Do you have kids who are finding it difficult to choose good books at the library? As librarians, we always want to encourage kids to read. However, while there are a lot of books written for preteens, teens, and young adults, few have any real substance to them. I have some suggestions that should help you sort the wheat from the chaff. These authors all captured my own interest, most of them while I was in the right age range myself, and their books are worth a look whether you are just trying to pick a book for your kids or even looking for something to read as an adult yourself.

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History and Autobiography

Many excellent books are based on historical events or draw on the author's life to a greater or lesser extent. These are often especially popular among homeschoolers who want to make history something vibrant and alive instead of a dead and dusty boring chore.

Laura Ingalls Wilder

The Little House series is one of the best-loved works of American literature. Laura relates her life story, albeit with some alterations, as her pioneer family travels from a cabin in Wisconsin to eventually settle in South Dakota. There are tragedies and triumphs, struggles and successes. Grit, determination, and Pa's fiddle tunes carry them through.

Ralph Moody

Little Britches: Father and I Were Ranchers is the first book in a series about growing up in Colorado in the early 1900s. Moody wrote several subsequent books continuing his life story in the American west. He also wrote many other non-fiction books about the history of the frontier.

G. A. Henty

Known as the "boy's historian," Henty was a prolific British author of historical fiction in the late 19th century. Many of his books have been reprinted more recently, and old copies can often be found online or in used book stores at fairly reasonable prices, too. His tales cover everything from Biblical times and ancient history to what would have been fairly recent events in his day such as the American Civil War. His perspective is that of a staunch British imperialist, and his themes are blatantly moralistic as the protagonists pursue both virtue and adventure. A few books have particularly egregious racist descriptions of some characters. By and large they are still excellent novels nonetheless.

C. A. Stephens

Stephens wrote many short stories for The Youth's Companion magazine during the late 19th and early 20th century as their most popular and prolific contributor. Several of his stories have been collected and reprinted in Stories from the Old Squire's Farm and Sailing on the Ice and Other Stories from the Old Squire's Farm. The stories are humorous and often written to teach a useful lesson of some kind without being overtly preachy. Less accurately autobiographical than Wilder or Moody, Stephens takes considerable artistic license with his own history in pursuit of a good story, but it still feels like a slice of real Maine boyhood life.

Fantasy

Some people get their tails in a knot about swords and sorcery or anthropomorphic animals in books for children. I don't. There is a glaring omissions in this list, however: I must confess that I have not yet read the Harry Potter series myself, so it must go unmentioned beyond this sad admission of librarian failure.

C. S. Lewis

The Chronicles of Narnia shouldn't really need to be mentioned here, right? This set of seven stories about English children who get drawn into another world of magic and adventure is a must-read. I personally prefer them in the order they were published, but if you would rather read them according to their in-universe chronology, that's fine, too.

J. R. R. Tolkien

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings have been made into blockbuster films, and while I enjoy the latter, I abhor most of the former. Read the books instead. The Hobbit is better for a younger audience, and its episodic nature makes it a good story to read out loud to children over several days or a couple weeks. The Lord of the Rings is a massive fantasy epic that will be a challenge to most readers until well into middle school or high school, but it is well worth the time and effort. Tolkien consciously avoided allegory, but there are kernels of deep wisdom hidden in there nonetheless.

Brian Jacques

His surname is apparently supposed to be pronounced something like, "Jake's," rather than the more French way the spelling indicates. I cannot say for sure how it should be pronounced, but I can definitely say his Redwall series is worth a read! These books are not necessarily read in any particular order, because although a few are directly interconnected, most are standalone adventures within the setting. Anthropomorphic forest creatures in Redwall Abbey face adventures in their surrounding world. Rats, wasels, snakes, and the like are the usual villains. Heroes are mice, squirrels, shrews, badgers, hares, and hedgehogs. These are fun books that grew out of stories Jacques created to tell at a school for the blind after he became dissatisfied with the literature provided for him to read to them.

Lemony Snicket

I have not read A Series of Unfortunate Events, but I have read All the Wrong Questions. Snicket writes in a strange world that mirrors our own, but everything is strange and twisted. His dark sense of humor combined with witty dialogue makes it all work, though.

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Perhaps I will continue this as a series covering other genres. Meanwhile, what are your favorite history and fantasy novels, especially those suited to a younger audience? Comment below!