Kids 9-to-12 years-old are now the “tween” demographic. They have their own music, movies and TV shows. But what about books? Here are some of our favorites.
“Diary of a Wimpy Kid,” by Jeff Kinney. Kinney introduces readers to Greg Heffley, the scrawny kid, with the concave chest, a few strands of hair and an older brother who torments him.
C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books and “The Great Brain” series by author John Dennis Fitzgerald are the recommendations from young listener Julianne Mozzer
“Allie Finkle’s Rules for Girls” by Meg Cabot came up in our conversation with children’s librarian Sherry Eskin, of the Honan-Allston branch of the Boston Public Library.
___________________________________________________________
For a slighter older teenage audience, these books caught our attention.
The Alex Rider Series, by British author Anthony Horowitz, profiles a 14 year old schoolboy who is a spy for British intelligence.
In “Million Dollar Throw,” by Mike Lupica, 13-year-old Nate Brodie gets the chance to win a million dollars if he can make a perfect throw like his idol Tom Brady of the New England Patriots.
“The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: Traitor to the Nation: Volume 1: The Pox Party” won M.T. Anderson the 2006 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. The book, tells the tale of a young slave boy raised in pre-revolutionary Boston as the subject of an experiment in human intelligence.
Reif Larsen’s book “The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet” tells the story of Tecumseh Sparrow Spivet, a 12-year old mapmaker who embarks on a journey to Washington D.C. to accept an award from the Smithsonian. Larsen not only tells the tale, but drew the maps and wrote the margin notes that give the reader insight into T.S. Spivet’s world.T.S. Spivet”
In “Wintergirls” by Laurie Halse Anderson, Lia, the book’s narrator struggles with anorexia following the death of her best friend Cassie, who was bulimic. Anderson wrote the book at the request of a doctor friend, and through research learned that obsessive eating disorders affect millions of American young people.
Novelist Gayle Forman’s book “If I Stay” focuses on Mia, a talented 17 year old cellist who is severely injured in a car accident that kills the rest of her family. While in a coma, Mia realizes that she must make a choice: whether or not to live.
