Youthful Narrator

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

Updated April 16, 2025
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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...
All the water in the world : a novel
Raney, Karen
Paper Book
A stunning debut novel about a teenage girl and her mother as they grapple with first love, family secrets, and tragedy. Maddy is sixteen. Smart, funny, and profound, she has loyal friends, a mother with whom she's unusually close, a father she's never met, devoted grandparents,...
The Arab of the future : a graphic memoir : a childhood in the Middle East (1978-1984)
Sattouf, Riad
Paper Book
The Arab of the Future, the #1 French best-seller, tells the unforgettable story of Riad Sattouf's childhood, spent in the shadows of 3 dictators--Muammar Gaddafi, Hafez al-Assad, and his father In striking, virtuoso graphic style that captures both the immediacy of...
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...
The boy on the bridge
Carey, M. R.
Paper Book
One exceptional boy journeys into the ashes of society to find the cure for a devastating plague in this riveting post-apocalyptic standalone set in the same world as the USA Today-bestselling The Girl With All the Gifts. Once upon a time, in a land blighted by...
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...
Dear world : a Syrian girl's story of war and plea for peace
Al Abed, Bana
Paper Book
"A story of love and courage amid brutality and terror, this is the testimony of a child who has endured the unthinkable." --J.K. Rowling "I'm very afraid I will die tonight." --Bana Alabed, Twitter, October 2, 2016 "Stop killing us." --Bana Alabed, Twitter,...
Ghost wall
Moss, Sarah
Paper Book
A Southern Living Best New Book of Winter 2019; A Refinery29 Best Book of January 2019; A Most Anticipated Book of 2019 at The Week, Huffington Post, Nylon, and Lit Hub; An Indie Next Pick for January 2019 "Ghost Wall has...
A Girl Is a Body of Water
Nansubuga Makumbi, Jennifer
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...
Grace : a novel
Lynch, Paul
Paper Book
From the Booker Prize-winning author of Prophet Song, a sweeping, Dickensian story of a young girl on a life-changing journey across nineteenth-century Ireland on the eve of the Great Famine. Early one October morning, Grace's mother snatches her from...
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, or, The parish boy's progress
Dickens, Charles
Paper Book
Oliver is an orphan living on the dangerous London streets with no one but himself to rely on. Fleeing from poverty and hardship, he falls in with a criminal street gang who will not let him go, however hard he tries to escape. One of the most swiftly moving and unified of Charles...
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 wicked this way comes
Bradbury, Ray
Paper Book
One of Ray Bradbury's best-known and most popular novels, Something Wicked This Way Comes, now featuring a new introduction and material about its longstanding influence on culture and genre. For those who still dream and remember, for those yet to experience the hypnotic...
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.
Sweetness in the skin : a novel
Robinson, Ishi
Paper Book
"A delightful coming-of-age story set in Jamaica, amid heartbreak, hopefulness, and mirth."--Charmaine Wilkerson, New York Times bestselling author of Black Cake "Poignant and emotional, with touches of both humor and sorrow. . . . This book makes you think about what it means to be a...
Tell the wolves I'm home : a novel
Brunt, Carol Rifka.
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A heartfelt story of love, grief, and renewal about two unlikely friends who discover that sometimes you don't know you've lost someone until you've found them "A dazzling debut novel."--O: The Oprah Magazine "Tremendously...
To kill a mockingbird
Lee, Harper.
Paper Book
Look for The Land of Sweet Forever, a posthumous collection of newly discovered short stories and previously published essays and magazine pieces by Harper Lee, coming October 21, 2025. Voted America's Best-Loved Novel in PBS's The Great American Read Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize...
Young Palestinians Speak : Living Under Occupation
Robinson, Anthony
Paper Book
In Palestine today, a second generation of children and young people is growing up experiencing life under occupation. These are children who know only fear when they see an Israeli soldier or come across a roadblock. This book provides a platform for young people, from all over this occupied land,...

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