Here are 100 books that The Maze of Bones fans have personally recommended if you like
The Maze of Bones.
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I’ve always been a daydreamer on the lookout for my entry into another world. I spent a good chunk of my early elementary years imagining I was a flying pony who could travel to distant lands and perform dazzling deeds. I never got my wings—but I did discover a way to reach those distant lands. Today, I have the pleasure of creating worlds of my own as the author of three published middle-grade novels: The Mutant Mushroom Takeover, Attack of the Killer Komodos, and The Legend of Greyhallow.
I have recommended this book to so many people over the years! I loved the unique setting—deep beneath the sewers of New York City—and the way Gregor travels to this world—through a chute in his apartment’s laundromat.
My ten-year-old son and I both read this one and loved all the talking creatures and subterranean adventure—giant anthropomorphic rats, cockroaches, and bats you can ride! All those creepy crawlies might sound a little icky to some, but I loved how inventive and unexpected it all was. One of my favorite characters is a smart-mouthed, grumpy warrior rat named Ripred, who, deep down, has a soft side (plus a powerful love for stinky food).
This was a hard book to put down. Nearly every chapter ends with a high-stakes, dangerous development. I just had to keep turning the pages to find out what would happen next.
The first in a gripping young fantasy series from the author of THE HUNGER GAMES.
When eleven-year-old Gregor falls through a grate in the laundry room of his apartment building, he hurtles into the dark Underland, where spiders, rats and giant cockroaches coexist uneasily with humans.
This world is on the brink of war, and Gregor's arrival is no accident.
But Gregor wants no part of it - until he realizes it's the only way to solve the mystery of his father's disappearance. Reluctantly, Gregor embarks on a dangerous adventure that will change both him and the Underland forever.
The child’s immersion into nature is a most relevant theme for me as an environmental educator, but it is critical to America as a whole. Our future depends upon it. We continue to live in a culture that shoves nature into the background, something viewed as pleasant scenery but not truly interactive in our lives. The “store” has become the source of things to many young people. The current generation of American parents is not equipped to teach children about nature and its indelible place in our survival as a species; therefore, books must become surrogates in this mission.
One boy alone in the wilderness—without any outside contact—is a crash course in “survival skills,” but this education also comes with a shift in philosophy that harkens back to paleo times when humans lived directly with the land.
When I read this book, I was coming of age in my relationship with the forest and was determined to learn about my ties to atavism and my potential as a defector from modern civilization. Though this book’s realities are stretched by the imagination, the soul of that human/wilderness relationship shines through.
"Should appeal to all rugged individualists who dream of escape to the forest."-The New York Times Book Review
Sam Gribley is terribly unhappy living in New York City with his family, so he runs away to the Catskill Mountains to live in the woods-all by himself. With only a penknife, a ball of cord, forty dollars, and some flint and steel, he intends to survive on his own. Sam learns about courage, danger, and independence during his year in the wilderness, a year that changes his life forever.
"An extraordinary book . . . It will be read year…
I love middle-grade books (for eight to twelve-year-olds), which is why I write in that genre. My Summer of L.U.C.K. trilogy is sprinkled with magical adventures, but each one has real-life kids struggling with real-life problems and finding real-world solutions. I believe that books whose characters experience magical elements along with themes of friendship, perseverance, and self-acceptance will help them learn, as I did when I was a young reader, that whatever troubles they're experiencing, other kids have those troubles too, that they're not alone, and that help is possible.
I almost didn’t include this Newbery Medal winner book by Louis Sachar on my list of magical middle-grade books set in the real world. Is it really magical? Is it set in the real world? With a fourteen-year-old protagonist, Stanley Yelnats, is it even middle-grade?
Here’s why my love for this book won out. Sachar weaves together a quirky, complex story, just interconnected enough to qualify as “magical.” The setting, a juvenile prison camp with a sadistic warden, is “real-world” enough. And Stanley, though emotionally young for fourteen, is a kind, thoughtful kid well worth rooting for.
About halfway through reading, its darkness almost prompted me to lay this book aside. I’m so glad I didn’t. In the end, its themes of perseverance, hope, and redemption shone through.
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…
Growing up in California, I was enchanted by the idea of New York City—largely due to the visions of it I found in the books on this list. I’ve now lived in NYC for 20 years and love matching real locations with their versions in my imagination. In my time in the city I’ve been a staff writer for Newsweek Magazine, an editor at Scholastic, and a freelancer for many publications including The New York Times and The Washington Post. I’m currently working on a second novel.
