I’ve always enjoyed stories that span across generations or multiple timelines, showing us how the past impacts the present, and unraveling age-old mysteries as the narrative unfolds. In school, I enjoyed history and anthropology for this reason. My own books also play around with this topic, whether it’s a decades-old curse or a snow globe that travels back in time. I hope you enjoy this selection of favorites as much as I have!
This Newbery classic is one of my favorite childhood books. I love stories where the past unravels mysteries about the future. Holes does this through a frame story format, and several mysteries are unveiled this way, including an age-old family curse and a thriving lake that dries up into a ghost town. The book covers a multitude of deep themes, including redemption, love, and family, and is one of the few children’s books I often reflect on as an adult.
WINNER OF THE NEWBERY MEDAL
WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
SELECTED AS ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 BEST YA BOOKS OF ALL TIME
Stanley Yelnats' family has a history of bad luck, so when a miscarriage of justice sends him to Camp Green Lake Juvenile Detention Centre (which isn't green and doesn't have a lake) he is not surprised. Every day he and the other inmates are told to dig a hole, five foot wide by five foot deep, reporting anything they find. Why? The evil warden claims that it's character building, but this is a lie. It's up…
This spooky novel revolves around an old manor with a tree rooted right inside its walls. The book wastes no time getting into the heart of the mystery, which mixes folklore and the fantastical. The tree, it turns out, is a dark variation of Shel Silverstein’s Giving Tree. It grants the wisher what they want…at a cost. This clever, creepy tale shows us that what we want is not always what we need.
Irish orphans Molly, 14, and Kip, 10, travel to England to work as servants in a crumbling manor house where nothing is quite what it seems, and soon the siblings are confronted by a mysterious stranger and the secrets of the cursed house. By the author of Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes.
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
Laced with literary allusions to famous poems and works, this series follows three intrepid orphans through misadventure after misadventure. Behind it all is a constant reference to a schism that happened in the past, which is the cause behind their parents’ demise. As someone who grew up in a household that spoke Mandarin, this series helped me learn a lot of English literary colloquialisms and idioms, such as “to follow suit” or “takes the cake.” The author does not shy away from dark topics, balancing them with the right amount of irony and humor.
Lemony Snicket's The Bad Beginning is the first book in the globally bestselling series A Series of Unfortunate Events. This exclusive gold foiled 20th anniversary hardback gift edition commemorates the miserable fact that every child in the world has wanted this brilliantly funny book for twenty years.
Perfect for fans of Roald Dahl and Mr Gum, young readers of 9 to 11 will adore the mischievously dark humour. Lemony Snicket's 'A Series of Unfortunate Events' has been made into a blockbuster Hollywood film starring Jim Carrey and is also a hit Netflix TV series. Now with new anniversary blurb by…
Two best friends, Amanda and Leo, have spent every one of their birthdays together until a falling out between the two. Then, on their eleventh birthday, they realize they’re stuck reliving the same day… over and over again! The two ex-friends must work together to trace the root behind this bizarre magic that’s only affecting them. A Groundhog Day pitched at kids, 11 Birthdays perfectly captures the trials and anxiety of friendships at that age. Growing up, I moved schools a lot; the longest I’ve lived in a place was five years. Unfortunately, this meant a lot of my friendships often faded due to distance. Because of this, I always enjoy reading about friends who have known each other since they were toddlers.
It's Amanda's 11th birthday and she is super excited-after all, 11 is so different from 10. But from the start, everything goes wrong. The worst part of it all is that she and her best friend, Leo, with whom she's shared every birthday, are on the outs and this will be the first birthday they haven't shared together. When Amanda turns in for the night, glad to have her birthday behind her, she wakes up happy for a new day. Or is it? Her birthday seems to be repeating itself. What is going on?! And how can she fix it?…
The Guardian of the Palace is the first novel in a modern fantasy series set in a New York City where magic is real—but hidden, suppressed, and dangerous when exposed.
When an ancient magic begins to leak into the world, a small group of unlikely allies is forced to act…
Another Newbery favorite of mine, When You Reach Me uses time travel as a side plot. The main character, a sixth-grader named Miranda, begins noticing strange things, including several mysterious notes left in her backpack. What really makes this book stand out is how it captures the main character’s insecurities of growing up in a tiny apartment with her single mother. I could relate to Miranda’s struggles because my family was also poor when I was growing up, and I was always in awe when I visited my friends’ enormous houses for sleepovers. The book deftly explores class, race, and prejudice in an accessible way.
Miranda's life is starting to unravel. Her best friend, Sal, gets punched by a kid on the street for what seems like no reason, and he shuts Miranda out of his life. The key that Miranda's mum keeps hidden for emergencies is stolen. And then a mysterious note arrives: 'I am coming to save your friend's life, and my own. I ask two favours. First, you must write me a letter.'
The notes keep coming, and Miranda slowly realises that whoever is leaving them knows things no one should know. Each message brings her closer to believing that only she…
Time traveling is no ordinary thing, but that’s what awaits 12-year-old Adam when he finds a snow globe that allows him to journey into the past. The snow globe whisks Adam from his home and introduces him to a succession of unusual characters along the way. Strangely, each individual seems to have a past that is interwoven with Adam’s own.
100 years ago in the streets of New York City, the famous magician and candlemaker extraordinaire Elbert the Excellent hopes to dazzle the world with his magic, but instead stumbles upon a mysterious entity known as “the time touch.” As the two storylines unravel, they reveal a single thread that ties Adam and Elbert’s pasts together.
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
Selected by Deesha Philyaw as winner of the AWP Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction, Lake Song is set in the fictional town of Kinder Falls in New York’s Finger Lakes region. This novel in stories spans decades to plumb the complexities, violence, and compassion of small-town life as the…
