Recommendations for a 12 year old.....

[bobiebobie]

My daughter is 12 and we are really struggling to find her a good book to enjoy. She has a reading age of 17+ so finds the 9-12 age range a bit boring but anything older than that seems to be very relationship focused or the topics are a bit deep for her age. She has read all the usual Harry Potter, classics etc, just finished all the Lottie Brooks books which she thought were hilarious and also enjoys history themed books. I think there is a bit of a gap in the market for this age range, any suggestions?

Has she read Percy Jackson? They are very good. I love them nearly as much as my niece and nephew do. They are your daughter’s age or older and also have a high reading age.

Paolini’s series - starts with Eragon

Thanks so much for responding, she has the full set, loves Greek mythology!

DD is similar and enjoys a lot of fantasy/ dystopian type books - hunger games, maze runner, divergence etc. she's also interested in history and has enjoyed some of the history books written by Dominic Sambrook for kids

Lord of the Rings, Anne of Avonlea. Could she try some classics like The Three Musketeers, Jane Eyre, Treasure Island, Sherlock Holmes, Arthur C Clark. I loved reading books like this in my young teens but my daughter - who sounds like yours - wasn't really interested. She enjoyed dystopian fiction. Hunger Games, Skulduggery Pleasant.

Thanks everyone, she’s not a massive fan of the classics but will look up the Paolinis series, she has quite a few of the Dominic Sandbrook books which she enjoyed. We went into Waterstones today and asked for recommendations from the staff. She liked the sound of the hunger games so I think we will give those a try next. We came away with I capture the castle by Dodie Smith so will see how she goes with that 😊

The City of Ember books are good. She might enjoy some of the classics like Black Beauty, the Little Women series, the Anne of Green Gables books, or try her with some Agatha Christie.

Dd is 10, also loves lottie brooks, so have started her on my shelf of PG Wodehouse. She also loves murder mysteries so have also given her free rein on my shelf of agatha christie.

She's enjoying both.

Forgot to say I Capture the Castle is a good choice. How about another classic - Mrs pettigrew lives for day?

We recently found the Iliad and the Odyssey as graphic novels. Gave them to similar reading level / genre DS for his 13th birthday and he devoured them.

My eldest loved the Twisted Tales stories.
They are rewrites of Disney films. Very gothic!

The ‘Itch’ series by Simon Mayo. So good!

Anything by Helen Cresswell especially Moondial.

Anything by Hilary Mackay especially Skylarks War.

The Secret Series by Pseudonymous Bosch - my 11yo DD loved these.

My 12 yo dd has enjoyed Dickens, swallows and amazons series and water ship down. Just bought her little house of the prairie series and hunger games.

Greenwild: The World Behind the Door by Pari Thomson

Yes it says it's for 12 year olds but I'm reading it to my 11 year old and I'm really quite enjoying it myself!

It's more grown up than the other stuff I've read to her and it's as good as the books I read! 😂

There are often younger reader versions of some adult books. Have you asked at your local library?

At that age I read Rebecca, which I completely devoured - I remember at the time feeling that it was the first proper grown up classic I’d read, which felt like a turning point. Similarly, Jane Eyre, Little Women, etc. I second the suggestions for I Capture the Castle too.

Once I got to about 14 I was very heavily into dystopian lit, particularly The Hunger Games (still excellent when I re-read them recently), Divergent, Uglies and Matched series.

At around 15-16 I really loved The Go Between (she might be slightly young for that at the minute), along with some of the darker gothics like Wuthering Heights.

I also read a lot of trash like Twilight and the Georgia Nicholson books (Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging) at around 12/13 which I really loved and think are genuinely worthwhile in terms of being literature that really speaks to the experience of being a teenage girl.

Has she read any Katherine Rundell books? The Explorer is good.
The murder most unladylike series.
Lisa Thompson books.
Amari and the nightkeepers.
Ben Miller books
My similar age daughter has enjoyed all of these

https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwiUvun9wsaKAxXth1AGHepWJLkYABADGgJkZw&co=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIlL7p_cLGigMV7YdQBh3qViS5EAQYAiABEgId4PD_BwE&sph=&sig=AOD64_0c2V3ge05DiSLn4crEqteAoXrOCA&ctype=5&q=&ved=2ahUKEwiNs-X9wsaKAxUAUkEAHcm8NEUQwg8oAHoECAgQFQ&adurl=

I can recommend this 😊

Sorry, I’ve just realised it might be a bit young 😊

I loved Robin Jarvis when I was that age. He wrote a brilliant trilogy called the wyrd museum which are based around Norse mythology but with world war 2 and time travel thrown in. Difficult to explain but brilliant books. Terry pratchet and Neil gaiman books are also definitely worth looking at.

My dd is 12. Her favourite author is Alice Oseman and the heartstopper series. I read these aswell as there is some difficult subjects but I made sure she could talk to me if she didn't understand or found it upsetting. However I think it may have helped her as she has a few friends struggling with the topics in the books.

She also really enjoys LGBT love stories. Her favourite is girl heart girl but she has many more too!

She really enjoys a graphic novel - sad ghost club, girl from the sea, bloom are her favourites.

She has started reading a good girls guide to murder and is enjoying it so we are going to explore more crime/mystery books.

She has got hunger games and maze runner to read as she loved the films. So may be good to see if there's any films/series she likes that were books first.

What we did was go to cheap charity shops and pick up anything that sounds interesting to her, no pressure to finish and she gets to try lots of genres and authors. We can then donate/sell the books after. We have some where books are 3 for £2 and one where they do 8 for £1.

My eldest dd however only reads manga and costs me a fortune! She started around 12. But be aware that they are age rated for a good reason, some are not suitable for children! Check the back for the age and if it's sealed its a definite no!

On that note make sure she does NOT read Wicked even if she likes the film/show. The book is not suitable for children at all despite the new film cover for the current cover of the book.

I have a real bookworm for a 12 year old daughter! In the last year or so she has enjoyed the Holly Jackson Good Girl's Guide to Murder series, The Hunger Games series (adored this!), and the Geek Girl Series by Holly Smale. She also enjoyed The Swifts which has 2 books in the series,. A series she's had for ages and often goes back to is the Sinclair Mysteries by Katherine Woodfine.

Has she read many murder mysteries? She could definitely start reading Agatha Christie. The Murder Most Unladylike series is also great.

I'm currently reading a children's book called Murder by Narwhal and loving it- I'm 34 years old!