Listmania! Best Books for Older Children
By Glinda
Now, now, some of you were a bit overeager on the last Listmania! post, Best Books for Younger Children. Here I present my final book list. I would say that these range anywhere from 3rd grade up to high school, but each child is different in reading skill and comprehension, so it is tough to say when they should pick up a particular book.
Many of these books are Newberry Award Winners, but I was quite surprised to find that some of the most beloved books did not win the award and were in fact honorable mentions. I was also surprised to find myself getting a little misty-eyed at the memory of some of these books. Here they are, in no particular order:
Black Beauty
Ella Enchanted
James and the Giant Peach
Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales
Ramona (series)
The Little Prince
The Secret Garden
The Chronicles of Narnia
My Side of the Mountain (series)
Harry Potter (series)
The New Way Things Work
Harriet the Spy
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn
Little Women
The Little Princess
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The Black Cauldron
The Call of the Wild and White Fang
Tuck Everlasting
Bridge to Terabithia
A Series of Unfortunate Events (series)
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass
The Giver
Little House on the Prairie (series)
Anne of Green Gables (series)
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
Holes
The Phantom Tollbooth
A Wrinkle in Time
The Wind in the Willows
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
Shiloh
Charlotte’s Web
Because of Winn-Dixie
The Hobbit
A Light in the Attic
To Kill a Mockingbird
His Dark Materials (series)
Anything else?
November 4th, 2007 at 11:50 pm
Matilda
James and the Giant Peach
Witches
Most of the Roald Dahl books, basically…
November 4th, 2007 at 11:52 pm
Again, Enid Blyton’s books for older children… the Secret Seven series, the Famous Five series, Mallory Towers series, St Clare’s series etc.
November 5th, 2007 at 12:33 am
Hoot is another I think that Z. really enjoyed.
November 5th, 2007 at 1:12 am
Little Lord Fauntleroy..
November 5th, 2007 at 4:04 am
Sunflowery- I think James and the Giant Peach and CATCF are his two strongest works. As for Little Lord Fauntleroy, it is also a good book, but I feel the other two are much better. I hadn’t really heard of Enid Blyton, and I went on to Wikipedia and found out that she wasn’t as popular in the US as in other countries, which might account for that. And that certainly doesn’t mean she isn’t a great author.
Beenzzz- I’ll have to look up Hoot.
November 5th, 2007 at 8:28 am
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
The Wizard of Earthsea (Earthsea Trilogy)
The Dark is Rising
Watership Down
Dragonflight
November 5th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
Anything by Edgar Eager.
Five Children and It.
The Lemonade Trick series (boy + actual magic chemistry set, what could be better?).
The Practical Princess and Other Liberating Fairy Tales which is out of print but a fantastic read – five or six stories in which all the princesses are smart and beautiful and rescue themselves.
If I Were in Charge of the World by Judith Viorst
Sigh…
November 5th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. A really truly remarkable book about two orphans in the England of King James.
November 5th, 2007 at 4:32 pm
[...] Manolo says, there are two very nice discussions underway at the Teeny Manolo regarding books for childrens, the topic which has elicted very strong, but politely stated opinions from our internet friends. Last week, it was Glinda’s list of books for the younger childrens, this week, it is her list of books for the older childrens. [...]
November 5th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
Watership Down was a favorite of mine in middle school and my brother adored Redwall by Brian Jacques.
November 5th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
Also Nightbirds on Nantucket, Black Hearts in Battersea, and all of Joan Aiken’s young adult books including The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. I read most of these as a child and returned to them as an adult. The storytelling is wonderful, full of misdirected history, but the language is my favorite. Aiken creates evocative words, slang and otherwise, that made me run to the dictionary as a child and laugh as an adult. And the wise and clever children always triumph over the wicked and avaricious adults.
November 5th, 2007 at 7:53 pm
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles were my favorite books ever when I was young (Dealing with Dragons etc). Also, John Bellairs’s earlier books are fantastic, but the ones written later in his life seem to have been phoned in. And the ones written after his death are thoroughly mediocre.
