65 books like Junie B. Jones #1

A step up in reading level from some of the other books on my list, the Stuart Gibbs Spy School series gives readers looking for mystery and adventure something to sink their teeth into. Young readers will feel like secret agents as they trail Ben Ripley, a nerdy middle grade student, as he spies and sleuths his way through what turns out to be a CIA junior academy. I like the way the books move along quickly, like a Dan Brown novel, and also keep the humor flowing. 

I liked how Ramona is a feisty 9-year-old dealing with real-world kid problems. Everything in Beverly Cleary's novels is real life.

I listened to the audiobook on this one, too. It's read by Stockard Channing. Another golden voice that pops with character.

This book is also home to the best opening line of any book in English literature: "Ramona Quimby was 9 years old. She had brown hair, brown eyes, and no cavities."

This book was in my third-grade classroom library, and I read it so many times that when the school year ended, my teacher let me keep it. I’m glad she did, because I’ve never seen it anywhere else.

This was the first book I ever fell in love with about a kid doing something you thought only grown-ups were supposed to do—namely, becoming principal of her own school! Adult readers might protest that this premise is “unrealistic,” but it’s written in such a way that as a young reader it seemed completely plausible to me.

As a kid, there’s just so much that you have no control over, so the idea of earning a position with real power is incredibly appealing.

I’ve always been fascinated by the Salem Witch Trials (my youngest daughter is even named Salem), and so, in my search for a good modern take on them, I stumbled across this book. The fact that it was based on a true story immediately drew me in.

Like other books on this list, this story isn’t outright horror. It’s subtle. Rather than using ghosts and violence to scare the reader, this book focused on mob mentality, hysteria, and bias in a way that was so real and relatable that it felt like this could actually happen to me or someone I know.

I think the most effective horror puts you into a situation that’s so familiar and plausible that it keeps you looking over your shoulder. In my opinion, people are always much scarier than ghosts, and so this book that studied mob mentality chilled me with just how easily… show more.

Jade’s Fish out of Water story about a black girl attending St. Francis High School across town and feeling out of place is so relatable.

She’s the kind of friend I would have sought out in my younger years because of how economically similar our situations were. Jade’s desire to collage ugly things into something beautiful is my favorite thing about her character. I love how circumstance does not diminish her ability to see value in her surroundings. This is the underdog story every teen should read.  

I used to love going to the Texas Renaissance Fair with my family every year and often imagined what it would be like to work the booths. I also used to tutor homeschooled kids when I was in high school and this graphic novel is a fascinating cross-section of those two worlds. Imogene struggles to fit in with the standards of a new school, something that happens to many kids who aren’t even part-time knights.

I wrote my undergrad thesis on the migration of visual tropes from traditional Japanese theatre (Noh, Bunraku, and Kabuki) into modern art forms (Manga, Anime, Supakabuki/Anime Musicals), which was a rigorous exercise because I couldn’t just compare the tropes—I had to spend hours explaining them to my advisor. It was a fascinating (sometimes exasperating) lesson in learning to read one visual vocabulary, only to have to explain it to someone else in terms that they understood using another.

This blurred-xerox-translation-of-a-translation exercise is the central theme of Mangaman, where a Shojou-esque protagonist falls from a fantastical manga world into a comic. Visual conventions clash, where he walks the wrong way across panels, and where his speed lines accidentally stab people in the school hallway.

It’s always great when middle-graders find a series they like. The books in the My Life as… series are fast-paced, full of laughs, and not overwhelming. The text is large and the chapters are short, with little illustrations along the sides of the pages to explain vocabulary. The main character, Derek, doesn’t like to read, which makes him very relatable for reluctant readers. 

In My Life as a Gamer, Derek gets the chance to participate in a gaming company’s focus group and test new video games – a dream for any gamer.

In this picture book, the author and illustrator explain to children how empathy and compassion make a difference in relationships.

This book will console children and give them the hope and confidence to move forward in life, despite the pitfalls and challenges they face. Read it to any child facing problems to help them solve them. At the end, the author lists recommended books and websites on the same topics. A reference book on empathy.

This is a young adult literature novel from Canada. I found this book very inspiring when reading it as a kid. I enjoyed its subversive nature as it portrays a group of boys and girls, from two private schools, who conspire to overthrow the tyrannical assistant headmaster and headmistress that their respective schools have appointed.

The novel, while written as a comedy, is suggestive of the idea that adults should not be allowed to micromanage and tyrannize their young charges and that such administrators can be ousted. I like that it conveys this message in an entertaining way while still showing a youth’s eye perspective on unreasonable adult actions toward them.