Recommended children's booklists sorted by age or topic

Age Group: KS3 (Ages 11-14)

Sh!t Bag

Chapter book

Come along with me on this sh!tty ride or bail out now. It’s your choice . . .’

When Freya collapses and wakes up with a temporary ileostomy bag on her stomach, her dreams of the perfect summer go down the toilet. Instead of partying in the Algarve, she’s packed off to ‘Poo Camp’ – a place for kids with bowel disease to ‘bond’.

And things can only get worse. Someone has started calling her ‘Sh!t Bag’ . . . and it’s catching on.

Freya decides to live up to the nickname, raging at her friends, her ex and the world. Only her campmate Chris seems to see past her new attitude . . .

Can Freya get her sh!t together or will she end up with just her bag by her side?

A fresh, fierce and funny story about what happens when life literally goes to sh!t.

Sister Spirit

Efua Traoré

Chapter book

A supernatural thriller, blending African myth, friendship, romance and self-discovery from prize-winning author, Efua Traoré.

Sixteen-year-old adopted Tara has questions – about who she is, where she belongs, why she dreams…

When her nightmares darken, fears swarm like a flock of ravens and she traces her visions to the ancient Olumo Rock in Nigeria. It is a sacred place, full of magic, myth, and where whispers of the past linger.

Travelling from England and enrolling in a boarding school at the foot of Olumo, Tara begins a journey to seek the truth of her roots and the spirits that pursue her.

The 10 p.m. Question

Kate de Goldi

Chapter book

Winner, Book of the Year in both Young Adult and General Fiction categories in the author’s native New Zealand. A warm, surprising, witty and intelligent novel you will fall in love with.

Frankie Parsons is twelve going on old man, an apparently sensible, talented boy with a drumbeat of worrying questions steadily gaining volume in his head:

Are the smoke alarm batteries flat?
Does the cat, and therefore the rest of the family, have worms?
Will bird flu strike and ruin life as we know it?
Is the Kidney-shaped spot on his chest actually a galloping cancer?

Only Ma takes seriously his catalogue of persistent queries. But it is Ma who is the cause of the most worrying question of all, the one that Frankie can never bring himself to ask. Then the new girl arrives at school and has questions of her own: relentless, unavoidable questions. So begins the unraveling of Frankie Parsons’s carefully controlled world.

A perfectly crafted novel, funny, compassionate, rich in characters. Hot damn (it also has great swear words), it’s good. – The Daily Telegraph

First published in the UK in 2010, this is a book whose preoccupations resonate even louder over a decade later.

The Djinn’s Apple

Djamila Morani & Sawad Hussain

Chapter book

Historical fiction meets crime fiction in The Djinn’s Apple, an award-winning YA murder mystery set in the Abbasid period—the golden age of Baghdad.

A ruthless murder. A magical herb. A mysterious manuscript.

When Nardeen’s home is stormed by angry men frantically in search of something—or someone—she is the only one who manages to escape. And after the rest of her family is left behind and murdered, Nardeen sets out on an unyielding mission to bring her family’s killers to justice, regardless of the cost…

The Fights That Make Us

Sarah Hagger-Holt

Chapter book

An unputdownable read about LGBTQ+ history and standing up for what you believe in, from award-winning author Sarah Hagger-Holt.

Maybe there was a place in history for people like me, not on the edges of the story, but right in the centre.

Jesse has recently come out as non-binary, and is struggling to find their place at school, and ideas for their project on lost stories from history.

Thirty-five years earlier, Jesse’s cousin Lisa is falling for her best friend, but with new laws being introduced to restrict LGBT people’s rights, they’ll have to fight for the world to accept who they are.

When Jesse stumbles across Lisa’s teenage diary, they are fascinated and horrified by her stories of living a secret life and protesting in the streets. Now it’s Jesse’s turn to find a way to shine a spotlight on a history that mustn’t be forgotten.

