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What is your tween reading for fun right now?


EKT
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I can't seem to keep my older daughter in books right now! lol. (She is 9.) Would love to know what your tween has recently read independently and loved.

 

Note: I read aloud from a literary classic every night at bedtime, so I'm looking mainly for pleasure reading that my daughter can relax with and just enjoy. (So, I'm fine with it being "below" her reading level.) Not that "quality" and "fun" are mutually exclusive, of course, but you know...I'm looking for tween "beach reads." For reference, she loves all the American Girl books (really likes historical fiction) and would love to find a great adventure or fantasy book. 

 

Thanks in advance for any recs! 

 

(Edited to add her age.)

Edited by EKT
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DD10 loves Percy Jackson series, Harry Potter and anything in that Genre. Right now she is reading "The Classy Crooks Club". She got it this afternoon and almost done with it. She says it is a fun book. And it is different from Sci-fi and Mythology!

 

She is a book monster though! She loves books😊

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*The Ascendance trilogy by Jennifer Neilsen...The False Prince, The Runaway King, The Shadow Throne

*Heroes of Olympus series and The Kane Chronicles, both by Rick Riordan

*Sisters Grimm books by Michael Buckley

*Chasing Vermeer, The Calder Game, The Wright Three, by Blue Balliet

*The Land of Stories series by Chris Colfer

*Books by Esther Friesner (historical fiction)

*Lady Grace Mysteries by Grace Cavendish

*Theodore Boone series by John Grisham

*H.I.V.E (Higher Institute of Villainous Education) books by Mark Walden

*IQ series by Roland Smith

*Sammy Keyes books by Wendelin Van Draanen

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Dd10 is another Percy Jackson fan, she's read all the books in all those series multiple times.  She has recently "branched out" to read the 39 Clues series, which she's really enjoying.

 

She recently enjoyed Friday Barnes, Girl Detective by the author of the Nanny Piggins series, another favorite of hers.

 

And she liked the Hero's Guide trilogy by Christopher Healy, starting with The Heroes Guide to Saving Your Kingdom.

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At school ds9 is reading the ranger apprentice series. At home he is rereading too easy stuff on his kindle. Has your daughter read the Kate Dicamillo books.

 

Yes, we are huge Kate DiCamillo fans here! I think there are one or two we haven't read yet, though, so that's a great suggestion!

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I started to respond to the thread before I read any other responses, but then read the other responses and deleted mine. It just occurred to me that my nearly 12-year-old is more like a teen than a tween. She's reading very different things so I'll leave you to it. :D

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My 10-year-old DS has been reading the Warriors series and the Owls of Ga'Hoole. Lately, though, he's been reading more nonfiction -- mostly reference books about birds, since that's his current "thing." We're reading the Chronicles of Prydain in our evening read-aloud time...on the last book now.

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Favorites here at age 9:

- Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet (Cameron)

- Stowaway to the Mushroom Planet (Cameron)

- Warriors series (Hunter) -- the original series

- Encyclopedia Brown series (Sobol)

- mini-mystery collections by Sobol, Conrad, Sukach, and others

- Wolves of Willoughby Chase (Aiken) -- there are also sequels

- Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Fleming)

- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Dahl)

- Oz series, esp. Land of Oz and Ozma of Oz (Baum) -- Wizard of Oz is hard to get in to

- Mrs. Piggle Wiggle series (MacDonald)

- Pippi Longstockings series (Astrid)

- The Rescuers, Miss Bianca, The Turret, Miss Bianca in the Salt Mines, Miss Bianca in the Orient (Sharp)

 

more ideas:

- Baby Island (Brink)

- The Borrowers series (Norton)

- Enchanted Forest Chronicles (Wrede)

- Dragon Slippers (George)

- Clementine (Pennypacker)

- Ivy and Bean (Blackall)

- Understood Betsy (Fisher)

- Peter and the Starcatchers (Barry)

- The Green Ember (Smith)

- Nancy Drew series

- Kingdom of Wrenly series (Quinn)

- Miranda the Great (Estes) -- cat in ancient Rome

 

historical fiction ideas:

- Roman mysteries (Lawrence)

- Grace the Pirate (Lasky)

- The Pirate Queen (McCully)

- The Paint Box (Trottier)

- The Courage of Sarah Noble (Dalgliesh)

- The Secret Soldier: Story of Deborah Sampson (McGovern)

- Phoebe the Spy (Griffin)

- Toliver's Secret (Brady)

- I Am Regina (Keehn)

- Hannah (Whelan)

- Next Spring an Oriole; Night of the Full Moon (Whelan)

- Pioneer Cat (Hooks)

- Caddie Woodlawn (Brink)
Edited by Lori D.
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The ten year old is currently reading her way through Harry Potter. The last book she read before she got the Potter bug was Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer, and the last book before that was probably the second Family Fletcher book, The Family Fletcher Takes Rock Island. I can make a list of suggestions, but not right now, I've got a bit of a headache.

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My daughter's mostly into fantasy at the moment. When she was 8-13 yo, she read and re-read....

 

Harry Potter series

Brian Jacques's Redwall series

Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl and WARP books

all the Rick Riordan books,

T.A. Barron's Great Tree of Avalon, Atlantis Saga, and Merlin Saga series.

