Last summer, National Public Radio asked its audience, “What books shaped you in high school?” More than 1100 listeners responded. “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “1984” were the most frequently mentioned titles, followed by “Catcher in the Rye,” “Fahrenheit 451,” and “The Grapes of Wrath.” An additional 18 books are also listed, with fiction outweighing non-fiction 15-3.

None of the books fall into the Young Adult category, i.e aimed at younger readers. YA is a somewhat vague term, with its teenage lower and upper limits not clearly defined. “The Outsiders,” S.E. Hinton’s 1967 novel, is sometimes cited as the first YA novel.

Whether today’s high schoolers will name a YA novel as an influence years from now can’t be known. But YA novels deserve our adult attention for at least two reasons: popular YA books give us a window into the adolescent mind, and there are holiday gifts to be bought for the teenagers on our lists.

“Speak,” by Laurie Halse Anderson, who grew up in Potsdam, is 14 year old Melinda’s difficult story. Because she called the police during a no-parents-at-home high school party, she is shunned by her schoolmates. Lunch in the cafeteria is lonely, counselors are obtuse, parents are emotionally absent. Melinda finds refuge in an unused janitor’s closet, where she hangs a picture of the poet Maya Angelou.

It is Maya Angelou, and an eccentric art teacher, who ultimately give Melinda the courage to speak about the evening she called the police. She didn’t call because there was drinking at the unchaperoned party. She called because she had been raped by a fellow student, and then ran away before the police arrived. It is that horror that she is slow to speak of, that she needs to speak of.

What makes this a YA novel is not so much the content, but rather the voice. Melinda’s narration has the immediacy of an adolescent, as well as the teenager’s judgmental, stereotyping, quality.

“Speak” is a painful read. But it makes sense for young readers, resonates for older readers and might be an appropriate gift.