We're into our second week of KTB and already the recommendations are pouring in! Our panel today consisted of: Hari (entering grade 7); Arshad, Sai, Yerin (entering grade 6); Mayaank (entering grade 5); Jeevan, Neha, Shiva, Uday (entering grade 4).
Today's discussion topic was, "What makes a good series?" Readers of all ages love the comfort, ease, and predictability of series fiction. Once we discover an author we like, it's exciting to find out that he or she has written more books about our favorite characters.
Here are the series our panelists recommend, along with the genres they fall into, how our panelists discovered the series and/or why they like it, and suggested reading levels.
The 39 Clues series by various authors
mystery
grades 3-5
"I like that the same characters appear in all of them, but they're all a little bit different." ~ Jeevan
The Cabin Creek Mysteries by Kristiana Gregory
mystery, suspense
grades 3-5
"My teacher read the first one aloud to my class and I got hooked." ~ Uday
The Diary of a Wimpy Kid series by Jeff Kinney
family & friends, humor, school stories
grades 3-6
"I just found the book on the shelf at the library. The cover and the title looked good, so I checked it out." ~ Hari
The Dragon Slayers' Academy by Kate McMullen
fantasy, school stories
grades 2-4
"The author came to my school and got me interested in the books." ~ Uday
The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
adventure, fantasy, school stories
grades 4+ (later titles in the series grades 7+)
"I like all of the action and how the characters sometimes break the rules." ~ Shiva
The Kane Chronicles by Rick Riordan
adventure, fantasy, mythology
grades 4-7
"I really liked the Percy Jackson books, and this series is by the same author. It's also about mythology, but this time it's Egypt instead of Greece." ~ Arshad
The Lost Hero series by Rick Riordan
adventure, family & friends, fantasy, mythology
grades 4-7
"It's a Percy Jackson spinoff, and I had read and liked the first series." ~ Sai
The Magic Tree House series by Mary Pope Osborne
fantasy, mystery
grades 1-3
"This series was a reading challenge in second grade. Our teacher challenged us to read books 1-18, but we liked it so much we kept going!" ~ Uday
The Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan
adventure, family & friends, fantasy, mythology
grades 4-7
"A friend of mine read it and recommended it to me." ~ Arshad
The Secret Series by Pseudonymous Bosch
humor, mystery, suspense
grades 4-7
"I liked A Series of Unfortunate Events and this one is a lot like it." ~ Shiva
A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket
adventure, humor, mystery, suspense
grades 4-6
"My school librarian thought I might like it, and I did!" ~ Mayaank
The TinTin series by Herge
adventure, graphics, humor
grades 5+
"We liked that they were exotic and had lots of travel and adventure." ~ Arshad, Hari, Sai
The Wayside School series by Louis Sachar
family & friends, humor, school stories
grades 3-5
"My teacher read the first one to our class and I really liked it." ~ Neha
Other series mentioned in brief:
A-Z Mysteries and Capital Mysteries, both by Ron Roy (mystery; grades 1-3)
The Boxcar Children Mysteries by Gertrude Chandler Warner (mystery; grades 3-5)
Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson (graphics, humor; grades 4-7)
Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey (humor; grades 1-3)
My Weird School by Dan Gutman (family & friends, humor; grades 1-3)
The Warriors series by Erin Hunter (adventure, animals, fantasy, graphics; grades 4-7)
