Youth Booklist - Challenging Books for Younger Readers

Books and authors on this list may not be appropriate for every young reader. Be sure to read the summaries, and ask a library staff person if you have questions.

General Suggestions

• Read "classic" children's literature. (Refer to the Adapted Classics booklist for suggestions.)
• Read nonfiction, especially folktales and biographies.
• Look at "Read-Aloud" lists.
• Remember that "picture books" are not easy-to-read books. Picture books are written for an adult to read to a child, so the reading level can be quite advanced

Individual Titles
These books are found in the jFiction area, under the author's last name

• Watership Down by Richard Adams
• Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard Atwater
• Enormous Egg by Oliver Butterworth
• Because of Winn Dixie by Kate DiCamillo
• Twenty-one Balloons by William Pene Du Bois
• Weslandia by Paul Fleischman
• Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham
• Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
• From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by Lois Lowry
• The View From Saturday by Lois Lowry
• Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley and Me
  Elizabeth by E. L. Konigsburg
• Gooney Bird Greene by Lois Lowry
• Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck
• Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck
• Fair Weather by Richard Peck
• The Staircase by Ann Rinaldi
• Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare
• Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Wiggin

Series
These books are found in the jFiction area, under the author's last name.

• Indian in the Cupboard series by Lynne Reid Banks
• Fudge series by Judy Blume
• Paddington Bear series by Michael Bond
• Freddy the Pig series by Walter Brooks
• Saddle Club series by Bonnie Bryant
• NIMH series by Jane Conly
• Hardy Boys series by Franklin W. Dixon
• Half Magic series by Edward Eager
• Gone-Away Lake series by Elizabeth Enright
• Nancy Drew series by Carolyn Keene
• Chronicles of Narnia series by C. S. Lewis
• Pippi Longstocking series by Astrid Lindgren
• Anastasia Krupnik series by Lois Lowry
• Mrs. Piggle Wiggle series by Betty MacDonald
• Judy Moody series by Megan McDonald
• Anne of Green Gables series by L. M. Montgomery
• Borrowers series by Mary Norton
• Soup series by Robert Newton Peck
• Cricket in Times Square series by George Selden
• Ballet Shoes series by Noel Streatfeild
• Mary Poppins series by P. L. Travers
• Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• American Girl series, including History Mysteries
  and Amelia's notebook series by Kate Moss
• Thoroughbred series by various authors

Individual Authors
These books are found in the jFiction area, under the author's last name.

Lloyd Alexander | Louisa May Alcott | Avi | Lucy Boston | L. Frank Baum | Carol Ryrie Brink |John Bellairs | Frances Hodgson Burnett | Michael Bond | Betsy Byars | Clyde Bulla | Beverly Cleary | Matt Christopher | Pam Conrad | Andrew Clements | Sharon Creech | Bruce Coville | Karen Cushman | Christopher Curtis | Paula Danziger | Roald Dahl | Judy Delton | Meindert DeJong | Kate DiCamillo |
Walter Farley | Eleanor Estes | Sid Fleischman | Rachel Field | Dan Gutman | Louise Fitzhugh | Brian Jacques | Jean Fritz | Dick King-Smith | Jean Craighead George | Jim Kjelgaard | Jamie Gilson | Gordon Korman | Carolyn Haywood | Robert Lawson | Marguerite Henry | Hugh Lofting | Patricia Hermes | David Lubar | Polly Horvath | Robert McCloskey | Johanna Hurwitz | Ben Mikaelson | Eva Ibbotson | Scott O'Dell | Peg Kehret | Kenneth Oppel | Gail Levine | Gary Paulsen | Maud Hart Lovelace | Louis Sachar | Patricia MacLachlan | Jon Scieszka | Ann M. Martin | Lemony Snicket | Patricia Polacco | Jerry Spinelli | Ellen Raskin | Theodore Taylor | Zilpha Keatley Snyder | Bill Wallace | Mildred Taylor | E. B. White | Sydney Taylor | Barbara Wallace

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