I believe that there’s a book for every reader, no matter the age. This page is a collection of all the book lists (and sometimes, relevant book reviews) that I have created to support young readers, their teachers, parents, and librarians. I have categorized all the books, from picture books to YA by theme.
You will find everything from middle-grade books about anxiety, adoption, featuring biracial kids, to YA by Black authors, YA about food, and YA about music. For themes where I have yet to publish a list, I have linked to specific books that have already been reviewed on this site.
Happy reading — and feel free to leave questions and recommendations in the comments!
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
My Favorites by Year
Activity Books
Middle-Grade Debuts
Picture Books (0 and Up)
- Adoption
- Alphabets
- Animals
- Anxiety
- Art
- Board books
- Bathtime
- Back to school
- Bedtime
- Bees
- Being yourself/Being Unique
- Birds
- Biographies
- Black authors
- Body
- Camping
- Colors
- Cooking
- Counting
- Courage
- Dance
- Death and grief
- Dementia
- Disability
- Divorce
- Dogs
- Dragons
- Earth
- Fall
- Fathers
- Fear of the dark
- Feelings
- Food baking and cooking
- Funny
- Gardening
- Grandparents
- Gratitude
- Growth mindset
- Horses
- Imagination
- Indian culture
- Interactive
- Joy of books and reading
- Kindness
- Love
- Managing anger
- Mindfulness
- Mothers
- Moving
- Preschool read-aloud
- Siblings
- Shapes
- Snow and winter
- Summer
- Trees
- Unique names
- Welcoming new sibling
Bad Days
- Sunday Funday in Koreatown, Aram Kim
Ballet
- Bunheads, Misty Copeland
Bathtime
- Off to See the Sea, Nikki Grimes
Culture
- Bindu’s Bindis, Supriya Kelkar
Dance
- The Electric Slide and Kai, Kelly J. Baptist; Darnell Johnson
Fathers
First Day of School
Friendship
Growth Mindset
Math
- Bracelets for Bina’s Brothers, Rajani LaRocca
- Luna’s Yum Yum Dim Sum, Natasha Yim
Problem Solving
- Catch That Chicken, Atinuke
Siblings
- Ten Little Dumplings, Larissa Pan
- Zoo-Mate Wanted, Korrie Leer
Chapter Books for Elementary School (Ages 6-10)
- Animals
- Ballet and dance
- Best early readers for kids
- Black authors
- Chapter books for beginning readers
- Chapter books for boys
- Chapter books for third graders
- Best books for 8-year-olds
- Great books for 9-year-old boys
- Fifth graders
- Friendship chapter books
- Graphic novels
- Moving to a new house
- Siblings
- STEM fiction
- Starting a business
- 2021 Chapter books and picture books
Middle-Grade Books by Theme (Ages 8-12)
- 9/11
- 100 exceptional middle-grade books to read in 2023
- Action and adventure
- Adoption
- Alzheimer’s/Dementia
- Animals and pets
- Anxiety books (kids with anxiety)
- Arab protagonists
- Art, Crafts and Photography
- Asian authors
- Awesome books for 10-year-old boys
- Ballet and dance
- Baseball
- Basketball
- Being an only child
- Best soccer books for kids
- Best funny books
- Biracial protagonists
- Birds and bird-watching
- Black authors
- B’nai Mitzvahs
- Boy books (with a male protagonist)
- Boy-boy friendships
- Body image and body positivity
- Bullying
- Chess
- Coming of age
- Community
- Dealing with changes
- Death and grief
- Dementia
- Disability
- Divorce and blended families
- Dog books
- Domestic abuse
- Earth/Environment (with PRINTABLE)
- Enjoyable books for 11-year-old boys
- Entrepreneurship
- Exciting books for 12-year-old boys
- Family stories (big & small families)
- Farm (set on a farm
- Favorite realistic fiction
- Featuring black girl leads
- Featuring Korean protagonists
- Feel-good
- Female main characters
- Fiction and non-fiction pairings
- Food books (main character loves cooking or story centered around food)
- Friendship
- Funny books
- Grandparent stories
- Graphic novels for girls
- Historical fiction
- Holocaust
- Homelessness & poverty
- Horse books
- Immigration
- Intergenerational friendships
- Jewish
- Latino authors
- Libraries
- Make you cry
- Mental illness in the family
- Middle school life
- Moving to a different house, city, or country
- Multiple narrators or POV
- Muslim
- Music and musical theatre
- Mysteries
- Native American
- Neurodiverse protagonists (autism, OCD, dyslexia, ADHD, learning difficulties)
- New kid in school
- Non-fiction
- Periods and puberty
- Refugees
- Road trips
- Robots
- Romance
- Sci-fi
- Series and companion titles
- Set in Asia
- Set in Africa
- Set in Europe
- Set in motels
- Set in NYC
- Set in small towns
- Set on a ship
- Sexual harassment and consent
- Seventh graders
- Space books
- STEM fiction
- Stuttering
- Siblings
- Sisters
- Short books (under 250 pages)
- Shy kids
- Sixth graders
- Sports
- Spy books
- Summer
- Summer Camp
- Superheroes
- Survival
- Time and travel
- Tween girls
- Third-Culture kids
- Verse novels
- Video games and video gaming
- Writers and kid reporters
Upper Middle-Grade Books (11-14)
Summer Reading Guides
Audiobooks
- Tween audiobooks
- Audiobooks for the whole family
- YA audiobooks
- Picture books on audio
My Middle-Grade TBR
2020
2021
2022
Graphic Novels
- The best graphic novels for tweens
- Graphic novels for 8-year-olds
- Graphic novels for 9-year-olds
- Graphic novels for 10-year-olds
- Graphic novels for 11-year-olds
- Friendship
- Food
- Non-fiction
- Siblings
- Sports
- Tween graphic novel series
- Race
- Young graphic novels (K-6)
- YA graphic novels
Books for Teens
- Boarding schools
- Body image
- College Admission Fiction
- Food YA
- Fat kids in YA
- Historical fiction (with PRINTABLE)
- Music books for teens
- Mental illness
- Sports YA
- Summer romances
- Young YA
- YA by Asian authors
- YA by Black authors
- YA by Latino authors
- My favorite books for 16-and-up teens
- YA about family
Last Updated:3rd March 2023
