Most Read Juvenile Books

Four evacuee siblings step through an old wardrobe into Narnia, a land of talking beasts held in endless winter by the White Witch. Guided by the great lion Aslan, they're drawn into a fight for Narnia's freedom that costs one of them a terrible betrayal — and Aslan an even greater price.

• portal fantasy
• sacrifice
• betrayal
• redemption arc

Coraline Jones has just moved with her parents into a flat in an old, subdivided house, and her explorer's curiosity keeps running up against grown-ups who are too busy to pay her much attention. Then she finds a door that should open onto a brick wall — and one day doesn't. On the other side is a corridor leading to a home almost exactly like her own, but better: the food is tastier, the toys are wilder, and the Other Mother and Other Father dote on her endlessly. There is only one condition. To stay in this other world forever, Coraline must let the Other Mother sew black buttons over her eyes. When she refuses and tries to leave, she discovers that the Other Mother has taken her real parents, and that Coraline is not the first child to be lured through the door. To win them all back, she will have to be brave when she is most afraid, and clever enough to beat a creature that changes the rules whenever it likes. Neil Gaiman's award-winning novella is a modern dark fairy tale — creepy, funny, and quietly wise about courage — that has become a classic of children's and crossover fantasy, later adapted into the celebrated stop-motion film.

• portal fantasy

When a cholera epidemic in India leaves ten-year-old Mary Lennox orphaned, she is sent across the world to Misselthwaite Manor, the vast, half-shuttered Yorkshire estate of an uncle she has never met. Sour, spoiled, and unwanted, Mary arrives as a difficult child with no idea how to make a friend. Left largely to herself, she begins to explore the manor's grounds and hears rumours of a walled garden that has been locked and abandoned for ten years, ever since the death of her aunt. With the help of a friendly robin, a plainspoken housemaid named Martha, and Martha's animal-charming brother Dickon, Mary finds the hidden door and slowly coaxes the neglected garden back to life. In the night she also discovers a secret of the house itself: her cousin Colin, a sickly, tyrannical boy who has been kept in his room and told he will not live to grow up. As the garden greens and grows, so do the children. Fresh air, hard work, and friendship transform Mary from a disagreeable girl into a curious, generous one, and draw Colin out of his bed and his despair. Frances Hodgson Burnett's 1911 classic is a quiet, enduring story about healing, the restorative power of nature, and the way kindness can bring both a garden and a child back to life.

• found family

Lyra Belacqua is content to run wild among the scholars of Jordan College, her wolf-like daemon always by her side. But when her formidable uncle Lord Asriel arrives with a desperate mission, Lyra is drawn into a struggle that spans worlds — against the Gobblers who steal children and the Magisterium's attempt to bind every soul through their alethiometers.

• coming of age
• betrayal
• quest

A talkative, imaginative orphan girl with a penchant for dramatic storytelling is sent by mistake to live with two elderly siblings who had hoped for a boy instead. Settling into life at Green Gables in the fictional town of Avonlea on Prince Edward Island, Anne Shirley navigates school, friendship, and her own growing sense of belonging while transforming the lives around her.

• found family
• fish out of water

Wilbur is a runt piglet who would have been culled at birth if not for a young girl named Fern, who begs to keep him alive. Raised first by Fern and then sent to live in the Zuckermans' barn, Wilbur soon learns the hard truth of farm life: come winter, a spring pig is destined for the smokehouse. Lonely and frightened, he finds an unexpected friend in Charlotte A. Cavatica, a wise and eloquent grey spider who spins her web in the doorway above his pen. Determined to save Wilbur's life, Charlotte hatches an ingenious plan, weaving words into her web that turn an ordinary pig into the wonder of the county. Along the way, a cast of barnyard characters — the greedy rat Templeton, the anxious geese, the sheep — is drawn into the effort. E. B. White's beloved 1952 classic is a tender, quietly wise story about friendship, loyalty, and the natural cycle of life and death. Gentle enough for the youngest readers yet honest about loss, it has remained one of the most cherished children's novels ever written.

