I love hearing what books kids recommend other kids their age read, so I asked my kids. I’ll do a separate post for each of them. We all know that summer reading is a must, either for school or just for fun. All of these titles don’t necessarily have anything to do with summer, but they are favorites that my kids want to share with you.
Greta just turned 10, is a voracious reader and these are her recommendations.
1. Amal Unbounded – Greta just got this for her birthday and read it this week during exams. Amal becomes a servant to help repay her family’s debt. It’s the story of a brave girl who tries to out herself from a negative situation.
2. Compass South – This is a graphic novel Greta picked out at the library, and apparently it’s so great she wants to recommend it. Twins are trying to get away from pirates as they travel from place to place. There is a second book as well, that we are hoping to get from the library soon.
3. Anne of Green Gables – Does Anne need any explanation?
4. Hans Brinker (Great Illustrated Classics) – A boy and a girl work together to solve two problems.
5. Unicef books Children Just Like Me, Celebrations, A Life Like Me, A School Like Me. – Greta has loved these books for years. They show children all over the world living their life. There are detailed descriptions and bright colorful pictures. These are great for many ages, but she is the one who loves them the most in our house.
6. St. Clare’s & Malory Towers – These are hard to find in the USA. Our library doesn’t have any books by Enid Blyton, but I had read many good reviews and recommendations for them, so we took a chance and purchased them (one set at a time), and Greta fell in love with them. She describes them as boarding school girls playing hilarious tricks on their teachers.
7. Geronimo Stilton (Adventures in the Kingdom in Fantasy) & Thea Stilton – At this stage Greta prefers the longer Geronimo Stilton books, which are called Adventures in the Kingdom in Fantasy and she still enjoys the Thea Stilton books because they travel the world on their adventures.
8. Mandy & The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles – Both of these are by Julie Andrews, yes, that Julie Andrews. Did you know she wrote books too? And really great ones at that, what can’t she do!?! I read Mandy out loud to everyone last year and they all loved it. It’s a book that I had tried to get Greta to read many times before, but she said it looked boring. Alas, when I started reading it out loud to her sisters, she immediately got sucked in and loved it just as much as they did. The same thing happened with The Last of the Really Greta Whangdoodles, except her teacher read it aloud to the class this year. Even though her class just finished reading aloud she read ahead many months ago to find out what happened.
9. Little House – As with Anne, do these need any explanation? We need to try and read them aloud again here. I think Greta is the only one who I’ve read them all to. I’ve started a few other times with the others but they weren’t as interested or too young at the time.
10. Gooney Bird Greene – Gooney Bird Greene is written by Lois Lowry, which I previously thought of only as the author of Number the Stars. This is nothing like that, but equally good. Gooney Bird is a silly girl who gets into mischief, she is very lovable. Eloise loves these books as well.
11. The Watsons go to Birmingham – Greta read this for Reading Olympics this year. This takes place during the Civil Rights movement and the Watsons are in Birmingham when their grandmother’s church is blown up.
12. Anything by Andrew Clements – Greta has long been a fan of Andrew Clements. Eloise has just started to get into his books. He writes silly stories often about school. The most famous of his books is Frindle about a boy who decides to start calling pens, frindles.
Have you read any of these? Do you have any to add?
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