Westerns

For many readers, the genre of westerns is most quickly associated with the author Louis L'Amour. And for good reason. L'Amour wrote 89 novels over the course of his lifetime; the great majority are westerns. (Check out Hondo to read the book John Wayne declared, "...the finest Western [he] had ever read."
Other prominent authors of western novels are Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove won a Pulitzer Prize in 1985,) and Cormac McCarthy (All the Pretty Horses, the first of the Borders trilogy, won both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1992.) It probably goes without saying the violence was instrumental in the success of westward expansion, and these books are not for the faint of heart.

All of the books mentioned above were written for adult readers. There aren't as many written specifically for teens, but a few good ones are listed below.


The Devil's Paintbox by Victoria McKernan
In 1866, fifteen-year-old Aidan and his thirteen-year-old sister Maddy, penniless orphans, leave drought-stricken Kansas on a wagon train hoping for a better life in Seattle, but find there are still many hardships to be faced.  
Ghost Medicine by Andrew Smith
Still mourning the recent death of his mother, seventeen-year-old Troy Stotts relates the events of the previous year when he and his two closest friends try to retaliate against the sheriff's son, who has been bullying them for years.  
This is My Words: The diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901, Arizona Territories: A novel
by Nancy E. Turner
Guided by her father's desire for greener pastures, Sara follows the family to Texas and back to Arizona when illness, nature, and violence take her father and several brothers.