Well, it’s been 70 degrees for a few days, so we’re starting to think about summer plans around here again–and part of that is summer learning plans. Summer is a great time to work on some fun family unit studies as well as some local field trips. I was also spurred on by finding 16 books in The Sowers Christian Biography series at our local thrift store for only $4.00!! What a treasure! The kiddos can’t wait until we dive into a few for read-aloud!

I’ve started reviewing our little playroom library (which most folks wouldn’t call “little” at all!) thinking and sorting what we’ve read and haven’t read and where the kiddos interests seem to be at the moment. My regular blog readers know that I’m quite a bookworm and we’re picky about what books and movies we bring in the house for the crew. But children’s fiction is one area where I think there is an abundance of timeless classics, as well as some quality newer material coming out. (YA fiction is a whole other beast–and a whole other post one day!)

I’m a fan of book series for young readers because they encourage more reading! Here’s a list of Adventure Series Chapter Books you’ll find on our shelves–perfect for boys or girls (although I have a few special, girl-focused titles I’d like to share later). This is the kind of stuff that we read and then I hear them playing out the characters and adventures when they are outside together later! 

NOTE: I’ve read all of these (some many times!) and we do most of our reading out loud as a family. Our kiddos are 9, 7, and 6 and these have been enjoyed by all ages in our house.

1. Viking Quest, Lois Walfrid Johnson. I’ve talked about this series several times before–we thoroughly enjoyed it. Boy and girl main characters as well.

2. Freedom Seekers, Lois Walfrid Johnson. I’ve read two of these and thought they were great. The crew hasn’t heard them yet and they might be on the short list for summer reading this year.

3. Adventures of the Northwoods, Lois Walfrid Johnson. These remind me a lot of the Boxcar Children. Fun little mysteries, healthy family relationships. A little less meaty than Viking Quest or Freedom Seekers, but good for independent readers as well.

4. Texas Panhandle Series, Loula Grace Erdman. These are hard to find! We lucked into Book 1 and 2 and are still on the hunt for the rest. Great family pioneering adventure, in the tradition of Little House on the Prairie.

5. Francis Tucket, Gary Paulsen. Great fun, constant adventures, lessons to be learned. Our boys loved these stories!

6. Indian in the Cupboard, Lynne Reid Banks. I have to admit, I had no idea this was a series until last year. All our kiddos got wrapped up in the story, although the urban environment and public school setting were a little different for them. There’s a lot of lessons in honesty in these books.

7. P.K. Pinkerton, Caroline Lawrence.  I picked this one up because it was a western (and my crew love westerns!) and it was non-stop action. I hesitate a little over children taking on adult roles like “police” but these books were very fun with a young main character.

8. My Side of the Mountain, Jean Craighead George. Again, I’m not a fan of children running away, but these are classics and there’s a lot of lessons to be gleaned. There’s something to be said for children hearing stories of young people having to “man up” rather than playing sports and video games all day.

9. Hatchet, Gary Paulsen. Another classic, and a personal favorite. The series after the first book were new to me, but we’ve been slowly collecting them from library book sales and thrift stores, and they are all pretty good.

10. Jungle Doctor, Paul White. We scored this whole series, minus one, from Vision Forum before they closed and they are a treasure!

11. Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Rick Riordan. These are the epitome of adventure! Mr. Fix-It hesitated because they are saturated with a mythology-as-truth perspective, so keep that in mind if you have naive little ones. There’s also quite a bit of violence, slang, and middle-school “potty” humor. I did some editing on the fly for our kiddos. But overall we enjoyed the first few of them. I think it will be a few years before we are ready for Heroes of Olympus, but I am collecting them from book sales.

12. How to Train Your Dragon, Cressida Cowell.  Ok, more middle-school boy humor {sigh} but otherwise just as fun as the movie and the TV series. Our kiddos love these and they generally have good themes throughout each book. And I like that they are unique.

13. The Black Stallion, Walter Farley. I loved these growing up, but kinda felt like they were girl stories. Ha! I don’t know why I thought that–our boys have loved them!

14. Big Red, Jim Kjelgaard. These are pretty quick, easy reads but full of outdoor adventures. I only read the first one growing up and it’s hard to find them. An Amazon Prime account really helps! The rest of Kjelgaard’s books are also great outdoor adventures stories for boys–we have a lot of them on our shelves!

15. Jason’s Gold, Will Hobbs. Hobbs is a new writer to me and these books (we have two so far) will fit nicely in a Gold Rush unit study I’m thinking about. More great outdoor adventures that our boys eat up! I would pick up anything else I found by him as well.

16. Rangers Apprentice, John Flannagan. As a bit of a fantasy buff, these are by far my favorite recent youth fiction finds–along with The Brotherband Chronicles. They present excellent hero-figures, with moral character and skills built by hard work (not magic–no magic in these) and healthy relationships without overt romantic themes. The good guys are good and the bad guys are bad, and the females are strong and competent even if they are not the main characters.

17. The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis. Every child should have this set, and read this set of books. (As an adult, I got the boxed set as a Christmas present from my parents to replace my worn out library sale copies, but this all-in-one version looks pretty cool too.)

18. The Chronicals of Prydain, Lloyd Alexander. This is another fantasy adventure along the same lines as Narnia–it’s what the Disney movie The Black Cauldron is loosely based on. Loosely–the books are much better. I haven’t read these to our kiddos yet because we monitor what type and how much “magic” they get right now while they’re still very impressionable. But I know they’ll enjoy them in a few years.

19. Redwall, Brian Jacques. I was surprised to find that the older books in this series are getting harder and harder to find. This is a great hero adventure series, in the same vein as Rangers Apprentice, except with mice. {smile} There are a lot of these books and they’re fairly common at book sales if you’re looking.

20. Guardians of Ga’Hoole, Katheryn Lasky. Again, if you’re got a fantasy-lover on your hands, but you’re cautious about “magic” and “wizards” and “stuff like that” (like Mr. Fix-It!) this is a great series. Adventure, heroes, good vs evil and not a lot of “magic” –other than the talking owl part. {smile} If you’ve seen the movie, it covers almost the first four books.

21. Kingdom Series, Chuck Black. This series lays the foundation for the follow-up stories in the Knights of Arrethtran. These are biblical-based stories set in medieval times with lots of knight-heroes, raging battles, and moral truths. I just started them this year, and I think it’ll be another year or two before I share them with our boys (as much to save me the sword-fights in the kitchen as anything!) but I would definitely recommend them as family read alouds.

22. Crown and Covenant, Douglas Bond. These are great stories based on church history–I struggled with the dialogue, but if you’re good at that your kiddos will love it. The 14-year-old main character, Duncan, was just the right age to catch our boys interest. If you want to raise brave boys, these books will help inspire them!

23.  Faith and Freedom, Douglas Bond. The continuation of the family story from Crown and Covenant, but in Revolutionary War America–our crew loves American history, so this was a natural fit for us. And the accents were a little easier. {smile}

24.  Living History Library, Various. This is not a specific series, but a group of books which create historic fiction around a well–researched person or event to bring history alive and make it relevant to young readers. We have Beorn the Proud and Rolf and the Viking Bow on our shelves right now, with most of the others on one of our Wish Lists.

25. The Mouse and the Motorcycle, Beverly Cleary. Again, I didn’t realize this was a series. These are fun, easy, summer afternoon on the porch reads.

Do you have a favorite book series that you can’t wait to (or already have!) shared with your kiddos? Summer’s coming, and those longer days make for a reat time to fit in more family reading! Be sure to sign up for our newsletter, where we’ll share more great tips and book lists for the busy family to enjoy together!

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