the Gen Z bookshelf
books that remind me of my Gen Z childhood, not necessarily books published 1997-2012. feel free to leave recs in the comments!
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created by helenoneverything
last updated August, 2026
35 books
Comments
Not sure if this is more about your specific childhood or the childhood of anyone who grew up around this time, but here are some books that I think about for my childhood (I was born in 1998 in Ontario, Canada and so many of the above are relevant to me):
- the Clique books
- the mother-daughter book club series
- among the hidden
- the outsiders (bc everyone read it in school)
- the animorphs books
- the thoroughbred series (I wasn't a horse girl, but I was a horse book girl)
- that series where every book was a different fairy? I can't remember the name!
- the Royal Ballet School Diaries (this might have just been a me thing, but as someone who danced from the age of 3 these book were my life and I so desperately wanted to go to that school!)
- Molly Moon
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will definitely have to add some of these!! it was more so childhood of anyone (but with bias towards me haha), which is why i added goosebumps or scary stories to tell in the dark because while i never read them my whole class pretty much did
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