Charlie Bucket is a poor, kind-hearted boy who lives in a tiny house with his parents and four bedridden grandparents, gazing longingly at the enormous chocolate factory that dominates his town. The factory belongs to the eccentric, secretive genius Willy Wonka, who has not been seen in years — until he announces that five Golden Tickets have been hidden in Wonka Bars, and their finders will be given a tour of the factory and a lifetime supply of sweets. Against all odds, Charlie finds the last ticket. Alongside four spectacularly ill-behaved children, he steps into a wonderland of chocolate rivers, everlasting gobstoppers, and the mysterious Oompa-Loompas. One by one, the other children's greed and bad habits get the better of them, and it becomes clear that Wonka's tour is also a test. Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a beloved modern classic — gleefully inventive, a little wicked, and warmly moral — that has enchanted children and adults for generations.

A young boy and his schoolmate discover a magical wood between worlds that connects countless parallel universes. Their accidental voyage leads them through time itself, where they witness the creation of Narnia by Aslan and inadvertently set in motion events that will shape its history for centuries to come.

• portal fantasy
• coming of age

Matilda Wormwood is a tiny girl with a colossal brain. By four she has taught herself to read, devoured the local library, and developed a keen sense of justice—none of which impresses her crooked, television-addled parents, who treat her as a nuisance. When Matilda is finally sent to school, she meets Miss Honey, a kind young teacher who recognizes her genius, and Miss Trunchbull, a monstrous headmistress who treats children as vermin to be flung, locked away, and terrorized. Armed with her wits, a taste for mischief, and a strange new power she is only beginning to understand, Matilda decides to fight back—on her own behalf and on Miss Honey's. What follows is a gleeful campaign against grown-up cruelty, waged by a small girl who refuses to be underestimated. One of Roald Dahl's best-loved novels, Matilda is a funny, big-hearted story about the power of books, cleverness, and standing up to bullies—no matter how enormous they are.

Monkey D. Luffy sets out alone to find the legendary One Piece treasure and become King of the Pirates. Along the way he frees Coby from the pirate captain Alvida, and rescues the swordsman Roronoa Zoro from the corrupt Marine captain Morgan — gaining his very first crewmate.

• quest
• found family

Book one of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. After their parents die in a fire, the clever Baudelaire orphans — inventor Violet, bookish Klaus, and biting baby Sunny — are sent to the villainous Count Olaf, who will stop at nothing to steal their fortune. A darkly comic, mock-Gothic children's classic narrated in a droll, warning voice.

Meggie's father has a secret: he can bring characters from books to life just by reading aloud. When a dangerous man from the past comes looking for a rare book, Meggie and her father are forced to flee. They find refuge with her aunt, but the book they seek holds a perilous magic that could change their lives forever.

• quest
• coming of age

A year after their first adventure, the Pevensie children are pulled back into Narnia — only centuries have passed there, and the old order has been driven underground by Telmarine conquerors. They join the rightful heir, Prince Caspian, in a bid to free Narnia and restore its throne.

• portal fantasy
• quest

The world has been devastated by four waves of alien attacks, leaving only darkness and the rule of 'trust no one.' Now, Cassie Sullivan is on the run, trying to survive the fifth wave and find her younger brother. She encounters a mysterious young man named Evan Walker who might be her only hope, but can she trust him when everyone else is an enemy?

• survival
• found family
• morally grey
• multiple povs

A cyclone strands Dorothy and her dog Toto in the Land of Oz, where she must reach the Emerald City to ask the Wizard's help getting home, gathering a Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, and Cowardly Lion along the way.

• quest

In his youth, the powerful wizard Ged was known as Sparrowhawk, a reckless student whose pride unleashed a dangerous shadow. This is his story of learning to control his immense magical abilities and confronting the darkness he created. He must face dragons and death to restore balance to the world of Earthsea.

• coming of age
• redemption arc
• quest

Wrongly convicted, Stanley Yelnats is sent to Camp Green Lake, where boys are made to dig one hole a day in a dried-up Texas lake bed. He soon suspects the warden is searching for something buried long ago — a mystery tangled up with a century-old family curse. Louis Sachar's Newbery Medal winner braids past and present into a funny, suspenseful story of fate, friendship, and justice.