A belated suggestion for little kids: Stones & Bones is a brand new evolution book for kids and I think it’s really fantastic.
November 5th, 2007 at 9:35 pm
Our all time most recommended and given as a gift book is
The Wheel On the School by Meindert Dejong (you can read a nice essay about this book here: http://gapersblock.com/airbags/archives/living_learning/
this is an amazing book-
November 5th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
The entire Oz series.
Dr. Doolittle
and the Pippi Longstockings books, as well as other Astrid Lindgren books like The Brothers Lionheart
November 5th, 2007 at 11:06 pm
also, I just saw these on the bookshelf, The All-of-a-kind Family series, by Sydney Taylor
also The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, and really, anything by Dianna Wynn Jones- she wrote Howl’s Moving Castle, which was made into a Miyazaki film a few years ago.
November 6th, 2007 at 1:41 am
The Hero and the Crown/The Blue Sword- Robin McKinley (I kept a group of 5-14 yr olds enchanted with these books)
King of the Wind-Marguerite Henry
The Dark is Rising Sequence- Susan Cooper. I know the movie is crap, but the book series is GREAT! (of note, all three of these authors won Newberries for at least one of the books listed)
November 6th, 2007 at 2:22 am
hmmm… my niece’s favourite books were the Molly Moon series, Artemis Fowle (1st one), Lemony Snickets. re-read over and over.
November 6th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
Arabian Nights tales are good for older children–I think I was about 11 when I first read them–especially if you get an edition with good illustrations (mine has stunning Maxfield Parish pictures). Charles Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare is a classic–I remember being excited to read the proper Shakespeare versions when I got older, because I had loved Lamb’s versions. E. Nesbit’s Five Children and It was mentioned above–the sequels The Phoenix and the Carpet and The Enchanted Castle are also good.
How old is “older children”? I can think of some books that I read when in 8th grade or a freshman in high school that I really enjoyed, but not sure if the 12-15 age group is covered here. I read most of Jane Austen’s novels, the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy, and the Horatio Hornblower series when I was 13-15, but I was a good and eager reader. I imagine that Christopher Paolini’s books Eragon and Eldest would appeal to kids in their early teens as well.
November 6th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Anything by John Bellairs! Brad Strickland has been writing books based on the stories by John Bellairs that are as good if not better than the originals. I recommend them all. Also did anyone mention Joan Aiken yet! I loved her books too.
November 6th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
This makes me want to raid my parents’ house so I can reread all of my favorite books from elementary school…
My absolute favorite – that I have reread recently and it definitely stands the test of time – was The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin.
November 6th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
I am a huge fan of the BFG, or any Roald Dahl book in general. Also, book by Beverly Cleary (any Ramona book is hilarious).
And for the tween girls, I recommend the books from the American Girl Collection, although I can’t recommend the ones written after Mattel took over and corrupted the Collection.
November 7th, 2007 at 12:27 am
The Long Summer (sequel to Harriet the Spy) – Louise Fitzhugh
The Little Princess – Frances Hodgson (?) Burnett
The Black Fox of Lorne – Margurite De Angeli
More than A Queen
for older
Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack
anything by Paul Zindel
November 7th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
As it happens, I have been meaning for awhile now to recommend this one to Manolo, because I think he would find it most charming:
Mistress Masham’s Repose, by T.H. White
It is for young and old alike (especially if you enjoy your fiction sprinkled liberally — and humorously — with architectural, historical, literary, and Latin references), and I have adored it since I discovered it at age 10.
The original illustrations by Fritz Eichenberg are a must. Fortunately, it has been reprinted in its original format as part of the NY Review Children’s Collection.
THW Fan Site Description of MMR
Amazon Reviews
At Amazon you can also read the first few pages.
(And — psst — an adult looking for a great detective/suspense novel will probably enjoy Darkness at Pemberley, also by White. Out of print but can be found used and often at libraries.)
November 7th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
(Eek. That would be “for a while now.”)