In a bit of synchronicity with yesterday’s announcement from J.K. Rowling about Pottermore.com, Amazon.com today announced a new feature on their site targeting the popular “YA” (young adult) market: Essential Books for Young Adults. This new part of their on-line store is “designed to offer teens and parents a selection of timeless fiction outside the classroom that young adult readers will enjoy. Essentials in Young Adult Books will comprise two separate lists of ten books each: Editorial Essentials and Customer Selected Essentials.”

As part of this feature launch, Amazon is running a contest for the customer-selected list, where by nominating a book, you are automatically entered for a chance to win all ten of the “Editors’ Essentials” list (entry form and contest rules).

While I have not been a young adult for a few decades now, I have been known to enjoy the occasional book targeted toward that audience (Tokien’s The Hobbit and Pratchett’s The Wee Free Men come immediately to mind), and I know more than few adults who still quite like YA fiction for various reasons, whether it’s the more straight-forward story-telling, the expectation of avoiding graphic violence or sex, or perhaps the thematic elements. Therefore it might be worthwhile for all of us to check out these lists from time to time, whether we’re young physically or just mentally.

Without further ado, the current editorial list of Kindle books:

• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
• The Giver by Lois Lowry
• Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
• Monster by Walter Dean Myers
• Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
• Crank by Ellen Hopkins
• Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan
• The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stehphen Chbosky