This year my entire goal, when it came to reading, for our homeschool was to help Hanna reconnect and remember her love for reading. She loved to read when she was little, but as the years in public school went on she lost the love, and in fact, claimed an outright hatred for reading. GAH!
It’s been a long year, with many (many) wonderful books left half finished, but we have finally gotten to a point where she is finding books she loves and eagerly seeks out her next book. YAY!
The only problem now, is how do we find the best books for tween girls? She’s not into Harry Potter, and the Percy Jackson series scared her to death in the first 20 pages. We had to blaze our own trail when it came to finding books for my tween girl. Here’s three things we did, that have worked well for us.
How to Find the Best Books for Tween Girls
Consult a trusted source who knows kids and books.
For us this meant asking a librarian. We are lucky to have a good librarian and she offers suggestions. Sometimes they hit, sometimes they don’t. We found Book Scavenger through our librarian, and it was a turning point book for us.
It also meant going to the Brave Writer Arrow and Boomerang selections and looking around. This is how we found Hatchet, which we are reading now. 🙂 By looking through current and past selections of Arrows you’ll find a lengthy list of books that you know are going to be quality, and loved by kids.
Consult with other moms of tween girls.
I love having a group of moms homeschooling older kids to ask questions like this. I will invariably have the Harry Potter and Percy Jackson books recommended, but as the conversation continues I always find a couple nuggets to chase down.
Ask the internet “Books if you liked ____________.”
This was a game changer for us. One day we were in Barnes and Noble, facing an entire section of books she could read. We had no idea where to even start. What she would like. What she wouldn’t. I’ve spent a lot of money on books that didn’t get read or completed this year, so I guess I was a little gun shy. I googled “Books if you liked Book Scavenger” and BOOM… a list a mile long from Goodreads. 😀 She went through the list, looked at the descriptions, found some she liked and finally landed on All Four Stars. She absolutely LOVED it, and quickly asked for, and finished, the next two in the series. This was the first time she experienced the sadness of a series coming to an end. It was a milestone for sure.
Now that she’s finished the Stars series, she asked for “books if you like All Four Stars”, and found another whole list on Goodreads. Maybe this option should have been “consult Goodreads for a list”, but there are plenty of other great things that show up in these searches as well. 🙂 She has a list of 4 or 5 books that sound good and we have at our local library. Her first choice, though, wasn’t available in our library so I ordered it on Amazon, it should be here today. 😀
There you have it, 3 quick ways to find the best books for tween girls. These have worked for us, and I hope they work for you. How do you find books for your tween girls? Do you use a strategy I haven’t mentioned, or have one of your own? I’d love to hear it. Hop on over to my private Facebook group and join the conversation!
Talk soon,
Jackie 🙂
