Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

Give me some books your 11 year olds like

29 replies

Soubriquet · 01/12/2024 14:28

Dd wants some books for Christmas. I’m ok with that but I need more recommendations

She has read and enjoyed

Harry Potter
Divergent
Hunger Games
Yesterday Crumb (3rd one is for Christmas)

She likes animal books, fantasy books and mystery books

OP posts:
DeathStarCanteenGal · 01/12/2024 15:10

DD has read both Hunger Games and Harry Potter and is currently reading the Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children series by Ransom Riggs - on book 3 of 6 and they've been a hit so far

Soubriquet · 01/12/2024 15:21

I’ve got those! Good books

OP posts:
BlackCatsAreBrilliant · 01/12/2024 15:23

The Skandar series by AF Steadman.

<although I am the DC are getting quite stressed about the wait for book 5>

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about these subjects:

DisplayPurposesOnly · 01/12/2024 15:25

Dig out the classics - Carrie's War, The Peppermint Pig, Ballet Shoes, The Children Of Green Knowe...

angelopal · 01/12/2024 15:25

Percy Jackson series. There are also other series by Rick Riordan that she may like.

Pegasus series by Kate O'hearn.

MrsTerryPratchett · 01/12/2024 15:33

Terry Pratchett? There's hundreds of them.

biscuitandcake · 01/12/2024 15:35

Agatha Christy mysteries - I think I was that age when I started reading them and they aren't difficult to get through - if she can get through Harry Potter she won't struggle
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe books
More advanced and she might hate them but I also think if she is a good reader she might like Lord of the Rings. Or at least the Hobbit. Its fantasy, and its fantasy on which a lot of other fantasy books are based (tell her she can just skip the unnecessarily long songs and lose nothing)
Terry Pratchet - especially the Tiffany Aching books.

biscuitandcake · 01/12/2024 15:35

MrsTerryPratchett · 01/12/2024 15:33

Terry Pratchett? There's hundreds of them.

Cross posted!

tokyolunchbowl · 01/12/2024 15:38

Yes to Skandar … waiting here also
Adventures from land of stories - bunch of them
Aveline Jones
Several by Katherine Woodfine & Kiran Millwood
Robin Stevens - murder most unladylike series

mamakoukla · 01/12/2024 15:40

Another vote for Percy Jackson and other books by Rick Riordan.

The Blackthorn Key, and follow up books in that series

Words · 01/12/2024 15:41

Classics all the way.

Ballet Shoes
The Secret Garden
Children of Green Knowe.

Many, many more.

Get her thinking and away from the ghastly cult of Potter

Words · 01/12/2024 15:42

Please not Pratchett either!

MrsTerryPratchett · 01/12/2024 15:42

ghastly cult of Potter

Who's a what now?

MrsTerryPratchett · 01/12/2024 15:43

Words · 01/12/2024 15:42

Please not Pratchett either!

WTAF?

Them's fighting words.

roobyred · 01/12/2024 15:43

The Lottie Brookes books were recommended on here and my daughter loved them around that age I think.

biscuitandcake · 01/12/2024 15:44

And for 90s nostalgia (if you can still get them)

  • Animal Ark books (easy to read fun stories about animals)
  • The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper (fantasy)
  • Peter Dickinson "The changes" trilogy (fantasy. Britain reverts to the dark ages and people think machines are dangerous)
  • Alan Garner books (also fantasy)
JustinThyme · 01/12/2024 15:44
  • Katherine Rundell’s books are great.
  • Stone Heart by Charlie Fletcher - great trilogy based in London where statues are some of the main characters.
  • H.I.V.E series about a a boarding school for villains

^ all ones that were popular with my DC around that age

SereneCapybara · 01/12/2024 15:45

The Hive Series
Alex Rider series - Anthony Horowitz
Nancy Drew - some are more modern
Classics like The Wolves of Willoughby Chase series by Joan Aitken
Holes series by Louis Sachar

SeaDragon17 · 01/12/2024 15:47

The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
Gerald Durrell starting with My Family & Other Animals - I read all his books starting about her age and loved them

roobyred · 01/12/2024 15:50

Also Varjak Paw and the Boy at the Back of the Class were loved here.

Thewholeplaceglitters · 01/12/2024 15:51

Definitely skandar if you’ve not come across those yet. And yes to Katherine Rundell (explorer, wolf wilder). Noel Streatfield (ballet shoes, apple bough) if she hasn’t done those yet. A Little Princess if you get her into classics. Has she done Morpurgo - private peaceful, kensuke’s kingdom etc?

Words · 01/12/2024 15:53

It is indeed @MrsTerryPratchett .

For the brighter child, I think Potter is over commercialised and disappointingly derivative bilge. Some adults seem to love it though, which mystifies me, even not understanding the tedious, obvious word play she introduces.

With apologies to your dead husband, I have never been able to stand Pratchett either.

But I guess some reading is better than no reading- whatever the quality.

I think children should be given classic literature as well as the better kind of modern reading to fire their imagination

ArabellaScott · 01/12/2024 15:55

MrsTerryPratchett · 01/12/2024 15:33

Terry Pratchett? There's hundreds of them.

Tiffany Aching series particularly.

Words · 01/12/2024 15:59

Oh yes! Joan Aitken

All creatures great and small ( hardly great literature but huge fun if she loves animals)

Dorothy L Sayers in another couple of years?

I would choose works NOT set in recent modern times. I believe passionately that there is something fundamental being lost when children can't understand or connect to the past.

Neveragain35 · 01/12/2024 16:07

The Explorer by Katherine Rundell
The Giver by Lois Lowry - I read this aloud with a class of Y8s (so 12/13) and they were hooked!
Wonder by RJ Palacio
The Wild Robot series