As the title says, I'd like to get my granddaughter (12F) started on her very own library. She loves to read and I want to encourage that as much as I can. There are the standard old school Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Little House On The Prairie type series but what I'd like to do is stretch her reading genre a bit past the standard, what I like to call "kid fluff". Lord Of the Rings/The Hobbit might be a stretch too far (maybe not?) but something that she'll remember and hopefully fall in love with.
by crabio
19 Comments
The Wilderlore series by Amanda Foody is fantastic. Like Pokémon meets Harry Potter meets Ghibli.
When I was that age I LOVED Judy Blume books. I’m 35 now and I recently rebought all my favourites, for the nostalgia, in the old editions I used to have when I was a young teenager, or would get from the library. They’re heart warming and funny and reflect real life growing up at that age. I’m from the UK but they’re set in America.
I don’t think it’s too young for Hunger Games. Maybe a little challenging but in a good way.
Differently Morphus and Existentially Challenged by Yahtzee Croshaw. Governmental agency involved in the regulation of magic and extra dimensional beings. Female main character.
Winternight Trilogy by Katherine Arden
The Enchanted Forest by Patricia C Wrede
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
Little Women!
For classics- Anne of Green Gables series or Little women, black beauty, the secret garden or 8 cousins, Great expectations
For fantasy- Skulduggery Pleasant, Percy Jackson, His dark materials. All great series for that age group.
Terry Pratchett might be worth looking at for her too.
The Underlander Chronicles by Suzanne Collins. She also wrote the Hunger Games but this series is for a slightly younger audience.
I really liked The Guest of War series by Kit Pearson at that age. Also The Royal Diaries series.
Absolutely The Enchanted Forrest Chronicles and/or any of Wrede’s other books as well.
A Series Of Unfortunate Events book series would be fun.
The Hobbit is a good idea
The Chronicles Of Narnia
Holes by Louis Sachar
The Giver
Anne Of Green Gables
Edit: also if she doesn’t already, get her a library card!
I recently read ‘the age of miracles’ it’s YA about a 12 year old navigating various relationships and challenges in her life and amongst this- the Earth’s magnetic field and rotation around the sun is altered.
It’s mostly about her navigating life as a pre-adolescent
The Children of Blood and Bone series is amazing
The Madeleine L’Engle series about the Murray and Austin families. A Wrinkle in Time is the best known, but there are 14 of them, with overlapping characters, going into the next generation of some.
*The Hobbit* is certainly within her grasp if she’s reading those. It has zero female characters (which I don’t think is necessarily a problem as part of a wider balanced diet, but it may be a concern for some). *The Lord of the Rings* has been read by many12-year-olds, but is perhaps a bit challenging.
*The Borrowers* is in some ways for younger children, but also has really intricate worldbuilding and excellent writing, and the main character is a girl slightly older than your daughter. It’s a gorgeous series. I (male) was reading and enjoying them at that age and older.
Terry Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching series (starting with *The Wee Free Men*) is always going to be recommended. Tiffany is nine in the first book. and ages up by two years in each subsequent book. They deal with grief, responsibility, family (including complex feelings of resentment), and coming of age. Good friends and bad friends. Later books also deal with romance, but it does take a while to get there.
The classics of my childhood were Rosemary Sutcliffe (mostly Roman Britain, though she also wrote books set much earlier and much more recently), Eilís Dillon (books set on the Atlantic islands off the west coast of Ireland, full of adventure), and Arthur Ransome (also boats, but this time in the English Lake District and Norfolk Broads). Of those, Arthur Ransome’s *Swallows and Amazons* series is probably the one with the broadest appeal, with a good mix of boys and girls and lots of very realistic adventures, coloured by the imaginations of the children.
My daughter is 12 and was recently really into Percy Jackson series
Lunar chronicles, renegade series, nevermoor series
Chronicles of Narnia
Daughter of the Empire
Tillerman Cycle by Cynthia Voigt. Starts with Homecoming.