My daughters (grades 8 and 9) love to read. Can anyone recommend any good books for that age range? The oldest really likes the vampire stories; she read the Twlight series, "Dracula" and "House of Night". The youngest has a wide range of interests. Thanks for your help.
Thank you all so much for your suggestions.
We belong to a book swap club, so we did some browsing and have ordered a few books by Lois Duncan.
For other moms who may have been interested in this post, for general information, the girls have read several of the Chicken Soup books and enjoyed them. My oldest and I both read "My Sisters Keeper" and loved it (not recommended for younger girls). My oldest read "Speak" as required reading earlier this year, but didn't say much about it. The youngest decided to order "Speak". All 3 of us read it within 48 hours of the book coming to our house. It's an excellent book.
My daughter is 13 and in 7th grade. She is a voracious reader, and her favorite book series is the Warrior books by Erin Hunter. She also loved the Twilight books and the Percy Jackson series, but Warriors is her fave!
I see you have found some already, but I'll throw a few more out there...just because I love to read and share good books! (Hope you don't mind!)
I agree w/another who posted about Watership Down, Excellent! Also if either daughter likes animals the James Harriot series is one of my favorites. They are All Creatures Great and Small, All Things Wise and Wonderful, All Things Bright and Beautiful.Also, for the one who likes vampire stories, Ann Rice. The Vampire Lestat series was one I loved when I was in Jr. High/High School. (I don't remember them being racy, but it was a while ago.) Happy reading!
My daughter is into the Percy Jackson series which they made a movie out of the first book. She is 12 and read each book in less than 2 days. Each book has over 250 pages. Really kept her attention.
Anything by Robin McKinley is a good bet. They mostly feature strong, resourceful heroines and many of them are fantasy or retellings of fairy tales. Personal favorites: Beauty, Rose Daughter, Chalice, Deerskin, The Blue Sword, The Hero and the Crown, and Dragonhaven.
I loved the book Chicken Soup for the Teenage soul. It's got real stories of teens in that book and can be very inspiring. My mom and I have read almost all of them. Check it out she may like it or she may not. It's really up to her. Good luck. :)
My daughter goes through books so fast too. She just read the Percy Jackson series and also the Sisters Grimm series and couldn't put them down. She also loved the Twilight series.
Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman is great.
Robin McKinley writes beautifully. She has one sort of vampire book called "Sunshine", but other stories are great too.
Patricia Mckillip is a wonderful fantasy writer.
Hunger Games by Susanne Collins is not about vampires, but a great teen book anyway.
Secrets of my hollywood life and others By Jen Calonita. They are great!
I loved all of Lois Duncan's books when I was a teen. She writes about ESP and things like that, so I think your daughter who liked the Twilight series might like Duncan's books too.
T.
Barefoot Books Ambassador
www.ReadandGrow.com
Perfect! I was going to suggest Lois Duncan! She was my favorite at that age. I would also recommend The Society of S by Susan Hubbard for your vampire-loving daughter. It is about a girl who discovers she is half-vampire.
I also really enjoyed Mary Higgins Clark and John Saul at that age.
I think that the Chronicles of Narnia might be a bit young for them, but if it isn't and they like that, I would also suggest The Dark is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper.
Harry Potter and His Dark Materials are excellent fantasy series for this age group. Another fantasy book that is superbly written is The Promise of the Wolves. I absolutely adored that one and can't wait for the sequel.
I have been reading fantasy and science fiction since elementary school. Anne McCaffery was my favorite at that age. Dragonflight is the first in her Dragonriders series (it has many books and her son Todd recently took over writing in that world as she is not actively writing anymore). Marion Zimmer Bradley is also excellent (Mists of Avalon, its sequels and all her Darkover books) and favors strong female characters. Charles Delint writes excellent urban fantasy. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card is an interesting science fiction story that sets up some interesting moral questions which are explored in a whole series of novels.
Kelly Armstrong has 2 series with supernaturals including vampires, one is young adult (the third book comes out next week!) and the other is for adults but not much sex or violence (people do get killed but by magic, not much blood and sex is mainly off screen). There are some young adult vampire series out there as well. One is the Vampire Academy Series and the other is the Chicagoland Vampire series by Chloe Neil.
I read everything I could at that age as well including a lot of classics and historical stuff like Wuthering Heights and Gone with the Wind. It make high school easier since I had read a chunk of the assigned readings. Anne of Green Gables is the first of a long series set about 100 years ago (if either of your kids loved Little House on the Prairie when they were younger this is a sure hit).
That is what I can think of just now but there are so many great things to read.
Way to go raising readers in your house! I'm an English teacher, and the readers in my classes always do exceptionally better on state tests and classroom assignments.
I love all Sarah Dessen books. All of her books have teenage girl main characters. Someone else suggested Speak by Lauri Halse Anderson; I love her and her other books as well. Also, someone mentioned The Uglies Series by Scott Westerfeld; I loved that series. I only read the Twilight series as far as vampire stories go, but I know there are more out there now. Also, to my students who loved to read I would recommend books by Jodi Picoult. They are adult fiction so some have maybe too much adult content, but My Sister's Keeper or Nineteen Minutes were ones they liked.
A good website that you can show them is www.booksie.com
It's a GREAT website, with lots of stories written by other members on the site. It has a wide variety of choices since members can pretty much write whatever they want on there :)
A few of my favorite published works are:
The Heartland Series by Lauren Brooke (If either of your daughters like horses, this is a really good series for them)
The Sweep Series by Cate Tiernan (The one that is into vampires would probably like this series. It's about magic)
The Vampire Kisses Series by Ellen Schreiber (I've read the first book in the series and it was pretty good)
Gingerbread, Shrimp, and Cupcake by Rachel Cohn (I've read Gingerbread and it's a really good book for teens)
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson (The movie based off the book is just as good)
My 8th grader read the The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones; City of Ashes; City of Glass, by~ Cassandra Clare...she read them all in a matter of a week and recomended them to her librarian at school, they have stocked them in the school library and I guess they are a big hit in the middle school. She read the Twilight series but after reading the Mortal Instruments she said it was way better than Twilight.
Right now she is reading the Clique series.
I asked my daughter. She says there is a series out and the titles are
The Uglies, The pretties, The specials and there is one more but she hasn't got it yet. but that they are really good.
Catching Fire & The hunger games. Forest of bones & teeth. Graceling. Fire. - my younger sisters ( age 15) have read and liked all of the above.
Hi im a teen to I love Reading the books that are really good are, The Hunger games i didnt know that i would like it very much but i loved it ummmm im reading Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl- which is good um Ruined i dont remember the person who wrote it but its about a family curse,
The boks i would like to read are,
1. The Emerald Tailsman by Brenda Pandos.
2. Fallen by Lauren Kate
here is a website that i found some books that you might like that i did http://www.teenreads.com/