• dual timeline
• coming of age
• found family

Lucy, Edmund, and their insufferable cousin Eustace are swept back into Narnia aboard King Caspian's ship, the Dawn Treader, sailing east in search of seven lost lords and the edge of the world. Island by island, the voyage tests courage and greed — and changes Eustace for good.

• portal fantasy
• quest
• redemption arc

A boy named Shasta flees slavery in Calormen astride a talking horse who is himself escaping home to Narnia. Along the way he falls in with Aravis, a runaway noblewoman, and her mare Hwin — and stumbles into a plot against Narnia's ally, Archenland, that only he can stop in time.

• quest
• coming of age
• secret identity

Lyra and Will find their lives irrevocably changed as they are drawn into a new world, Cittàgazze, a place plagued by spectral beings that steal souls. Together, they must navigate this dangerous new reality, seeking a powerful object that could alter the course of their destinies and confront a growing darkness.

• portal fantasy
• quest
• survival
• forced proximity

Jill Pole and Eustace Scrubb are called into Narnia by Aslan and sent to find the kidnapped Prince Rilian, following four signs into the perilous Underland. With the gloomy but steadfast Marsh-wiggle Puddleglum, they must break an enchantment before it's too late.

• quest

Four siblings discover a hidden world through a magical wardrobe during wartime London. They find themselves in Narnia, a land under the spell of an evil witch, where mythical creatures exist and a great battle for freedom is brewing. The children must embrace their destinies to help the noble lion Aslan save Narnia from eternal winter.

• portal fantasy
• chosen one
• coming of age
• quest

In 1840s Missouri, the mischievous Tom Sawyer lives for adventure — tricking friends into whitewashing a fence, playing pirate, and wooing Becky Thatcher. But when he and Huckleberry Finn witness a graveyard murder, boyhood games turn deadly, pulling them toward a vengeful killer, buried treasure, and a terrifying cave. Mark Twain's beloved classic of boyhood on the American frontier.

• coming of age

Witches are real, they look like ordinary women, and they despise children. When a young boy and his cigar-smoking grandmother end up at a seaside hotel hosting England's witches—and their Grand High Witch's plan to destroy every child—the boy must find a way to stop them. A scary, funny, big-hearted Roald Dahl classic.

• found family

Artemis Fowl, a brilliant but amoral teenager, plans to restore his family's fortune by kidnapping a fairy. He soon discovers that the fairies are not the delicate creatures of myth, but a technologically advanced civilization with a formidable army. This sets the stage for a high-stakes conflict between the human world and the magical underworld.

• morally grey
• heist

Greg Heffley records his scheming survival at the bottom of the middle-school food chain — dodging bullies, the Cheese Touch, and the fallout of his own bad ideas, with loyal best friend Rowley in tow. The wildly popular first book in Jeff Kinney's cartoon-illustrated comic series.

• epistolary

A false Aslan appears in Narnia's final days, and King Tirian must uncover the lie before it destroys everything Narnia stands for. As old enemies close in and old friends return, this final book in the Chronicles brings the entire history of Narnia to its close.

• betrayal
• portal fantasy

The Baudelaire orphans arrive at the Hotel Denouement, a massive establishment organized like a library, to serve as undercover concierges. As they navigate a web of villains and mysterious volunteers, the siblings must decide if they can remain noble in a world that is increasingly unfair. This penultimate chapter brings the children face-to-face with their past and a final trial that will change their lives forever.

• unreliable narrator
• mystery box
• morally grey
• secret identity

In the underground city of Ember, the lights are failing and no one knows why. When twelve-year-olds Lina Mayfleet and Doon Harrow uncover fragments of a mysterious, half-destroyed message, they realize it might hold the key to escaping the dying city before its generator gives out for good.

• quest
• survival
• coming of age

Greg Heffley starts a new school year desperate to bury an embarrassing summer secret — but his older brother Rodrick knows exactly what happened. The second Diary of a Wimpy Kid: a laugh-out-loud, cartoon-illustrated comedy of sibling warfare and mortifying secrets.

• epistolary