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.

At a similar age DD loved:-

Anne is Green Gables series
Little House in Big Woods series
Little Women

Another vote for Carrie's War (Nina Bawden). Beautiful book.

Tom’s Midnight Garden?
Charlotte Sometimes?
Children of Green Knowe?

Or Many Waters, by Violet Bibby. I read it about that age (set in the Fens around the time of draining.) That world has lived with me more than almost any other.

Yes, callmecordelia, pinch away. This year I’ve got the new Philip Pullman saved for us to listen to (+ jigsaw puzzle to do whilst listening).

The Ghosts by Antonia Barber was the first novel to come to my mind. I loved it as a child.

The Borrowers, Narnia, Tom's Midnight Garden A Littke Princess or Ballet Shoes are all lovely. Another one from the mid 20th Century is The Family at One End Street, which is about a working class family in perhaps the Midlands or north of England? They get into scrapes and mix-ups.

Do you remember the author Paula Danziger? This Place Has No Atmosphere is maybe at the older end, think it's recommended from age 10, but you might want to take a look. It's set in the future and follows a girl trying to settle into life in a colony on another planet.

Goodnight Mr Tom?

My advice for any of these reading challenges is to choose something relatively short for the genres outside their usual comfort zone. The point is to get a taste of genres she wouldn’t normally choose and discover new interests, not to force her to plough through something she’s reading purely for the sake of the challenge.

The point is to get a taste of genres she wouldn’t normally choose

Surely for any keen eight year old reader all genres are an adventure? I would have been quite offended if an adult had suggested I could only manage little bits of stuff ...

I don’t mean that she can’t manage them. Sorry if it came across that way. I was assuming they were genres she doesn’t normally read because if they were she’d probably have ideas of what she wanted to read next already.
And by shorter books, I don’t mean bad books or easy books.

It’s common, but not particularly beneficial, for adults to push competent readers on to longer and more mature books which makes me wonder when the child gets the opportunity to read the many excellent books targeted at their own age group.

The secret garden, little women for past.

The War That Saved My Life

I don't know any child who didn't love this book. We could not wait for the sequel to come out when we read it a few years ago. My children were 9 and 10 when we read it and they coped fine.

ThisBear I recently re read my copy of This Place Has No Atmosphere. It has dated terribly! Which is ironic as it's set in the future . The technology that they have seems so old fashioned compared what we have now (written in the 80s, set in 2050 ish)!

Future: perhaps A Wrinkle in Time if she's a mature 8 year old? (Disclaimer: haven't read it but my daughter read it at about age 9 and enjoyed it. Another poster may be able to advise on its suitability).

I Coriander

A further 'future' idea might be The City of Ember.

bookmum08 I see what you mean about the technology! Good point, that's a bit unimpressive these days. The thing I really like about it is that it's a futuristic space situation but the problems are everyday ones.

The Wild Robot for a future one?

Little Women and then you can see the film