT I think is the best coming of age story ever and I agree with you that Stephen King writes kids so well. I was hoping that would be on here because it's not just a horror story; it is really a coming of age story. The bobby was great too. I've seen the movie "Where the red fern grows" and cried like a baby. I'm not sure if I can handle reading the book lol!I have seen the movie something wicked this way comes but never read the book but I might have to read that now. Always love these videos and I'll check out some of your other coming of age stories. I do love coming of age stories!

Assassins Apprentice is an awesome coming of Age. Malice also got some great coming of age themes. Finally, I read how to kill a mockingbird in 2022 and loved it

Hi there Mike. I do now really like the coming of age stories. Like you, I loved the Huckleberry Fin and Tom Soyer books. I also loved the Harry Potter books for that reason too. My next favorite was the Sword of Shannara series. My next favorite was the Heralds of Valdamar series. Those have a ton of coming of age stories. My next one would be the Chronicles of Narnia series. Also, the manga series Naruto and Rurouni Kenshin have terrific coming of age stories. Also the manga Fruits Basket has a great coming of age story from a girls point of view. Those are just a couple of my favorites.

Great picks! Here are more that are from the female perspective: (1868) Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1937) Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (1943) A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (1947) The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (1996) Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells (2001) The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

You picked a couple of my favourites already (To Kill a Mockingbird and Assassin's Apprentice). After reading Lancelot over the weekend, I'd say the first half of it had a coming of age aspect though, because the book runs his life span, there is a few time jumps.

This might be my first comment on your channel. We are of similar age, and your opinions usually coincide with mine. That includes this list. Well Done!! I would add 'A Day No Pigs Would Die', which my eighth-grade literature class read and is similar to 'Fern' but on steroids. In the TSR/RPG mould, the first Greyhawk/Gord the Rogue book 'Saga of Old City', by Gary Gygax himself, sets the stage for six more books of greatness!!

Such a good genre. Never fails to punch me in the gut.

These are fantastic picks, Mike. Pretty much all of these I've either read, or have a copy of and plan to read this year. Here's a few others of my own: 1. Dan Simmons- Black Hills; not one that many people like, GR ratings only 3.58, and very heavy on Native American themes, with some incredible sci-fi at the end. But I found this a beautiful book, and worth the 5☆ I've given it 2. Robert McCammon- Speaks the Nightbird; Matthew Corbett will strike you in the feels, I PROMISE you. 3. Noah Gordon- Shaman; historical fiction that brought me to tears a couple times. Part 2 of a loose trilogy, but can be read as a stand alone. 4. Joe R. Lansdale- A Fine Dark Line; a textbook coming of age book, and from a TX author. He sets many of his books in East TX. 5. Donald Ray Pollock- The Devil all the Time; I think you will love this book. It's part historical, part southern Gothic, with horror elements. Not supernatural, but just strange, with a lot of odd and awful people. Highly, highly recommend (check out the Tom Holland movie on Netflix, he plays the main character)

Boy’s Life, To Kill a Mockingbird, are truly great. Some of the rest I need to read. Thanks.

Growing up in New Zealand, Whale Rider is a pretty important coming of age story that a lot of kids read. They made it into a film a few years ago and they did a great job For me, my favourite is The Body, although I have no point of reference for that time period, the long summers and adventures we used to go on as kids, growing up in a relatively rural area - it just speaks to me

Do the Omen books 1-3 count as coming of age? 🤔 🤣 I love anything Realm of the Elderlings because she writes character development so well. I also love the book Jane Eyre - you follow her from childhood to womanhood and it's been a favourite of mine since I read it aged 10. I also think you could do a video on 'Stories they made us read in school that scarred me for life' 😄

Elijah Wood's audiobook reading of Huck Finn is amazing!

Great list. Great content. Thank you.

Hi 👋 like ur video!! Like ur book list too.. Happy 2023 reading to you! 🥳🎉🎊

Hi Mike, i loved Boys Life too. If your looking for more coming of age books like that i would recommend “Saturday Night Ghost Club by Craig Davidson ( Nick Cutters actual name), “We Begin at the End” by Chris Whitaker , “Imaginary Friend” by Stephen Chbosky and “This Tender Land” by William Kent Krueger they’re all great ones

Also Summer of Night by Dan Simmons

I'm going to read Ordinary Grace by William Kent Kruger soon and it sounds like it could end up on a future version of this list.

