Recommendations of good books set in the past/future.

[notusedbysomeonealready]

Hello,

Please can anyone recommend some good books set in the past or the future?

Dd's class has been set a reading challenge over Christmas and part of it is to read a book set in the past and one set in the future.

DD is insistant that it must be a book she hasn't read before.

She's a bookworm, so has read most things I can think of!

Other parts of the challenge include reading a David Walliams book (DD read The Demon Dentist) and a book about a wizard (DD is reading Nevermoor). Just to give a flavour of the sort of stuff she reads.

Please, give me your suggestions for an 8 year old who is an able reader, but still just an 8 year old, so nothing too mature.

Thanks so much.

Terry Deary does a series called viking tales which would cover the past, and for future you could look at james patterson's house of robots series, which whilst it isn't explicitly set in the future, the boy's house is full of robots and he goes to school with them too, so it could be argued that it is.

E Nesbit stories?

The story of the Treasure Seekers
Five Children and It (et seq)
The Enchanted Castle

Added bonus that they are set in the author's present!

oooooh, I've just remembered the one that made me realise I liked sf:

A Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair by Nicholas Fisk

From Wikipedia:

The government is cloning new people and has manufactured a 1940s wartime family who are unaware that nothing they know is real. Our hero is sent to monitor these 'Reborns' and gradually becomes aware of a horrible underlying secret

One of the Narnia books
Carries War

A Dr Who book could work for the future

What about Charlotte Sometimes? I also loved A Stranger Came Ashore by Mollie Hunter when I was younger which is set in the past.

When does ‘the past’ start? I mean, what’s the cut off point? Pretty much every children’s story I know in the English language is set in the 20th century - does that count?

Narnia.
The Chalet School series. (Eight is the perfect age to begin and they’re rather good on WW2
Antonia Forest’s Marlows series.
Noel Streatfield.

Further back:
Richard Blackmore’s Lorna Doone

Even further back
Rosemary Sutcliff’s Eagle of the Ninth series

My 8yo DD loved an abridged version of A Little Princess. Ive been meaning to read her the full version.
In fact you could take your pick of the children's classics... Railway Children, Secret Garden, Heidi
..

I read both A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley and King of Shadows by Susan Cooper at around 8. They're both wonderful stories about children time travelling to Tudor England, from the 1930s and 1990s respectively, but the former could be a bit challenging depending on her reading level. For future, Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve is set in a dystopian future

Does it have to be set in the past, or can written in the past do?

Set in the past is easy:
Any Geoffrey Trease except the Bannermere series. Cue for Treason is best (Shakespeare time)
Also Shakespeare times my favourites The Player's Boy and The Players and the Rebel by Antonia Forest
War Horse WWI
Goodnight Mr Tom WWII
Thursday's Child (Noel Streatfeild) About 1880s
Roman Mysteries
Anything about Robin Hood etc.

If it can be written in the past (when it was present) you've got even more to choose from. Even things like Famous Five are clearly dated.

Future is harder. And could it be future when written, but past now? Like 2001 A Space Odyssey?
Arthur C Clarke wrote some
Nicolas Fisk
Robyn something-wrote Half Way Across the Galaxy and Turn Left
Hitchhikers' Guide set

Hetty Feather
Wave Me Goodbye
The Great Fire Dogs
The Victory Dogs
The Runaways
Secret suffragette
The Railway Children
Secret Seven
Journey to the River Sea

David Walliams’ new book The Beast of Buckingham Palace is set 100 years in the future.

The Joan Aitken books are brilliant for 'past' (though it's a steam-punkish fictitious past)
Wolves of Willoughby Chase or Blackhearts in Battersea are the best.
Pullman's The Ruby In the Smoke is quite good, and his The Fireworkmaker's Daughter is absolutely stunning if she likes descriptive writing that really sinks you into a different world.

Can we please encourage children to read someone other than Walliams. He dominates the children's fiction market and he's not even that good.

Also, did the school mean a mythical past - Merlin, King Arthur, Knights of the Round Table sort of thing, or something more documentary, or both?

It’s a really amorphous task ...

Philip Armagh’s Secret Diary of... books are really nice for history for that age.
They’re good stories in themselves, but also have footnotes with historical information and nice illustrations. There’s a Victorian housemaid one, a medieval knight in training, smuggler’s daughter and at least one more I’ve forgotten just now.
For set in the future, Cakes in Space by Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre is great.

Frozen in Time by Ali Sparkes is brill. That is futurey!

Bah, autocorrect. That should be Ardargh. And don’t trust me on how many Ls there are in Philip/Phillip.

Other ‘past’ not yet mentioned:

The Children of Green Knowe
Anne of Green Gables
A Christmas Carol (some suitable edition for kids)

For future possibly... Time Travelling with a Hamster? Just started reading it with my DS so don’t know for sure but thought as it features time travel it might work?!

The Little Grey Men
Down the Bright Stream
Gobbolino the Witches Cat
Heidi
Pippilongstocking
Molly Moon series
Famous Five
Michael Morpurgo has written a wide rang of wonderful books for all ages

The Gauntlet by Ronald Welch was my absolute favourite at that age. It's set in medieval Wales (and the 1950's at the start/finish).

Rosemary Sutcliffe is great. There's one set in Tudor England called "The Armourer's House" which is aimed at slightly younger readers than the Eagle of the Ninth which might suit her. My dd (also an eight year old bookworm) loved "Riddle of the Runes" by Janina Ramirez - a viking mystery with a young shield maiden as the protagonist. There are also Caroline Lawrence's Roman mysteries.

As far as the future goes... I love a Rag a bone etc. I wonder if some of Isaac Asimov's short stories would work too? The Red Planet by Robert Heinlein is a classic story with some funny disproved science (Mars has canals!) but still relevant themes. It is the future as imagined in the 50s, so could be interesting to discuss.

The Dark is Rising might be a little bit too mature for an eight year old, but if she's an accomplished reader then she'll probably be OK. Not only is this book absolutely perfect to read at Christmas, it’s set in I think the 50s or 60s so you see what Christmases looked like then (the tradition of the Yule log, and actual log not a chocolate cake, always gives me the tingles), but it also time travels back to Arthurian times.
Such a brilliant read.

You could always read or listen to it together. We did this as a family a couple of Christmases back, every evening we'd turn off screens and listen to an hour or so and honestly it was just such a lovely thing to do together.

Tom's midnight garden is a lovely book and it's set in the past.

Zita the Spacegirl. It’s a graphic novel for kids.

I just read a graphic novel series called Space Boy that is set in the future. Most other future ones I can think of she is probably to young for (all those dystopia books!).

Cynthia Harnett, The Woolpack. (Late mediaeval)
KM Peyton's Minna books (Roman) Quite a few other Peyton books are set in the past, though not sure if they'Re currently in print.
Rosemary Sutcliffe
Laura Ingalls Wilder - Little House books (19th century USA)
J Meades Faulkner - Moonfleet (late 18th /early 19th century.)

I hated Nicolas Fisk, especially Grinny.

Bookmum08, I agree, so much dystopian fiction!

ScribblyGum was that the Alex Jennings version? I might pinch that idea, thank you.