Louder Than Hunger

John Schu

Poetry, Verse novel

A powerful, authentic verse novel exploring a teen boy’s experience with disordered eating, charting the successes and setbacks of his journey toward recovery.
Jake feels alone at school and alone at home. Some days it feels like the only people who understand him is the poet Emily Dickinson – and Jake’s beloved grandma. But there is also the Voice inside him, louder than any other, who professes to know him best of all.

The one that says “You have me.”

The Voice is loud enough to drown out everything else, even the hunger Jake feels, until his mom intervenes and sends him to Whispering Pines.

Here Jake will learn how to confront the loneliness inside him, and find out who he is and what he has to live for. That is, if he can quiet the Voice…

Told in succinct and powerful verse, this novel is a stunning and wholly authentic expression of a young man finding the will – and the power – to wrest control from the intrusive thoughts that crowd his mind.

Thursday’s Child

Noel Streatfeild

Chapter book

Thursday’s Child is one of my all-time favourite books because it contains some of my favourite story ingredients: a cracking plot, an immensely brave and plucky orphan, a dreadful orphanage and an even more dreadful villain, in the form of Matron.

There is a brilliant scene when the heroine, Margaret Thursday stumbles across the Fortescue travelling theatre company. She is quickly given a starring role in their latest production – as Little Lord Fauntleroy – and discovers, almost by accident, that she is a natural actress. Or as Mr Fortescue says, ‘born to the theatre. Talent in her little finger.’

A Drop of Golden Sun

Kate Saunders

Chapter book

It’s 1973, and Jenny has been chosen from hundreds of hopefuls to jet off to the South of France and star in a major Hollywood movie.

Here she meets cast and crew, including fellow child actors Belinda and John. But life on set turns out to be far from straightforward. The cast are harbouring more than a few secrets. And as the cameras roll, tangled lives and mysterious pasts begin to unspool.

A deliciously heart-warming story that is happy and sad and very rewarding.

The Diamond of Drury Lane

Julia Golding

Chapter book

This rollicking story is set in Georgian London, and follows the daring adventures of orphan and actress Cat Royal.

Cat has lived in the Sparrows Nest above the costume department on the top floor of The Theatre Royal since she was a baby. But when she is entrusted with a secret treasure, her life suddenly takes a very dangerous and thrilling turn. Can she survive the rogues and the villains?

A truly exciting, unputdownable read!

Year 7: 50 Recommended Reads

50 Best Books for Year 7 (Children Aged 11-12)

Updated 2026

Welcome to the BooksForTopics recommended reading list for Year 7. If you’re looking for a list of the best books for Year 7, you’ve come to the right place. Our team of experts has selected a list of the 50 best books for Year 7 to read. We’ve tried to include something for all tastes – so look out for motorised cities on wheels, animal odysseys, adventures on tropical islands and viral talent shows…

With a mix of classic and contemporary titles, this selection of recommended reads is designed to provide children with a diverse range of literature that will encourage them to become lifelong readers. Our Y7 booklist includes relatable Y7 reads such as Being Miss Nobody, popular poetry collections like Everything All at Once and timeless classics including Treasure Island. This collection also features Y7 historical fiction, such as Benjamin Zephaniah’s Windrush Child, alongside fantasy adventures like Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights. The non-fiction picks cover everything from being Fashion Conscious to the history of Medicine.

Y7 is a transitional year in terms of young people’s reading, and it is best to offer a range of different styles of quality reading materials. Our panel of reading experts, teachers and secondary school librarians has reviewed the best titles to recommend to each year group. Along with evaluating the current popularity of books, we carefully assess each title on the merit of its age-appropriateness, quality of writing and illustrations, and ability to stimulate imagination, critical thinking and creativity.

This reading list of recommended books for Year 7 is curated by experts to match the developmental stage of 11 to 12-year-olds and to cater to their interests, providing the right level of challenge for Y7s as they grow through the first year of secondary school.

There is also a downloadable checklist and a printable poster, and schools can purchase full sets of the 50 books through Peters.

Browse the Y7 reading list below or scroll down to find more purchasing options and printable resources.