I love your list! I’ve read a lot of them, boys life has been on my list awhile. I really like It read, that one this October. Finally! I’ve always considered Joyland Coming of age, Devon is older than that.. hmmm it still hits like a coming of age. I love this genre.

Chronicles of Prydain is such a good set of coming of age books

My all time favorite has to be Boy's Life by Robert McCammon

You missed a great one…A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith…my favorite novel of all time

This is technically a memoir but "This Boy's Life" by Tobias Wolfe (not to be confused with "Boys Life") was great. Plus it's also sort of an on-the-road narrative, which is another of my favorite framing methods for storytelling. And you're right, King has so many great coming-of-age stories. As much as I love the two mentioned, I might have to go with "Hearts in Atlantis" for how it addresses age-specific struggles throughout the human lifespan.

What a great list! Being a woman my mind also went to Little Women, an amazing story of Jo March growing from an unruly tomboy to a woman running a school for boys. And also Anne of Green Gables, though Anne grows up over the series and not just a single book, in this book she goes from a flighty girl to a mature young woman who has to deal with family loss and need and deciding what course her life will take. Much like Little Women.

Love it! I think David Copperfield is a really good coming-of-age story. I never saw it that way before.

Boy's life is something special. I don't know why I waited so long to read another McCammon novel, especially after enjoying Swan Song so much. Not knowing much about A Boy's Life before reading it, I was expecting something much more akin to The Talisman by Stephen King, considering the tags on good reads list it as 'horror' and 'fantasy'. Instead, its much more than that, and it feels more like a mix between a Bradbury novel like Something Wicked This Way Comes , Low Men in Yellow Coats ,and The Body. The horror tags probably come from the fact that this book is part murder mystery, but it isn't the entire focus of the novel. The fantasy also comes from its aspects of magical realism sprinkled throughout the book, and its done incredibly well. The book is much more focused on being a coming of age story, and a year in the life of our protagonist, Cory Mackenson. And while the murder mystery plot, and the way that it affects the characters surrounding Cory is amazing, the real magic comes from the focus on the characteristics of childhood. Grief, faith, bullies, childish infatuations, fear, and hope; all touched on in such a beautiful manner. “See, this is my opinion: we all start out knowing magic. We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand.” The novel is just full to the brim with quotes like these. It really grabs on from the start, and never lets go. There were multiple times reading this novel where it just brought on full body chills, and really brought back some the magic experienced in my wee years. There's a time where I rode my bike for the last time. Went outside to play with play with the neighborhood kids, not knowing that it wouldn't happen again. Unaware at the time, that the little league baseball games of my youth were really something to be cherished. This book opened up those feelings, and expanded them into the realm of magic. The thing is I grew up in a time much different than the setting of the novel. 1960's Alabama was a much different time than early 2000's California, but the point still lands. It beautifully captures the true essence of being a child. The naivety of it all, the lack of true responsibilities, and ability to use your imagination to fill in the blanks of life not yet drilled into you. It emphasizes that because of these qualities, the magic of childhood is lost as you grow up, and that adulthood has managed to squeeze all the magic out for good. Its also just so beautifully written. The passages in this book almost otherworldly, and they just make me wonder how McCammon never became a household name. This is one of those books where you'll be sad its over, and immediately want to check out what else McCammon has done. I implore everyone to read this book, and check out Swan Song while you're at it too. Its almost just as good. “You know, I do believe in magic. I was born and raised in a magic time, in a magic town, among magicians. Oh, most everybody else didn’t realize we lived in that web of magic, connected by silver filaments of chance and circumstance. But I knew it all along. When I was twelve years old, the world was my magic lantern, and by its green spirit glow I saw the past, the present and into the future. You probably did too; you just don’t recall it. See, this is my opinion: we all start out knowing magic. We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out, and combed out. We get put on the straight and narrow and told to be responsible. Told to act our age. Told to grow up, for God’s sake. And you know why we were told that? Because the people doing the telling were afraid of our wildness and youth, and because the magic we knew made them ashamed and sad of what they’d allowed to wither in themselves. After you go so far away from it, though, you can’t really get it back. You can have seconds of it. Just seconds of knowing and remembering. When people get weepy at movies, it’s because in that dark theater the golden pool of magic is touched, just briefly. Then they come out into the hard sun of logic and reason again and it dries up, and they’re left feeling a little heartsad and not knowing why. When a song stirs a memory, when motes of dust turning in a shaft of light takes your attention from the world, when you listen to a train passing on a track at night in the distance and wonder where it might be going, you step beyond who you are and where you are. For the briefest of instants, you have stepped into the magic realm. That’s what I believe. The truth of life is that every year we get farther away from the essence that is born within us. We get shouldered with burdens, some of them good, some of them not so good. Things happen to us. Loved ones die. People get in wrecks and get crippled. People lose their way, for one reason or another. It’s not hard to do, in this world of crazy mazes. Life itself does its best to take that memory of magic away from us. You don’t know it’s happening until one day you feel you’ve lost something but you’re not sure what it is. It’s like smiling at a pretty girl and she calls you “sir.” It just happens. These memories of who I was and where I lived are important to me. They make up a large part of who I’m going to be when my journey winds down. I need the memory of magic if I am ever going to conjure magic again. I need to know and remember, and I want to tell you.” 1 like

