Welcome to my book recommendation page. These are all books that have stayed with me over the years and that I loved enough to recommend them.
Books are organized by age category and then genre within each age category.
You can find all my individual book review posts, as well as my my monthly reading roundup posts and yearly favorites lists, under my book recommendations and reviews category.
Page updated December 31, 2023.
Middle Grade Books
Fantasy
- Supernatural Investigations series by B. B. Alston
- The Sisters Grimm series by Michael Buckley
- Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer
- The Underland Chronicles by Suzanne Collins
- The Firebird Song by Arnee Flores
- Inkheart by Cornelia Funke
- The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke
- The Books of Bayern series by Shannon Hale
- Princess Academy trilogy by Shannon Hale
- The Healing Wars trilogy by Janice Hardy
- One Jar of Magic by Corey Ann Haydu
- Howl’s Moving Castle trilogy by Diana Wynne Jones
- The Mystwick School of Musicraft by Jessica Khoury
- A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher
- All the Impossible Things by Lindsay Lackey
- Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine
- Upside-Down Magic series by Sarah Mlynowski, Emily Jenkins, and Lauren Myracle
- The Colors of Madeleine series by Jaclyn Moriarty
- Don’t Want to Be Your Monster by Deke Moulton
- The Children of the Red King series by Jenny Nimmo
- Liesl & Po by Lauren Oliver
- Witchlings by Claribel A. Ortega
- Percy Jackson and the Olympians series and The Heroes of Olympus series by Rick Riordan
- Cassidy Blake series by Victoria Schwab
- Wren series by Sherwood Smith
- The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud
- Nevermoor series by Jessica Townsend
- Fairyland series by Catherynne Valente
- Castle Hangnail by Ursula Vernon
Science fiction
- The Book of Ember trilogy by Jeanne DuPrau
- Sal and Gabi Break the Universe and Sal and Gabi Fix the Universe by Carlos Hernandez
- The Giver series by Lois Lowry
- The True Meaning of Smekday and Smek for President by Adam Rex
- The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
Historical Fiction
- The Night Crossing by Karen Ackerman
- A Place to Hang the Moon by Kate Albus
- The War that Saved My Life and The War I Finally Won by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
- Gingersnap by Patricia Reilly Giff
- Lily’s Crossing and Willow Run by Patricia Reilly Giff
- We Dream of Space by Erin Entrada Kelly
- Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
- The Butterfly by Patricia Polacco
- Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan
Contemporary Fiction
- The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin
- Greetings From Witness Protection by Jake Burt
- Forever, or a Long, Long Time by Caela Carter
- See You in the Cosmos by Jack Cheng
- The Breadwinner series by Deborah Ellis
- Pictures of Hollis Woods by Patricia Reilly Giff
- A Mango Shaped Space by Wendy Mass
- Every Soul a Star by Wendy Mass
- Orbiting Jupiter by Gary D. Schmidt
- Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan
Mysteries
- Midnight at the Barclay Hotel by Fleur T. Bradley
- Finnegan Zwake series by Michael Dahl
Young Adult Books
Fantasy
- Team Human by Sarah Rees Brennan and Justine Larbalistier
- Graceling series by Kristin Cashore
- The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare
- Legendborn series by Tracy Deonn
- Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger
- The Scholomance trilogy by Naomi Novik
- The Remnant Chronicles by Mary E. Pearson
- The Circle of Magic Quartet, The Circle Opens Quartet, and The Will of the Empress by Tamora Pierce
- The Song of the Lioness Quartet, The Immortals Quartet, Protector of the Small Quartet, and Trickster’s Choice and Trickster’s Queen by Tamora Pierce
- Miss Peregrine’s Peculiar Children series by Ransom Riggs
- Ash Princess trilogy by Laura Sebastian
- The Light Between Worlds by Laura E. Weymouth
Science Fiction
- Crownchasers by Rebecca Coffindaffer
- The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins
- Dangerous by Shannon Hale
- The Illuminae Files trilogy by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
- The Lunar Chronicles series by Marissa Meyer
- Delirium trilogy by Lauren Oliver
Historical Fiction
- Forgotten Fire by Adam Bagdasarian
- Lisa’s War by Carol Matas
- The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Contemporary Fiction
- Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
- The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
- Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia
Nonfiction
- We Must Not Forget: Holocaust Stories of Survival and Resistance by Deborah Hopkinson
- We Had to be Brave: Escaping the Nazis on the Kindertransport by Deborah Hopkinson
- The Boy on the Wooden Box by Leon Leyson
Adult books
Fantasy
- The Trator Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson
- In the Forest of Forgetting by Theodora Goss
- The House in the Cerulean Sea by T. J. Klune
- The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
- The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson
- The Stormlight Archive series by Brandon Sanderson
- The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab
- The Drowning Empire series by Andrea Stewart
Science Fiction
- The Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers
- Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
- The Martian by Andy Weir
- The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells
Historical Fiction
- The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
- The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe
- Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline
- Atonement by Ian McEwan
- Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys
- Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys
- Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
- Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
Contemporary Fiction
- And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer by Fredrik Backman
- Beartown by Fredrik Backman
- The Kite Runner by Khaled Housseni
- A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Housseni
- A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
- Behold the Dreamers by Mbolo Mbue
- Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran
Nonfiction
- All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days: The True Story of the American Woman at the Heart of the German Resistance to Hitler by Rebecca Donner
- A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr
- Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
- A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear: The Eutopian Plot to Liberate an American Town and Some Bears by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling
- Chewing the Fat: An Oral History of Italian Foodways from Fascism to Dolce Vita by Karima Moyer-Nocchi
- A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II by Sonia Purnell
- The Assisi Underground: The Priests Who Rescued Jews by Alexander Ramati
- Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterley
- The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars by Dava Sobel
- Night by Elie Wiesel
- Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Sheryl WuDunn and Nicholas Kristoff
Writing Advice Books
- Many Genres, One Craft by Michael A. Arnzen and Heidi Ruby Miller
- Save the Cat! Writes a Novel and Save the Cat! Writes a Young aDult Novel by Jessica Brody
- Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
- Writing Magic by Gail Carson Levine
- Before and After the Book Deal by Courtney Maum
- The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E. B. White