Looking for a great books for girls in middle school to read? Who better to ask than another middle school girl? This isn’t just some book list made by some librarians, teachers or other authors. They are not all award-winning middle books and their not all popular middle school books that are on every book list. But all of these books are among my own daughters’ favorite books that they read in middle school – a best books for girls in middle school book list!
My daughters like to read fiction books, so all these books are middle school fiction books. However, my two daughters’ preferences varied, so there’s a good range of fiction here. From popular middle school series books to more challenging books for middle schoolers, from light-hearted fantasy to more gripping dystopian books and even one historical fiction. You’re sure to find something great for your middle school girl to read!
Best books for girls ages 10-13 years old
If these books seem too challenging, be sure and check out my book list for girls in 5th grade for more great ideas! You can check out the book covers and easily purchase the books on Amazon at the bottom of the list.
1. The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
This is my older daughter’s all time favorite series.
From the publisher:
Are you a gifted child looking for special opportunities?” Dozens of children respond to this peculiar ad in the newspaper and are then put through a series of mind-bending tests, which readers take along with them. Only four children–two boys and two girls–succeed. Their challenge: to go on a secret mission that only the most intelligent and inventive children could complete. To accomplish it they will have to go undercover at the Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened, where the only rule is that there are no rules. But what they’ll find in the hidden underground tunnels of the school is more than your average school supplies. So, if you’re gifted, creative, or happen to know Morse Code, they could probably use your help.
2. Princess of Glass by Jessica Day George
This book, by the same author as Dragon Slippers that my girls loved when they were younger.
From the publisher:
Hoping to escape the troubles in her kingdom, Princess Poppy reluctantly agrees to take part in a royal exchange program, where young princes and princesses travel to each other’s countries in the name of better political alliances–and potential marriages. It’s got the makings of a fairy tale–until a hapless servant named Eleanor is tricked by a vengeful fairy godmother into competing with Poppy for the eligible prince. Ballgowns, cinders, and enchanted glass slippers fly in this romantic and action-packed happily-ever-after quest from an author with a flair for embroidering tales in her own delightful way.
3. Princess Academy by Shannon Hale
By the same author as Goose Girl, below, Princess Academy is a Newberry Honor winner. Princess Academy isn’t your ordinary princess book!
From the publisher:
Miri lives on a mountain where, for generations, her ancestors have lived a simple life. Then word comes that the king’s priests have divined her village the home of the future princess. In a year’s time, the prince will choose his bride from among the village girls.
The king’s ministers set up an academy on the mountain, and every teenage girl must attend and learn how to become a princess. Soon Miri finds herself confronted with a harsh academy mistress, bitter competition among the girls, and her own conflicting desires. Winning the contest could give her everything she ever wanted–but it would mean leaving her home and family behind.
4. The Shifter by Janice Hardy
From The Healing Wars trilogy, The Shifter is a little darker than the previous books in this list, exceptionally well written.
From the publisher:
Fifteen-year-old Nya is an orphan struggling for survival in a city crippled by war. She is also a Taker—with her touch, she can heal injuries, pulling pain from another person into her own body.
But unlike her sister Tali and the other Takers who become Healer’s League apprentices, Nya’s skill is flawed: she can’t push that pain into pynvium, the enchanted metal used to store it. All she can do is shift it from person to person, a dangerous skill that she must keep hidden from forces occupying her city. If discovered, she’d be used as a human weapon against her own people.
Rumors of another war make Nya’s life harder, forcing her to take desperate risks just to find work and food. She pushes her luck too far and exposes her secret to a pain merchant eager to use her shifting ability for his own sinister purpose. At first, Nya refuses, but when Tali and other League Healers mysteriously disappear, she’s faced with some difficult choices.
As her father used to say, principles are a bargain at any price, but how many will Nya have to sell to get Tali back alive?
5. The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale
Beautiful lyrical prose. This book is among the more challenging books for middle schoolers, but still well within their reach. It’s long enough to satisfy even the most voracious reader. The Goose Girl fairy tale re-imagined, this was the first published book by one of our favorite authors.
From the publisher:
Anidori-Kiladra Talianna Isilee, Crown Princess of Kildenree, spends the first years of her life listening to her aunt’s stories and learning the language of the birds, especially the swans. As she grows up, Ani develops the skills of animal speech, but she never feels quite comfortable speaking with people.
So when Ani’s mother sends her away to be married in a foreign land, she finds herself at the mercy of her silver-tongued lady in waiting, who leads a mutiny that leaves her alone, destitute, and fleeing for her life. To survive, Ani takes on work as a royal goose girl, hiding in plain sight while she develops her forbidden talents and works to discover her own true, powerful voice.
The first book in master storyteller Shannon Hale’s beloved Books of Bayern series is equal parts fantastical and romantic, with an unforgettable protagonist to root for at its center.
6. Steelheart (The Reckoners) by Brandon Sanderson
This book sounds more intense than it is. A lot of action without being to graphic.
From the publisher :
How far would you go for revenge if someone killed your father?
If someone destroyed your city
If everything you ever loved was taken from you?
David Charleston will go to any lengths to stop Steelheart. But to exact revenge in Steelheart’s world, David will need the Reckoners—a shadowy group of rebels bent on maintaining justice.
And it turns out that the Reckoners might just need David too.