In this book, a sister and brother escape the horrors of suburban Connecticut and take refuge in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where they discover an art mystery that leads them to a wealthy surrogate grandmother. Beyond the iconic setting, this story has an irresistible only-in-New York feeling to it, so that you can’t help believing it all might have really happened, or still could happen.
I’m a teacher with a passion for children’s literature. I have a Bachelor of Arts, a Diploma in Education, and a Master's of Special Education. I’ve worked as an English teacher, special needs teacher, and volunteered teaching disadvantaged children and migrants. I have particular insight into middle-graders' reading interests. With today’s online distractions, you have to grab them from the first page and keep the story relative to their world.
I understand some children struggle with reading. It was therefore important for my story to be clear in its message that children are not the sum of their grades, and we all have unique traits worthy of admiration.
This is a fast-paced and entertaining spy thriller.
It forms part of a series featuring Ruby, a thirteen-year-old genius code-cracker who is confident, brave, and sassy. When Ruby is recruited by a secret spy organisation, she is drawn into an adventure full of cryptic codes, puzzles, and unexpected twists.
Although the story is told in the third person, Lauren Child uses italics to capture Ruby’s inner thoughts and observations. Ruby’s inner monologue is funny, sharp, and highly relatable for the intended age group. Lauren Child does an excellent job of getting into the mind of a thirteen-year-old.
This is a substantial, thick book, and at times the plot becomes complex, with lots of turns. I recommend it for readers aged 10 to 14.
Hey, buster! Normal life is a total yawn. Break out of boredom with Ruby Redfort, the super-awesome creation from multi-million-copy bestseller Lauren Child...
Want to know more? Of course you do, bozo.
Here's the low-down on Ruby Redfort: she's a genius code-cracker, a daring detective, and a gadget-laden special agent who just happens to be a thirteen-year-old girl. She and her slick side-kick butler, Hitch, foil crimes and get into loads of scrapes with evil villains, but they're always ice-cool in a crisis.
In LOOK INTO MY EYES, we go right back to Ruby's beginnings as an…
The only thing I love reading more than books about myth and legend are books you’re not supposed to read. George Bataille once wrote that if you ever caught him producing a book that he risked nothing to write, you should throw it away, and I take that to heart. Every book should be dangerous, because only danger makes you think. I hope every book I’ve written is, in some sense, dangerous, although of course I also hope my readers do not get ripped to pieces by the devil. That’s a little too dangerous.
Seven hundred years ago, someone (no one knows who) wrote a book full of mysterious letters and even more mysterious drawings of unknown plants described in unreadable paragraphs.
For centuries, people have struggled to eke some meaning from the book’s pages. Cryptologist William F. Friedman (the man who broke the Japanese code in WWII) spent his life trying to decipher the book. And all in vain.
No one knows what information the book contains. It could be anything! Simple steps for building a hydrogen bomb? Your parents’ deepest, darkest bathroom secrets? Maps of Atlantis? Maybe! This is the most dangerous book in the world!
The first authorized copy of this mysterious, much-speculated-upon, one-of-a-kind, centuries-old puzzle
"For the first time, a complete reproduction [of] The Voynich Manuscript, has been published, featuring essays exploring what is known about the book and extra-wide margins so readers can record their responses to its beguiling, beautiful strangeness."-Nina Maclaughlin, Boston Globe
"For people who like a good historical mystery, this . . . fifteenth- or sixteenth-century Voynich Manuscript will fascinate."-Rebecca Onion, Slate
Many call the fifteenth-century codex, commonly known as the "Voynich Manuscript," the world's most mysterious book. Written in an unknown script by an unknown author, the manuscript…
All my books, for adults and kids, include the theme that things are seldom what they seem. I link this to the slow realization when I was young that my family had an uncommon history. Novels featuring spies go deep into this theme, as a good spy is always manipulating their environment and presenting versions of themselves that may or may not be true. When my own children were little, we read so many of these novels. That reading is what inspired the Mrs. Smith’s Spy School for Girls series.
This is a work of historical fiction about World War II and I felt totally immersed in the moment.
13-year-old Bertie, his friends, and his rescue pup get busy learning ciphers and solving puzzles amid the falling bombs in order to find a missing woman. The author weaves in historical figures and events that add to the authentic feeling of this action-packed read. This is one of my favorites!
