Book Recommendations (all 75 of them)
Each list is ordered from most to least kid-friendly, since a lot of these books are from when I was younger but still enjoyed. Some of them are more tween books (9-12) ish, even though I read a lot of them a little bit younger than that, that’s the target age, and some of them are a lot darker and cover much heavier themes. A couple are just placed more towards the bottom of the list because the older you are when you read them, the more you will get out of the book and pick up on the symbolism and underlying themes.
Historical Fiction
Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan
Dear America Series by many authors
Jimmy’s Stars by Mary Rodman
Rodzina by Karen Kushman
Sugar by Jewell Parker Rhodes
Refugee by Alan Gratz
The Mighty Miss Malone by Christopher Paul Curtis
Auma’s Long Run by Eucabeth Odhiombo
The Lions of Little Rock by Kristin Levine
Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata
Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson
My Mother the Cheerleader by Robert Sharenow
Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor
Holocaust/World War Two (Fiction and Non-Fiction)
Weedflower by Cynthia Kadohata
The War Outside by Monica Hesse
The Girl in the Blue Coat by Monica Hesse
A Chance to Live by Pieter Kohnstam
The Devil’s Arithmetic by Jane Yolen
The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne
In My Hands by Irene Gut Opdyke
Mapping the Bones by Jane Yolen
Realistic Fiction
Wonder and Auggie and Me by R. J. Palacio
Drumroll Please by Lisa Jen Bigelow
Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt
Drive Me Crazy by Terra Elan McVoy
Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper
Counting by Sevens by Holly Goldberg Sloan
One For The Murphys by Lynda Mullaly Hunt
Five Feet Apart by Rachael Lippincott, Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis
Forget Me Not by Ellie Terry
Don’t Even Think About It by Sarah Mylknowski
Everything I Know About You by Barbara Dee
The Running Dream by Wendelin van Draanen
Runaway by Wendelin van Draanen
Run by Kody Keplinger
Now is Everything by Amy Giles
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo
Wild Bird by Wendelin van Draanen
3 Little Words by Ashley Rhodes Courter
Good Enough by Jen Petro-Roy
Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone
People Like Us by Dana Mele
These last few I would put in the 12 or 13+ category without a doubt, especially the last three.
13 Minutes by Sarah Pinborough
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
Hate List by Jennifer Brown
The Rules of Survival by Nancy Werlin
19 Minutes by Jodi Picoult
Heroine by Mindy McGinnis
Paperweight by Meg Haston
Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
Impulse and Perfect by Ellen Hopkins
Realistic Fiction With Magical/Fictitious Elements
(yes, that is a genre now)
The Swap by Megan Shull
Bounce by Megan Shull
Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
Belzhar by Meg Wolitzer
Horror/Dystopian
One for Sorrow by Mary Downing Hahn
Before She Was Found by Heather Gudenkauf
Scythe by Neal Shusterman
Divergent by Veronica Roth
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Dry by Neal Shusterman
Fantasy
These are technically all children’s books or written for younger audiences but I still would enjoy all of them now...especially Harry Potter and Land of Stories, two all-time favorites.
Fablehaven by Brandon Mull
Candy Shop Wars by Brandon Mull
Percy Jackson by Rick Riordian
Heroes of Olympus by Rick Riordan
The Keeper of the Lost Cities by Shannon Messenger
Land of Stories by Chris Colfer
Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling
Classical Literature
A pretty small category, but I don’t read very many classics (though I hope to change that.) These are my absolute favorites of what I have read!
Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
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And just for fun: Books that a lot of people like (and also some sort of obscure or not that popular books that I’ve read) that I personally think aren’t worth reading, but you are entitled to your own opinion, no judgement!
1. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
I really tried with this one. I swear, I tried.
2. Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Wood
Winner of the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, Newberry Medal, and NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work - Youth / Teens, but I just couldn’t get into it. I finished it, but didn’t find it particularly interesting.
3. The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson
I was told it was an extremely scary book and thus rated 18+ on some websites. I didn’t think it was scary at all, I guess I can see that it’s scary because it is true (supposedly?), but I wasn’t a huge fan.
4. Dragonwatch by Brandon Mull
I have read his other series, Fablehaven, but Dragonwatch was very difficult to even start, so I gave up eventually.