Holiday Gift Guide for Tweens: Book Edition

This is the second of my Holiday Gift Guides. See my previous post on Electronics, if you don’t believe me.

It’s a chore, but we try to get Mini to read more than watch television shows or play online video games (It’s some site called “ZwinkyCuties” this week…). Getting her to read really isn’t that hard. She likes reading. But when we’re at the library she often goes for the “easy reads” over mentally challenging books. It’s a safe bet that there will be some books under the Christmas tree for her.

Here are some tips on looking for good books for your tween.

Mini has already read the Harry Potter series and you really can’t go wrong with the collected editions. These books have it all for young readers: twists, turns, love, hate, joy and sadness. The books entertain and they’re a sure winner, especially the all-in-one sets.

The Diary of a Wimpy Kidseries is pretty entertaining, too, even if it’s not all that educational. The stories of young Greg Heffley are hilarious and may remind some of us of what children go through on a daily basis. The books are easy reading, so you may want to get two or three or all four of them.

There’s a number of other multi-volume stories out there for tweens: The Olympian series, The 39 Clues series, and Artemis Fowl quickly come to mind. Don’t forget about the classics from our youths, though…

I was thoroughly entertained by the Boxcar Children, Encyclopedia Brown and Judy Bloom’s The Fudge series’. There’s no reason we can’t try to give our growing kids a little bit of our own childhoods.

Do you have favorite books you want to share with your Tweenager? Do you need some advice on what books to get? Ask questions, make suggestions or share your ideas in the comments.