Tracks – difficult to follow…
Posted by Sonja
August 15, 2008
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One of my favourite things ever is teen fiction. I never really grew out of Judy Blume. I have a shelf full of Francine Pascals and Paula Danzigers, these tightly written paperbacks of angst and blue mascara. When I run out of things to read, or need something easy and comforting, you’ll find me at my own personal Young Adult Fiction bookshelf.
When I googled ‘Lions Teen Tracks’, though, very little came up. This was an imprint of HarperCollins from around the years 1976 to 1991 – I can’t be accurate here because I can’t find any information (well, not through a quick google session anyway… must renew British Library membership!). Lions Teen Tracks published an amazing amount of teen fiction by lots of different authors, some of whom, like Francine Pascal, went on to fame and fortune. Others wrote a slew of Tracks novels, and some just a single gem of a book…
Many of the novels tackle serious issues like sexual abuse and disability, but I’m sorry to say that I’m a sucker for the more humdrum stories of high school, first love, and all that teen jazz. Sorry.
Part of my Lions love comes from the amazing covers. There were a number of standard cover ‘looks’ over the years, all gloriously, classically eighties. Torn effect coloured backgrounds? Check. Different coloured squares and triangles jostling for position? Check. Ill-proportioned pencil and watercolour illustrations? Check. Silver foiling? Mmm, check.
Best place for finding them now? Charity shops. My local library had nada. A couple of links for you: Wikipedia’s Young Adult Fiction page, and a teen fic post on The Lipster.
3 comments Categories: about us, art, books, design
August 15th, 2008 at 11:28 am
I also love young teen fiction – I had a particular soft spot for British WW1 romance novels as well as Paula Danzigers. I loved Cynitha Voight growing up as well. (And Nancy Drew…) Excellent links as well!
August 20th, 2008 at 9:55 am
I highly recommend checking out the regular “Fine Lines” feature on Jezebel – it’s got me hooked on YA fiction all over again!
The author of these features is writing a book on the subject, which I’m worryingly excited about.
August 24th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Wow thank you for that link Kerry! There are some amazing suggestions on there. I’m cracking up over the subheading for the Deenie feature – Brace Yourself. Ha ha ha.