If you are looking for lists of book ideas for middle school/high school/older,
a good idea is to google "100 books everyone should have read".
All kinds of lists will pop up,
Like this one
http://www.listchallenges.com/kaunismina-bbc-6-books-challenge
That is a great place to get ideas of well written books.
(I had read 39 of them.)
There are variations like 100 American books or 100 classic books.
Lots of different lists.
Middle sent the above link and the list below to a mother who was looking for ideas for a sixth grader who has a high reading level. There are younger books toward the beginning of this list and it also has a very wide variety. It is in no particular order.
Brambly Hedge Series – Jill Barklem
The Borrowers Series – Mary Norton
The Little House Series – Varies Authors
Original Box Car Children Series – Warner
Island of the Blue Dophins – O’Dell
Misty of Chincoteague Series – Marguerite Henry
Mandie Series – Lois Gladys Leppard
The Three Investigators Series – Robert Arthur
A Walk in Wolf Wood – Mary Stewart
Redwall Series – Jacques
Hatchet Series – Gary Paulsen
Arthurian Series – Mary Stewart
Harry Potter Series – J. K. Rowling
Lord of the Rings – J. R. R. Tolkien
Narnia Series – C. S. Lewis
Ender Series – Orson Scott
Foundation Series – Isaac Asimov
2001 Space Odyssey Series – Arthur Clark
Dune Series – Frank Herbert
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Series – Dounglas Adams
* https://www.commonsensemedia.org/book-reviews/the-hitchhikers-guide-to-the-galaxy-hitchhikers-guide-series-book-1:
The Midnighter Series – Scott Westerfeld
The Secret Hour – Westerfeld
Touching Darkness – Westerfeld
Blue Noon – Westerfeld
The Black Stallion – Walter Farley
Artemis Fowl Series – Eoin Colfer
Exodus – Julie Bertagna
The Pack – Tom Pow
Captives – Tom Pow
Host – Stephenie Meyer
Chasing the Falconers (On the Run) Series – Gordon Korman
Bunker 10 – J. A. Henderson
Life As We Knew It Series – Susan Beth Pfeffer
The Giver Series – Lois Lowry
The Good Earth – Pearl S. Buck
Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
Hawksong (The Kiesha’ra) Series – Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
Dreamland – Sarah Dessen
The Shadow of the Bear (A Fairy Tale Retold) Series – Regina Doman
Not connected to these exact characters but also in the
retold fairytales and a very good book: The Midnight
Dancers
Wicked Lovely Series – Melissa Marr
Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
Peter and the Starcatchers Series – Ridley Pearson & Dave Barry
Peeps – Scott Westerfeld
Maximum Ride Series – James Patterson
Eragon Series – Christopher Paolini
Heir Apparent – Vivian Vande Velde
The Hunger Games Series – Collins
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
Portofino – Frank Schaeffer
The Eyre Affair – Jasper Tforde
Snow Crash – Neal Stephenson
Lonesome Dove – Larry McMurtry
Watership Down – Richard Adams
Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
Peace Life a River – Leif Enger
Homecoming, Dicey's Song, Izzy, Willy Nilly – Cynthia Voigt
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith
Specials and Midnighters and Uglies Trilogies – Scott Westerfeld
A Long Way from Chicago and A Year Down Yonder – Richard Peck
When Zachary Beaver Came to Town and Keeper of the Night – Kimberly Willis Holt
Chronicles of the Deryni – Katherine Kurtz
Wings Series – Pike
Dragon Rider – Funke
Percy Jackson Series – Riordan
Howl’s Moving Castle – Jones
Fire Within Series – D’Lacey
Inkheart Series – Funke
Book Thief – Zusak
Fablehaven Series – Mull
Outsiders – Hinton
Eye of the Dragon – Stephen King (not typical King book)
The Graveyard Book – Gaiman
Hardy Boys Series – Dixon
Where the Red Fern Grows – Rawls
Bridge to Terabithia – Paterson
Holes – Sacher
Across Five Aprils – Irene Hunt
The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman – Ernest Gaines
Call It Courage – Armstrong Sperry
Catherine, Called Birdy – Karen Cushman
Dicey’s Song – Cynthia Voigt
The House of Dies Drear – Virginia Hamilton
Jacob, Have I Loved – Katherine Paterson
Johnny Tremain – Esther Forbes
Julie of the Wolves – Jean Craighead George
Keesha’s House – Helen Frost
My Brother Sam Is Dead – James Lincoln Collier
Out of the Dust – Karen Hesse
Red Badge of Courage – Stephen Crane
Rifles for Watie – Harold Keith
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry – Mildred Taylor
Scorpions – Walter Dean Myers
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle – Avi
The Watsons Go to Birmingham, 1963 – Christopher Paul Curtis
The Westing Game – Ellen Raskin
When You Reach Me – Rebecca Stead
The Witch of Blackbird Pond – Elizabeth George Speare
A Wrinkle in Time – Madeleine L’Engle
Number the Stars – Lowry
Diary of Anne Frank – Anne Frank
Silmarillion – Tolkien
Culture Series – Iain Banks
Time Machine – Wells
Call of the Wild – London
Treasure Island – Stevenson
Robinson Crusoe – Defoe
Maze Runner Series– Ball
Thief Lord – Funke
Series of Unfortunate Events Series – Hadler
The Important of Being Ernest – Wilde
Divergent Series – Roth
Jurassic Park – Crichton
Star Wars Series (Canon and ‘Legends’) – Multiple Authors
Truesight Series – David
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children Series – Riggs
Author’s Who Are Great and have lots of books:
Robert Louis Stevenson
Jerry Spinelli
Louisa May Allcott
Dickens
Patrick F McManus
Bill Bryson
John Steinbeck
Hemingway
Jane Austen (female characters but my older brother read in college/loved them)
Lois Duncan
James Herriot
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Isaac Asimov
Leo Tolstoy
Jules Verne
H. G. Wells
Judy Blume
*Read everything in the school’s autobiography section