7. The Lightning Thief, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, by Rick Riordan
Percy Jackson is such a hugely popular middle grade book series that you’ve probably heard of it before! But our younger daughter wouldn’t touch this book, in spite of her brother’s insistence, until it was on a book list. Older readers are also less reluctant to try a completely new type of book. After this, she really got into reading adventure books in middle school.
From the publisher :
Percy Jackson is a good kid, but he can’t seem to focus on his schoolwork or control his temper. And lately, being away at boarding school is only getting worse-Percy could have sworn his pre-algebra teacher turned into a monster and tried to kill him. When Percy’s mom finds out, she knows it’s time that he knew the truth about where he came from, and that he go to the one place he’ll be safe. She sends Percy to Camp Half Blood, a summer camp for demigods (on Long Island), where he learns that the father he never knew is Poseidon, God of the Sea. Soon a mystery unfolds and together with his friends — one a satyr and the other the demigod daughter of Athena — Percy sets out on a quest across the United States to reach the gates of the Underworld (located in a recording studio in Hollywood) and prevent a catastrophic war between the gods.
8. The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan
Another popular middle school book series by the same author as Percy Jackson.
From the publisher:
Since their mother’s death, Carter and Sadie have become near strangers. While Sadie has lived with her grandparents in London, her brother has traveled the world with their father, the brilliant Egyptologist, Dr. Julius Kane.
One night, Dr. Kane brings the siblings together for a “research experiment” at the British Museum, where he hopes to set things right for his family. Instead, he unleashes the Egyptian god Set, who banishes him to oblivion and forces the children to flee for their lives.
Soon, Sadie and Carter discover that the gods of Egypt are waking, and the worst of them–Set–has his sights on the Kanes. To stop him, the siblings embark on a dangerous journey across the globe–a quest that brings them ever closer to the truth about their family, and their links to a secret order that has existed since the time of the pharaohs.
9. The Emerald Atlas by
A great adventure series, this book actually came off of a school book summer reading list. It’s rare that my kids liked the books they were assigned. It’s wonderful when they do!
From the publisher:
Siblings Kate, Michael, and Emma have been in one orphanage after another for the last ten years, passed along like lost baggage.
Yet these unwanted children are more remarkable than they could possibly imagine. Ripped from their parents as babies, they are being protected from a horrible evil of devastating power, an evil they know nothing about.
Until now.
Before long, Kate, Michael, and Emma are on a journey through time to dangerous and secret corners of the world . . . a journey of allies and enemies, of magic and mayhem. And—if an ancient prophesy is true—what they do can change history, and it’s up to them to set things right.
10. The Rithmatist by Brandon Sanderson
From the publisher:
As the son of a lowly chalkmaker at Armedius Academy, Joel can only watch as Rithmatist students learn the magical art that he would do anything to practice. Then students start disappearing―kidnapped from their rooms at night, leaving trails of blood. Assigned to help the professor who is investigating the crimes, Joel and his friend Melody find themselves on the trail of an unexpected discovery―one that will change Rithmatics―and their world―forever.
11. Matched by Ally Condie
I was surprised when my daughter wanted to start reading dystopian books, so I did a lot of research and read a few. I decided Matched would be the best place for her to start. In spite of being dystopian, this popular book series is a little less dark than most in the genre, and I found the trilogy to be really well written. Not everyone dies! I trilogy is also easier to manage than a longer series. If your daughter is “dying” to get into dystopian books, this can be a good place to start.
From the publisher:
In the Society, Officials decide. Who you love. Where you work. When you die.
Cassia has always trusted the Society’s choices. And when her best friend appears on the Matching screen, she is certain he’s the one—until she sees another face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. Now she is faced with impossible choices: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she’s ever known and a path no has dared to follow . . . between perfection and the truth.
12. Divergent by Veronica Roth
My older daughter liked this wildly popular Young Adult dystopian book series. They made a movie, so you may have heard about it. But it is dark. In one of the books, everyone dies! Her parents deaths’ seemed particularly jarring to me. I was shocked that my daughter, who was too scared for live-action movies when she was younger, enjoyed this series. Kids do grow up!
From the publisher:
One choice can transform you. Beatrice Prior’s society is divided into five factions—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). Beatrice must choose between staying with her Abnegation family and transferring factions. Her choice will shock her community and herself. But the newly christened Tris also has a secret, one she’s determined to keep hidden, because in this world, what makes you different makes you dangerous.
13. Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson
Historial fiction about slavery in America, Chains is not a light read. But it is brilliantly written and made more bearable by it’s hopeful ending.
From the publisher:
As the Revolutionary War begins, thirteen-year-old Isabel wages her own fight…for freedom. Promised freedom upon the death of their owner, she and her sister, Ruth, in a cruel twist of fate become the property of a malicious New York City couple, the Locktons, who have no sympathy for the American Revolution and even less for Ruth and Isabel. When Isabel meets Curzon, a slave with ties to the Patriots, he encourages her to spy on her owners, who know details of British plans for invasion. She is reluctant at first, but when the unthinkable happens to Ruth, Isabel realizes her loyalty is available to the bidder who can provide her with freedom.
Best Books for Girls in Middle School, my daughters’ favorite books – book covers and links
Best books for middle school girls: book 13
More books for girls in middle school
Need more ideas? Check out all of my best books for kids lists – my kids’ favorite 96 books.