Youthful Narrator

Level up with these stories told by children or younger-than-average people!

Updated April 16, 2025
Drag items up and down to your preferred order then select the "Save Order" button.
The adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Twain, Mark
Paper Book
Mark Twain's brilliant 19th-century novel has long been recognized as one of the finest examples of American literature. It brings back the irrepressible and free-spirited Huck, first introduced in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and puts him center stage. Rich in...
Beautiful country : a memoir
Wang, Qian Julie
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER * The moving story of an undocumented child living in poverty in the richest country in the world--an incandescent debut from an astonishing new talent * A TODAY SHOW #READWITHJENNA PICK In Chinese, the word for America, Mei Guo, translates...
Black swan green : a novel
Mitchell, David
Paper Book
From highly acclaimed two-time Man Booker finalist David Mitchell comes a glorious, sinewy, meditative novel of boyhood on the cusp of adulthood and the old on the cusp of the new. In his previous novels, David Mitchell dazzled us with his narrative scope and his virtuosic command of multiple...
Close your eyes, hold hands : a novel
Bohjalian, Chris
Paper Book
A heartbreaking, wildly inventive, and moving novel narrated by a teenage runaway, from the bestselling author of Midwives and The Sandcastle Girls. Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands is the story of Emily Shepard, a homeless teen living in an igloo made of ice...
A girl is a body of water
Makumbi, Jennifer Nansubuga
Paper Book
In her thirteenth year, Kirabo confronts a piercing question: who is my mother? Kirabo has been raised by women in the small Ugandan village of Nattetta--her grandmother, her best friend, and her many aunts--but the absence of her mother follows her like a shadow. Seeking answers from Nsuuta, the...
Last bus to wisdom
Doig, Ivan.
Paper Book
Named a Best Book of the Year by the Seattle Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and Kirkus Review The final novel from a great American storyteller. Donal Cameron is being raised by his grandmother, the cook at the legendary Double W ranch in Ivan Doig's...
Oliver Twist
Dickens, Charles
Paper Book
Starved and mistreated, empty bowl in hand, the young hero musters the courage to approach his master, saying, "Please, sir, I want some more." Oliver Twist's famous cry of the heart has resounded with readers since the novel's initial appearance in 1837, and the book remains a popular...
The reason I jump : the inner voice of a thirteen-year-old boy with autism
Higashida, Naoki
Paper Book
"One of the most remarkable books I've ever read. It's truly moving, eye-opening, incredibly vivid."--Jon Stewart, The Daily Show NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR * The Wall Street Journal * Bloomberg Business * Bookish
Room : a novel
Donoghue, Emma
Paper Book
The award-winning bestseller that became one of the most talked about and memorable novels of the decade, Room is "utterly gripping...a heart-stopping novel" (San Francisco Chronicle).   Held captive for years in a small shed, a woman and her...
Something rising (light and swift)
Kimmel, Haven
Paper Book
In her first two books, Haven Kimmel claimed her spot on the literary scene- surprising readers with her memoir, A Girl Named Zippy, and winning an outpouring of critical acclaim for her first novel, The Solace of Leaving Early. Now, in her second novel, she brings to the page a heroine's tireless...
Something wicked this way comes
Bradbury, Ray
Paper Book
Few American novels written this century have endured in th heart and mind as has this one-Ray Bradbury's incomparable masterwork of the dark fantastic. A carnival rolls in sometime after the midnight hour on a chill Midwestern October eve, ushering in Halloween a week before its time. A calliope...
Swamplandia!
Russell, Karen
Paper Book
From the celebrated twenty-nine-year-old author of the everywhere-heralded short-story collection St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves (“How I wish these were my own words, instead of the breakneck demon writer Karen Russell’s . . . Run for your life. This girl is on...
The sweetness at the bottom of the pie
Bradley, C. Alan
Paper Book
Flavia, an 11-year-old with a chemistry lab, finds a corpse in a cucumber patch and applies the detective skills she learned plotting against her older sisters. This debut mystery by a Canadian author won the 2007 Crime Writer Association's Debut Dagger Award.
Tell the wolves I'm home : a novel
Brunt, Carol Rifka
Paper Book
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Wall Street Journal * O: The Oprah Magazine * BookPage * Kirkus Reviews * Booklist * School Library Journal   In this striking literary debut, Carol Rifka Brunt unfolds a moving story of love,...
To kill a mockingbird
Lee, Harper
Paper Book
The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it, To Kill A Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made...
A wizard's guide to defensive baking
Kingfisher, T.
Paper Book
Fourteen-year-old Mona isn't like the wizards charged with defending the city. She can't control lightning or speak to water. Her familiar is a sourdough starter and her magic only works on bread. She has a comfortable life in her aunt's bakery making gingerbread men dance.But Mona's life is turned...
A wounded deer leaps highest
Stephens, Charlie J.
Paper Book
"Charlie J. Stephens' tender novel takes a child's perspective on the pains of being poor in rural Oregon. Knowing that children like Smokey are cast as furniture in the house of adult desires, immobile and without needs, A Wounded Deer Leaps Highest ...

Library staff! You can create and contribute to lists. Contact your catalog administrator or log in here.