Children's books for adults and children

Some books may have been originally intended for children but have appeal for readers of all ages. These books and authors cross the divide and can be read by children and adults. You may also be interested in our Harry Potter list.

Go, and come back Joan Abelove

Alicia, a young tribeswoman living in a Amazonian village in the Andes, tells about the two American women anthropologists who arrive to study the way of life of her people.

Gypsy Rizka Lloyd Alexander

Living alone in her wagon on the outskirts of a small town while waiting for her father's return, Rizka, a Gypsy and a trickster, exposes the ridiculous foibles of some of the townspeople.

Skellig David Almond

Michael was looking forward to moving house. It was all going to be wonderful but now his baby sister is ill, his parents are frantic and Doctor Death has come to call.

Speak Laurie Halse Anderson

A traumatic event near the end of the summer has a devastating effect on Melinda's freshman year in high school.

Anna of Byzantium Tracy Barrett

In the eleventh century the teenage princess Anna Comnena fights for her birthright, the throne to the Byzantine Empire, which she fears will be taken from her by her younger brother John because he is a boy.

Noughts and crosses Malorie Blackman

Who reached the north pole first? Matthew Henson. Who pioneered blood banks? Dr Charles Drew. Who performed open-heart surgery first? Dr Daniel Williams. Heard of any of them? Probably not - almost certainly because they are black. Blackman cleverly plays with these names in this Romeo and Juliet-style story set in a segregated world in which blacks (known as Crosses) rule over whites (known as Noughts), who have turned to terrorism to survive.

Francesca Lia Block

Crusader Edward Bloor

After a violent virtual-reality game arrives at the mall arcade where she works, fifteen-year-old Roberta finds the courage to search out the person who murdered her mother.

What hearts Bruce Brooks

After his mother divorces his father and remarries, Asa's sharp intellect and capacity for forgiveness help him deal with the instabilities of his new world.

Melvin Burgess

The Book of the lion Michael Cadnum

In twelfth-century England, after his master, a maker of coins for the king, is brutally punished for alleged cheating, seventeen-year-old Edmund finds himself travelling to the Holy Land as squire to a knight crusader on his way to join the forces of Richard Lionheart.

Ken Catran

David Clement-Davies

Artemis Fowl Eoin Colfer

When a twelve-year-old evil genius tries to restore his family fortune by capturing a fairy and demanding a ransom in gold, the fairies fight back with magic, technology, and a particularly nasty troll.

Arthur trilogy The seeing stone; At the crossing-places Kevin Crossley-Holland

Young Arthur Caldicott sees both past and future in the strange black stone given to him by his father's friend, Merlin.  The story may be set in medieval times but it has a contemporary feel as fantasy, history and Arthurian legend collide. Almost the most enjoyable part of this dense, absorbing novel is the way it creates in detail every aspect of life and death in a medieval manor. 

Catherine, called Birdy Karen Cushman

The thirteen-year-old daughter of an English country knight keeps a journal in which she records the events of her life, particularly her longing for adventures beyond the usual role of women and her efforts to avoid being married off.

Nick Earls

Where were you, Robert? Hans Magnus Enzensberger 

Fifteen-year-old Robert is a dreamer: one evening his eyes blur over and he literally disappears. Robert has become a time traveller, but with little control over his ability he seems doomed to wander forever - until he appears in 17th-century Amsterdam and finds a slim chance of returning home.

A Girl named disaster Nancy Farmer

While journeying to Zimbabwe, eleven year old Nhamo struggles to escape drowning and starvation, and in so doing comes close to the world of the African spirits.

Mind's eye Paul Fleischman

A novel in play form in which sixteen-year-old Courtney, paralyzed in an accident, learns about the power of the mind from an elderly blind woman who takes Courtney on an imaginary journey to Italy using a 1910 guidebook.

Coram Boy Jamila Gavin

Set in 18th century England, a rich and almost Gothic drama unfolds, full of dastardly villains, cold-hearted aristocrats, devoted friends and passionate lovers, and set against a background of cruelty, music, murder and the neglect of children.

Troy Adele Geras

It's the tenth year of the Trojan War. Marpessa is gifted with God-sight and can see the Immortals. She is handmaiden to Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world. Xanthe, her older sister, tends the warriors in the Blood Room, where the wounded are carried in from battle. Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, is bored with the endless dreary war and decides to play with the two girls. When the young soldier Alastor is brought into the Blood Room, Aphrodite begins her game.

Turnabout Margaret Peterson Haddix

Melly and Anny Beth both lived normal lives throughout the twentieth century. But in 2000, when they are old and ready to die, they select to participate in Project Turnabout and are given an injection to make them grow younger. Now in their teens, living on their own, they know they will need someone to look after them when they grow younger!

When Zachary Beaver came to town Kimberly Willis Holt

During the summer of 1971 in a small Texas town, thirteen-year-old Toby and his best friend Cal meet the star of a sideshow act, 600-pound Zachary, the fattest boy in the world.

The Trolls Polly Horvath

Eccentric Aunt Sally comes from Canada to babysit the Anderson children while their parents are on a trip to Paris and every night the bedtime story adds another piece to a very suspect family history.

