2016 Holiday Gifts for Tween Readers Ages 9 – 12
by Melissa Taylor
Books make the best gifts, particularly books that hook kids from the first page. These 2016 favorites will grab your kids’ attention and keep them reading long after the last present is opened. Here you’ll find gift ideas for every type of tween reader on your holiday list whether she likes magical adventures or he loves humorous crime-solving dogs.
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Magic and Imagination
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A Boy Called Christmas
Buy from:Get ready for the holidays with this warm-hearted fairy tale about a poor but kind Finnish boy whose search for his missing father leads him to the North Pole and a magical city of elves. An enchanting and adventurous story that already feels like a classic.
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Furthermore
Buy from:Fans of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland will love this topsy-turvy world filled with color, magic, dangerous lands, and unexpected adventures. With no color in her skin or hair, Alice doesn’t fit in with the vibrant world around her. Which is why she leaves her home, accompanied by a boy she dislikes, in order to find her father and prove her worth.
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The Door by the Staircase
Buy from:Adopted at age 12, Mary desperately wants a home, even when she discovers that her new magical mother is the infamous child-eating witch, Baba Yaga. Along with the help of her new friend, Jacob, Mary decides that she can avoid being eaten and that she’ll stay in her new home.
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The Inquisitor’s Tale: Or, The Three Magical Children and Their Holy Dog
Buy from:Why would the King of France hunt three children — a peasant girl, a Jewish boy, and a Saracen oblate — and their dog? This captivating story, ingeniously told by a variety of narrators and illustrated throughout, involves near escapes, amazing miracles, abiding friendship, deep faith, and long-held prejudice.
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Lots of Laughs
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Dog Man
Buy from:From the creator of Captain Underpants comes a new graphic novel with a most unusual and hilarious hero. Half dog, half man, and all police crime fighter, he’s Dog Man! Kids who enjoy goofy drawings and silly adventures will love this book.
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The Misadventures of Max Crumbly: Locker Hero
Buy from:Max can’t get a break. He’s locked in his middle school locker for the second time of the day (after school on a three-day weekend)! While pondering his fate, he shares illustrations and stories of what led up to this not-very-superhero-like disaster. Of course, when Max finally escapes, there are even more funny Murphy’s Law moments to be had involving a trip to the bathroom, computer thieves, and pizza…
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Welcome to Wonderland: Home Sweet Motel
Buy from:P.T. Wilkie lives at the quirky Wonderland Motel, but with the motel’s financial troubles, it might not be home for long. P.T. teams up with motel guest Gloria Ortega, combining his creative storytelling skills with her marketing genius, to try to keep the hotel afloat. The friends use talking frog performances and a wild treasure hunt to earn the hotel enough money for the bank. Only it’s not enough. When they realize real buried treasure might be on the property, they enlist P.T.’s grandpa and face off against jewel thieves, a gun-wielding insurance agent, and a tiger.
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Life Lessons
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Pax
Buy from:When Peter’s soldier father abandons Pax, Peter’s fox, on the side of the road and drops Peter off at a distant grandfather’s, heartbroken Peter runs away to find his fox. Pax, who is in the wild for the first time, feels lost without his boy. Fortunately, both boy and fox experience the kindness of others even with the backdrop of imminent war.
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The Seventh Wish
Buy from:While ice-fishing, Charlie catches a magical wish-granting fish. She has a lot of wishes but starts out with just a few — getting a certain boy to like her, helping her mom get a job, helping her neighbor be good at basketball. When her wishes don’t turn out quite like she wanted, Charlie realizes that the fish can’t fix life’s struggles, including the biggest one breaking her heart, her college-aged sister’s heroin addiction.
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Booked
Buy from:Soccer is 12-year-old Nick’s favorite thing. Even when his parents separate, even when he’s too nervous to talk to his crush, and even when he’s harassed by thugs at school, Nick has soccer. Until he’s injured. Written in free verse, this is a fast-paced, realistic book filled with the angst and hope of growing up.
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Ghosts
Buy from:Catrina’s family moves to a California ocean town filled with salty air and ghosts. She worries about her little sister Maya’s cystic fibrosis, feeling responsible for the incident that sent Maya to the hospital. With Maya’s prompting, Catrina attends a local Day of the Dead celebration and discovers that the ghosts are actually friendly spirits of loved ones, not something to fear.
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Amazing Adventures
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Edge of Extinction: The Ark Plan
Buy from:Sky and her best friend, Shawn, leave the safety of the underground Ark compound for the dangerous dinosaur-infested topside world in order to find Sky’s vanished father. The topside world is as harrowing as she thought and now Ark soldiers are in close pursuit, putting her new friends’ tree-level community in peril.
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Addison Cooke and the Treasure of the Incas
Buy from:It’s up to Addison, his sister, and their friends to figure out the mystery of the Incan treasure so they can rescue their kidnapped aunt and uncle. Not to worry, Addison is smart, charming, and totally overconfident … so what could go wrong?
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The Great Shelby Holmes
Buy from:After his parents split and his mom leaves the military, John’s first friend in their new Harlem neighborhood is the brilliant and unusual Shelby Holmes. She reluctantly allows John to help on her latest case: A classmate’s show dog is missing from her home without any sign of a break in. Funny, entertaining, and relatable, this is a charming story about two unlikely friends.
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Arts and Science
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Maker Lab
Buy from:Created with the Smithsonian Institution, this National Parenting Publications Awards (NAPPA)-winning book is filled with 28 science experiments and crafts for our next generation of makers. With difficulty rankings and time estimates, kids (and parents) will know what they’re diving into with each project. Better still, young inventors can construct a solar system, build an exploding volcano, and race balloon rocket cars — and do it all (and much more) using only household items.
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Doodle Games Activity Book
Buy from:Grab a pencil and paper, invite a friend or work by yourself, then use your doodle skills for fun. Create masterpieces from random shapes, combine two animals to make a mutant creature, or use only five dots to draw a person. Whatever activity you pick, you’ll be creating delightful, artistic experiences.
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