 

She also read Caroline Lawrence's Roman Mysteries series, and books by E.D. Baker and Gail Carson Levine.

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Ranger's Apprentice, the Here There Be Dragons series, 100 Cupboards series and the other ND Wilson series, Brotherband Chronicles, the other series by the guy that wrote the Fablehaven series, Redwall, Eragon series, Percy Jackson series (the original one)...

 

On the list to get next is Fablehaven and Gregor the Underland series.

Edited by JudoMom
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So here is my attempt at a list. Or three lists - historical, fantasy/sci-fi, and other (mostly contemporary realistic. Some are old enough that they probably count as historical fiction, I've had to use my judgment here). I've italicized books that are part of series.

 

The American Girl books seem to hover around a mid-4th grade reading level, so I tried to make my suggestions not too far off that mark.

 

As always, my judgment and yours may vary, so it's on you to pre-read any books if you have specific concerns.

 

Historical Fiction

 

Full Cicada Moon

 

In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson

 

War Comes to Willy Freeman (there is some period appropriate use of slurs, so you'll want to pre-read)

 

Sugar

 

The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle

 

Dave at Night

 

Dragonwings

 

The War That Saved My Life (there's some pretty open discussion of child abuse and neglect)

 

Catherine, Called Birdy (a little harder, but short, so it evens out. The author has written several historical fiction works of equal caliber)

 

A Single Shard (ditto what the above says)

 

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

 

The Mighty Miss Malone

 

Chains (deals with issues around slavery)

 

Echo (with some magical realism floating around. Do NOT attempt to read this on a Kindle.)

 

One Crazy Summer

 

A Year Down Yonder (Anything by Peck is golden)

 

Strawberry Hill

 

Dash

 

A Jar of Dreams

 

The Birchbark House (this is a little harder than most of these suggestions. Also, there is a death in the book)

 

The Year of the Dog

 

A Pickpocket's Tale

 

Bo at Ballard Creek

 

All-of-a-Kind Family

 

Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself

 

Al Capone Does My Shirts

 

Ninth Ward

 

Fantasy and Sci-fi

 

A Tangle of Knots

 

The True Meaning of Smekday

 

Moon Base Alpha

 

Ambassador

 

Airborn

 

Bayou Magic

 

The Jumbies

 

So You Want to Be a Wizard

 

Akata Witch

 

Hammer of Witches

 

Jinx

 

The Conch Bearer

 

Princess Academy

 

Dust Girl

 

Mars Evacuees

 

Savvy

 

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

 

The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm

 

Un Lun Dun

 

Cat Girl's Day Off (the 10 year old was obsessed with this book for a while, as I recall. LOL, I'd forgotten all about it!)

 

Powerless

 

Zahrah the Windseeker

 

The Savage Fortress

 

Starry River of the Sky

 

Other

 

Swindle

 

Save Me a Seat

 

Mission Mumbai

 

President of the Whole Fifth Grade

 

Blackbird Fly

 

Seaglass Summer

 

Frindle (I recommend anything by Clements, but his books are short compared to most middle grade books being printed nowadays)

 

The Candymakers

 

The Year of the Book

 

Vanished

 

Clementine

 

The Toothpaste Millionaire

 

Gaby, Lost and Found (deals with some more serious issues, but nothing that isn't resolved)

 

Clara Lee and the Apple Pie Dream

 

Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer (if you get no other book I suggest, get this one. That's why I recommended it TWICE. It's magical realism, actually. Ought to put it in the other list.)

 

When Life Gives You O.J.

 

How Tia Lola Came to Stay

 

The Grand Plan to Fix Everything

 

PICKLE: The (Formerly) Anonymous Prank Club of Fountain Point Middle School

 

Yang the Third and Her Impossible Family

 

The Misadventures of the Family Fletcher

 

Indian Shoes

 

The Truth About Twinkie Pie

 

Crunch

 

In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse

 

Dancing Home

 

Unidentified Suburban Object

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Everything by Brandon Mull, the Fablehaven author.

 

I find that Mull's books are marred by weird racial issues. I would definitely pre-read them before handing them to a kid, I know I wasn't comfortable giving his books to my girls, and I tried to read a second book of his after finding the first one I read to be heavy on creepy exoticism instead of honest diversity.

 

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Middle School series by James Patterson. My aunt is a librarian at a local middle school and recommended these. Got them for DD10 for Christmas and she ripped through them (4 books) in about as many days. She was off by herself laughing out loud at the antics of the characters. Then her sis (2yrs younger) started them and had the same response. 

Both girls love anything by Roald Dahl, and DD10 is also a huge fan of the "How to Train Your Dragon" series.

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My nine year old is reading:

 

The H.IV.E. series (another plug for it).

 

Ungifted by Gordan Korman

 

How to Steal a Dog by Barbara O'Connor (deals with homelessness)

 

The Terrible Two by Mac Barnett

 

 

ETA: After rereading the OP, I'd particularly recommend H.I.V.E. Eight of the nine books in the series are already out and it's like Harry Potter meets Despicable Me. While the main character is a boy, there are some strong girl & women characters. My son is devouring these right now. 

 

 

Edited by Mrs. Tharp
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