Recs if you like Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret...

Shorter books (under 200 pages) that are part of at least one quest. Many are also in the public domain, making them easily accessible when you want to grind for that next badge.

chapter books you probably read in elementary and/or middle school and you probably took the AR test as soon as you finished. cue nostalgia

A collection of books that are banned or challenged. Dive into these controversial works and explore what has been pushed for you to not discover.

If you’re not familiar with Mychal, he is the new host of The Reading Rainbow and he has been spreading “library joy” on social media for years. Mychal has a book club on Fable that is for a more mature audience than The RR. He has posted a new book monthly since March 2024. I have enjoyed every book I’ve read from his club! I am not Mychal Threets and I do not know him personally. I am creating this list to help share a bit of Mychal’s Library Joy with Pagebound.

Ah yes, this ol' issue that has plagued librarians and bookstore clerks for decades.

And sometimes you find the right book, but... can you even call that shade blue?

Bring on those Gen Y memories! A list of books likely to give people born between 1981 and 1996 a lot of feelings.

This list is for those of us who grew up eagerly awaiting the Scholastic Book Fair, watching Reading Rainbow (or Wishbone!), and dreaming of a free personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut.

Note: these are not books published in 1981-1996, but books that had a hold on the millennial generation.

Also check out the Dear America series, American Girl series & Royal Diaries series.

bildungsroman if ya nasty

YA fiction about teens struggling to fit into (or leave!) their religions or faith communities.

Classic novels for your (inner) child, with some modern staples in the mix. For reading yourself, reading aloud to little ones, and for those learning to read. Suggestions welcome, as always!

Unfortunately here in the US, a lot of books are banned in schools for ridiculous reasons. Here are just a few of them.

titles named after the main character of the novel.

Time Magazine’s All-Time Best 100 English Language Novels from 1923 to 2005 as published in 2005.

Stories of girls and women learning to ask big questions, take up space, and become themselves...again and again.

Time Magazine’s compilation of the 100 best novels published since 1923.

(101 because “The Berlin Stories” is an omnibus of “Mr Norris Changes Trains” and “Goodbye To Berlin.”)

“Our big mistake was teaching them to read.” -Margaret Atwood, the Handmaid’s Tale

All titles banned in at least one US school district. (Per PEN America)

Compilation of all the books seen in LOST (2004 tv show).

Mostly books Sawyer is reading. LMK if something is missing ✨

the messiness and chaos of growing up as a teenage girl/young woman

This is a list of books for the Read The States Challenge. Read any on each of the state lists and be awarded the pride of knowing you have read all across the US!