Isabel and Dwight’s cousins, Ruby and Livia, live in Wisconsin. They also love books and have great recommendations. Ruby says you are always safe and happy purchasing the Harry Potter series but also suggests the interesting Goddess Girls series. In the GG books co-authors Joan Holub and Suzanne Williams teach Greek mythology through the characters of four girls, the GGs, enrolled at the Mount Olympus Academy. Great for grades three to seven. Ruby’s older sister, Livia, lists books for readers of many ages. Any Roald Dahl book! The Lemoney Snicket Series of Unfortunate Events with its orphans, wit, and people suffering from bad attitude. Any book by Erin Hunter. Beverly Cleary's The Mouse and the Motorcycle — in English or, in Spanish —
El ratonato de la moto. Livia also likes Kristen Landen’s unusual story, The Limit — does it evoke Dickens — of what happens to children when their parents spend money they do not have. Grades 6 — 10.
My youngest granddaughter, a fifth grader, is between Ruby and Livia in age. She handed me a copy of Elilzabeth Atkinson's I, Emma Freke, giving it the highest of compliments: "You feel you are inside the book not just reading a story." It is the story of a sixth grader who thinks of her family as quirky and is not certain how she fits in. This granddaughter, also an Isabel, next placed Sharon Draper's Out of My Mind by my computer. It tells the story of a brilliant, gutsy fifth grader with a photographic memory who cannot talk, walk, or write. She has cerebral palsy. She also has pluck. Isabel says it is a winner. She also says that fifth through eighth graders will love Rebecca Stead's Liar and Spy. This story follows the adventures of two boys caught up in the Spy Club.
Patrick Carman's The Dark Hills Divide (The Land of Elyon) series mixes mystery, enchantment, good and evil. The twelve year-old heroine, Alexa, is appealing and my granddaughter liked it because the end of the book is not evident from what comes at the beginning. A great book for kids ages eight to eleven.
If you have not already given copies of The Summer I Turned Pretty triology, consider these national best sellers as a choice. Granddaughter Lolo says "everyone is reading them." What to say? They are about girls, boys, and crushes. On the topic of love, give an older teen a copy of Daisy Goodwin’s The American Heiress: Nineteenth century England, seduction, and money. Romance at holiday time, complete with a snowstorm, provides a charming and lighthearted read in Let It Snow, a trio of interconnected stories perfect for young high school students. Eleanor and Park is another story of first love. Eleanor and Park are teens who do not fit in at their high school. Just published in 2013, it has been called "a gem of a book." And finally, love makes its appearance in yet another plot. John Green, prize winning author of Looking for Alaska and other books for teens, now writes about love-struck Quentin in Paper Towns. It is a mystery certain to please.
There is no mystery about the pleasure of a good read. Here’s hoping that one or more of the titles that delighted my young friends will bring a smile to someone you know.
©2013 Jill Norgren for SeniorWomen.com
Editor's Note: We discovered a child's book you might like at the Musuem of the City of New York that we pinned to our Pinterest Museum Shops board:
From the "pitch, smack, home run!" of Yankee Stadium, to the rattle of the Cyclone and sticky cotton candy on Coney Island, to the pulse of the crowd in Times Square, My Subway Ride spotlights the rhythm and beat of New York City's subway train. An illustrated children's book filled with colorful and dynamic illustrations of city subway scenes. By Paul Dubois Jacobs and Jennifer Swender, Illustrations by Selina Alko
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