Excellent list

I read Where the Red Fern Grows in middle school, it and To Kill a Mockingbird(I actually loved them as well and read them faster than everyone else in class) I went to school in the early 2010s. Idk about the whole "they coddle these younger generations" thing. Because they sure didn't in my school lol.

I find HP and the Order of Phoenix is a great coming of age book and movie.

Any plans to read The Ember Blade, Mike?

At some point this year you have to read Garrett PI by Glen Cook, a heavily over looked series!

Love to kill a mockingbird. We named our chocolate Labrador Scout after Scout Finch

Awesome list!!

Great list! 👍

Great list. Sort of unpopular opinion...Boy's Life disappointed me (maybe my expectations were too high) and I didn't like Ender's Game. But, Something Wicked is a beautiful treasure and I love The Body and It and remember loving Where the Red Fern Grows as a kid. I read Assassin's Apprentice last year and it became one of my favourite books. So, so good!

Highly recommend Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger. I'd say it's on par with Boy's Life. Also check out The Bottoms by Joe R. Lansdale.

Every page of Taran Wanderer, Book 3 of the Prydain Chronicles is all about coming of age.

My dogs middle name is Atticus. I also got out voted for first name but I still got it in there.

Pretty surprised you didn't add Faithful and the Fallen...

Ender's Game still hold up?

Dune is a good choice, I might have overlooked that as the amount of growing Paul does half way through can be harder to relate to, he kind of skips over becoming a man. And I'll always love TKAM and SWTWC, the latter I only just read, but there's so many deep thoughts from father and son to return to. The best stories I'd add to the list are the Neverending Story, His Dark Materials, and Lord of the Flies (though Ralph is going to need some major therapy yet). I'm also partial to a Great Expectations comic I grew up with, but I've yet to read any Dickens longer then his Christmas Novellas - they take some endurance.

Of all the books I've recommended to my NONREADING, Lord of the Rings loving son, he reads Where The Red Fern Grows

In Dune, I think Herbert understood the internal struggles male adolescents face when needing to grow up fast. I agree that Assassin’s Apprentice is a great coming-of-age fantasy book!

11:00 "I can make a list of books like this only by Stephen King" Maybe you should Mike. Maybe you should.

The coming-of-age genre is also known as “bildungsroman,” which is a genre dealing with the formative years of the protagonist and their development as a character as they journey to adulthood. Great video!

Good one Mike but could you remember either of the other 2 advanced Summer readers?

I'm shocked you don't have Gone with the Wind on here. Or even an honorable mention.

Didn't you read three McCammon novels? You forgot about Wolf's Hour.

Okay, hot pick here, but what about Call of the Wild? Just because Buck is a dog shouldn't exclude it

My favorite coming of age stories The hunger games trilogy The divergent series Harry Potter series The talisman by Stephen king

You mean so far. Lol. I love them too but I know we haven't read them all yet. 🥳🥳

Does anybody know coming of age stories with girl protagonists?, other than IT

I tried boy's life unfortunately I dnf it

The body is great, but growing up with the movie being the same age as you Mike , it was almost kind of boring. It was almost word for word with the movie. That being said, Stand by me is a perfect adaptation

It’s ok to say Robert McCammon is better then king. It’s not cheating it’s true. It’s true.

11:58 People either forget or intentionally ignore the disgusting & disturbing scene in It where the kids after defeating Pennywise have an orgy

I can’t believe I’m going to say this. You put out too many videos. Give us a chance to breathe here. I feel like instead of making videos you’re passionate about, it’s become following the algorithm.

I hate "Coming of Age" books. I'm already of age. My kids are already of age. And for the most part, all of these books portray the process as unrealistic.