From the award-winning author of The Great Trouble comes a story of espionage, survival, and friendship during World War II
Bertie Bradshaw never set out to become a spy. He never imagined traipsing around war-torn London, solving ciphers, practicing surveillance, and searching for a traitor to the Allied forces. He certainly never expected that a strong-willed American girl named Eleanor would play Watson to his Holmes (or Holmes to his Watson, depending on who you ask).
But when a young woman goes missing, leaving behind a coded notebook, Bertie is determined to solve the mystery. With the help of Eleanor…
I was raised in middle-class America by a strong woman and an alcoholic. I survived an abuser when I realized that I was the answer to my problems. I write about tough subjects but am an eternal optimist who believes a strong spirit will always ensure a happy ending.
A coming of age story – for a fourteen-year-old who’s discovered she’s gay, her inadequate mother, her severely autistic younger sister, and a reclusive, distant older man and his dog.
The protagonist is the doer of the family who refuses to give in to poverty and give up to allow her sister to be institutionalized. What one determined soul can do when she refuses to give up.
I love stories that resolve in a happy ending, despite facing seemingly hopeless odds.
Fans of Mark Haddon, Mitch Albom and Alice Sebold will love this remarkable, moving story about family and the many forms this can take by Richard & Judy bestselling author Catherine Ryan Hyde.
'A smashing read and left me feeling so positive about human nature' -- ***** Reader review 'An absolute joy to read' -- ***** Reader review 'Beautifully written' -- ***** Reader review 'Fantastic' -- ***** Reader review 'Catherine, you've done it again. Another awesome read that will stay with me' -- ***** Reader review 'A page-turner' -- ***** Reader review ********************************************************************************************************* WHAT IF THE FAMILY YOU NEED ISN'T…
Visiting journalists regularly misinterpret California. Outside politicians twist it into bizarre caricatures. I know because I have worked as a journalist in all parts of the state. I covered crime for the LA Herald Examiner, spent 27 years at the LA Times, was a columnist and editorial page editor at the Sacramento Bee and, finally, was senior editor of the nonprofit news organization, CalMatters. I’ve covered governors, wildfires, a major earthquake, politics, mass incarceration, mass shootings, an execution, and all manner of policy. There are many great nonfiction books about California, including Jim Newton’s biographies of Earl Warren and Jerry Brown, Randy Shilts’s The Mayor of Castro Street, and Gladwin Hill’s Dancing Bear.
Craig McNamara has written a beautiful memoir about his complex father and the ugly war that split our country in the 1960s and beyond, his involvement in the anti-Vietnam War movement, and a rich and impactful life as a walnut farmer outside the California town of Winters. I’ve been to his farm and have gotten to know Craig bit. His story is authentic and from the heart. His anecdote about the chair his father occupied is powerful. I was too young to be drafted, but grew up in the Bay Area and was very much affected by the tumultuous times. Craig McNamara offers a unique perspective and one well worth reading.
This unforgettable father and son story confronts the legacy of the Vietnam War across two generations; “an important book that should be read by every American” (Ron Kovic, Vietnam Veteran and author of Born on the Fourth of July).
Craig McNamara came of age in the political tumult and upheaval of the late 60s. While Craig McNamara would grow up to take part in anti-war demonstrations, his father, Robert McNamara, served as John F. Kennedy's Secretary of Defense and the architect of the Vietnam War. This searching and revealing memoir offers an intimate picture of one father and son at…
Science is still assumed to be a ‘male’ subject in which women are a minority. I should know—I was one of those women when I worked as an astrophysicist. But there have always been women in science and their stories are fascinating, whether told in nonfiction or in fiction. Fiction is ideally placed to convey the emotions behind the scientific processes and the way in which human interactions and relationships influence what happens in the lab.
How would it change society if women had access to artificial wombs? I was gripped by the premise of this book and the way in which the author explores all the different ramifications of a technology developed by a woman scientist who has now become a recluse from society.
In lesser hands, the concept of external ‘pouches’ in which fetuses are grown might easily have become a straightforwardly dystopian SF novel, but Helen Sedgwick (a former scientist herself) is very careful at balancing the pros and cons and ensuring each character is well-rounded so that I felt drawn to them all, no matter what their views.
What if anyone could have a baby? A boldly original and unforgettable novel from a rising star.
Now we have equality. Now we've outgrown our biology. With FullLife's baby pouch, women are liberated and men can share the joy of childbearing. Holly's whole family knows the benefits, but Eva doesn't believe society has changed for the better and Piotr has uncovered a secret behind FullLife's glossy facade. What separates them may just bring them together, as they search for the truth about FullLife and each face a truth of their own.
