So every night before bed, my daughter and I read a few chapters of a book together. We just finished a book called Swordbird by Nancy Yi Fan. Neither of us had heard of this book before. But after I found it at a garage sale and the cover and blurb peaked our interest, we absolutely loved it. So my question is what are some lesser known books you’ve found that my daughter and I may enjoy reading together? I’ve searched similar posts to this one before, and while I love the suggestions I’ve seen, most of them have been pretty well known books that my daughter and I have already read/already own and plan to read. I would love to find some more hidden gems like Swordbird. Below are some previous books we have read together.
– Chronicles of Narnia series (CS Lewis)
– Percy Jackson series ( Rick Riordan)
– The Phantom Toll Booth (Norton Juster)
– The Search for Delicious (forget the authors name)
– The Halloween Moon (Joseph Fink)
– The Hobbit (Tolkien)
– The Color of Magic (Pratchett)
– The Wizards of Once series (Crisseda Crowell)
– Harry Potter series (JK Rowling)
– Swordbird (Nancy Yi Fan)
by Specialist_Hornet152
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The City of Ember!
Fablehaven
The Five Kingdoms
The Hound of Rowan
Holes, by Louis Sachar. One of my favorite books I read growing up.
Have you guys heard of the [Nevermoor](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/6a6d5ca1-b2f5-47be-828c-018144d3bbc7) series by Jessica Townsend? It’s my absolute favorite, and I highly recommend it if she hasn’t already read it! I can come up with other recs if that one is already on her radar, but I figured I’d start off by recommending my favorite 🙂
Imaginarium Geographica, Owen
The Little Prince, de Exupéry
Pawn of Prophecy, Eddings
Sticks Across the Chimney,
Adventures With Waffles,
Detectives in Togas
Understood Betsy,
Happy Times in Noisy Village,
In Grandma’s Attic,
Gooney Bird Greene,
The Great Turkey Walk,
The Year of the Baby,
All-of-A-Kind Family,
Caddie Woodlawn,
Any of LM Montgomery’s books, like Anne of Green Gables
Skellig by David Almond
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Have you read the original Wizard of Oz books?
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Uglies series by Scott Westerfield. This might be a litttttttle old for a 10 year old but based on the other books, it might be good.
Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket would be perfect too.
I also loved the Dear America historical fiction books as a kid!
Edit: just remembered two more books I was obsessed with as a kid:
* The Ravenmasters Secret by Elvira Woodruff
* Peter and the Starcatcher by Ridley Pearson and Dave Barry
The first chapter book I remember reading with my mom was Summer of the Monkeys by Wilson Rawls. Probably a lesser known book since it’s older, but I remember how much fun we had together reading it (it was her childhood favorite as well).
Around that age I also LOVED The Secret Order of the Gumm Street Girls by Elise Primavera. I never hear anyone talk about it, but I read it until the spine literally peeled back and fell off.
The Penderwicks series!
Jessica Townsend Nevermoor, Wee Free Men (Tiffany Aching series) by Terry Pratchett, Ursula le Guin….
The Thief of Always
The little princess
The secret garden.
Among the short ones —-
The shoemaker and the elves
Sounds like it’s time for some Diana Wynne Jones! Read the Crestomanci or Howl’s Moving Castle series!
Chronicles of Prydain are also fantastic!
And Kate DiCamillo’s books like Tale of Desperaux.
It’s wonderful you’re reading all kinds of fantasy books to your daughter, I have warm fuzzy memories of my dad reading me Narnia before bed when I was small <3
Island of the Blue Dolphins inspired by an actual California indigenous woman buried at the California Santa Barbara Mission.