Timewaster's Guide Archive

In the YA vein, I've always enjoyed Garth Nix.  He has an older YA series called the Abhorsen Trilogy (Canada & the US)/The Old Kingdom (everywhere else) which is just excellent, and its totally clean.  I mean, there's some innuendo, and some off-screen sex, and a major part of the magic takes place in the realm of death, but I would be more than happy for any impressionable young minds to read it.

He has also done some younger YA called the Keys to the Kingdom.  It takes me about 2 hours to read each book, but they are a very enjoyable 2 hours 

<edit>
I forgot about the Obernewtyn Chronicles by Isobel Carmody...the only catch is that the series is unfinished    And while the latest book was released in 2008, the one before that was released in 1999    According to http://www.obernewtyn.net/e107/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?113967.0#post_338810, the last book is finished and just waiting editing, with a Feb 2011 release (in Australia, at least), but I'm not holding my breath.

Personally, I'd go for Feruchemy.  I just love the idea of being able to use your idle time to store up attributes.  Watching TV, you don't need strength or speed, so you store them.  Sitting on the train in the morning, you don't need to see, so you can store it for when you need super sight.

Besides, I'm short sighted, so anything that would let me go without contacts for a bit, even though my eyesight would be worse while I'm storing it, would totally be worth it!