Ultraviolet Lesley Howarth

How was anyone to know that one day the sun would just burn up their lives? Tunnels link home compounds to town and no one goes out any more. But Violet Niles is going outside. She thinks the only danger out there is the sun - but Vi has no idea how dangerous reality can be.

The Adventures of Blue Avenger Norma Howe

On his sixteenth birthday, still trying to cope with the unexpected death of his father, David Schumacher decides to change his name to Blue Avenger, hoping to find a way to make a difference in his Oakland neighborhood and in the world.

Believing is seeing Diana Wynne Jones

Presents seven tales of fantasy including "The sage of Theater," "The master," "Enna Hittims," "The girl who loved the sun," "Dragon reserve, home eight," and "What the cat told me".

You don't know me David Klass

Fourteen-year-old John creates alternative realities in his mind as he tries to deal with his mother's abusive boyfriend, his crush on a beautiful, but shallow classmate and other problems at school,

A Hive for the honeybee Soinbhe Lally

When Thora, a young worker bee, befriends some drones, she wonders if they really are lords of the hive or if their pompous posturing merely conceals an appalling fate.

Stormy night Michele Lemieux

A young boy lies awake at night thinking about such things as where do we come from, who decided what the first human would look like, is there anyone watching over me.

Pharaoh's daughter Julius Lester

A fictionalized account of a Biblical story in which an Egyptian princess rescues a Hebrew infant who becomes a prophet of his people while his sister finds her true self as a priestess to the Egyptian gods.

C S Lewis

Brothers Ted van Lieshout

Can you still be a brother when your brother is dead? Luke often wonders. His brother Marius has died, leaving Luke alone with their parents. When their mother decides to burn Marius's belongings in a ceremonial bonfire, Luke saves his brother's diary and makes it his own by writing in it.

Whitechurch Chris Lynch

Describes the stresses and strains in the triangular relationship of two aimless teenage boys and a girl living in a small town.

Spindle's end Robin McKinley

The infant princess Briar Rose is cursed on her name day by Pernicia, an evil fairy, and then whisked away by a young fairy to be raised in a remote part of a magical country, unaware of her real identity and hidden from Pernicia's vengeful powers. 

Eclipse of the century Jan Mark

During a near-death experience Keith finds himself in the mysterious city of Qantoum where he is told that he will return under a black sun at the end of a thousand years. Finding that Qantoum is a real city in Central Asia, he travels there to find a decayed, half empty relic of civil war.

Feeling sorry for Celia Jaclyn Moriarty

A novel that uses letters written between teenage friends, refrigerator notes from a crazy mother, and epistles that express the narrator's own internal feelings of self-doubt to weave this bittersweet coming of age story.

Fallen angels Walter Dean Myers

Seventeen-year-old Richie Perry, just out of his Harlem high school, enlists in the Army in the summer of 1967 and spends a devastating year on active duty in Vietnam.

Monster Walter Dean Myers

While on trial as an accomplice to a murder, sixteen-year-old Steve Harmon records his experiences in prison and in the courtroom in the form of a film script as he tries to come to terms with the course his life has taken.

The Other side of truth Beverley Naidoo

Smuggled out of Nigeria after their mother's murder, Sade and her younger brother are abandoned in London when their uncle fails to meet them at the airport and they are fearful of their new surroundings and of what may have happened to their journalist father back in Nigeria.

The Wind on fire series: The Wind singer; Slaves of the mastery William Nicholson

After Kestrel Hath rebels against the stifling rules of Amaranth society and is forced to flee, she, along with her twin brother and a tagalong classmate, follow an ancient map in quest of the legendary silver voice of the wind singer, in an attempt to heal Amaranth and its people.

His dark materials trilogy: The Golden Compass (Northern lights); The Subtle knife; The Amber spyglass Philip Pullman

Lyra lives in a world not quite our own. As the boundaries between worlds begin to dissolve, Lyra and her daemon help Will Parry in his search for his father and for a powerful, magical knife. They find themselves facing even greater perils. Old friends come to their aid and they make new allies.

The Baboon King Anton Quintana

A novel about a young Masai who is ostracized by his people and becomes the leader of a tribe of baboons. He comes to know the baboons' ways, but eventually decides he must return to the village.

Witch child Celia Rees

In 1659, fourteen-year-old Mary Newbury keeps a journal of her voyage from England to the New World and her experiences living as a witch in a community of Puritans near Salem, Massachusetts.

Holes Louis Sachar

As further evidence of his family's bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnats is sent to a hellish correctional camp in the Texas desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure, and a new sense of himself.

Series of unfortunate events series Lemony Snicket

After the sudden death of their parents, the three Baudelaire children must depend on each other and their wits when it turns out that the distant relative who is appointed their guardian is determined to use any means necessary to get their fortune.

Stargirl Jerry Spinelli

In this story about the perils of popularity, the courage of nonconformity, and the thrill of first love, an eccentric student named Stargirl changes Mica High School forever.

J R R Tolkien

Queen's own fool: a novel of Mary Queen of Scots Jane Yolen

When twelve-year-old Nicola leaves Troupe Brufort and serves as the fool for Mary, Queen of Scots, she experiences the political and religious upheavals in both France and Scotland.