Sharing My Favorite Children’s Chapter Books

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I have always been a huge reader! Reading is my escape, the way I clear my head, and the way I recenter myself. I love getting lost in a good mystery, or a romantic love story, an adventure through the jungle, and even a funny autobiography. This love for reading is part of why I decided to join the online book club on Facebook (which you can join, too!). I thought it would be fun to share some of my favorites with all of you on here as well, starting with some of my favorite chapter books as a kid.

MANDY

Mandy, a ten-year-old orphan, dreams of having her own home. She starts to explore the woods over the orphanage wall and discovers a deserted cottage. Mandy works to make it her own home by “borrowing” things from the orphanage. She even lies to protect her secret. But during one stormy night, Mandy gets very sick at the cottage. No one knows where she is except for a special friend she didn’t that know she had.

I didn’t know this until I was older, but the book is written by Julie Andrews!

THE ENCHANTED CASTLE

E. Nesbit’s classic story of how three children, Gerald, Cathy and Jimmy, explore a country estate during their school holidays. The lake, groves and marble statues, with white towers and turrets in the distance, make a fairy-tale setting, and then in the middle of the maze in the rose garden they find a sleeping fairy-tale princess, only to have her immediately made invisible by a magic ring. Her rescue is difficult, funny and sometimes frightening.

Paper Back

Kindle

ANNE OF GREEN GABLES

Anne of Green Gables recounts the adventures of Anne Shirley, a young orphan girl, who is mistakenly sent to Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert on Prince Edward Island and who had intended to adopt a boy to help them on their farm. The novel recounts how Anne makes her way with the Cuthberts, in school and within the town.

This is still one of my absolute favorite books, and I often find myself reading the books again or watching the mini-series. I have always loved Anne’s view of the world and felt instantly like she was a good friend.

THE BOX CAR CHILDREN

The Boxcar Children follows four orphaned children, Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny. They believe their grandfather is cruel, so they run away and create a home for themselves in an abandoned boxcar. While they eventually meet and live with their kind grandfather, what I always loved about these books is the independence of these children. Plus, while they are pretty proficient at taking care of themselves, the books are also practical in that they don’t know how to fight a serious illness that effects one of them.

THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA

I definitely read all of the books in this series. Set in the fictional world of Narnia, you experience a fantasy world of magic, mythical beasts, and talking animals. The books span the entire history of Narnia, from its creation in The Magician’s Nephew to its eventual destruction in The Last Battle. The adventures are experienced through various children who play central roles in the unfolding history of that world.

THE 21 BALLOONS

Professor William Waterman Sherman just wants to be alone, so he decides to take a year off by crossing the Pacific Ocean in a hot-air balloon. When he is found after just three weeks floating in the Atlantic among the wreckage of twenty hot-air balloons, the world is eager to know what happened. They would never guess though that it includes a crash landing on the volcanic island of Krakatoa where they celebrate days by letters assigned to 20 families on the island and an impending disaster.