Four Nature Novels We Love and Recommend for Young YA Readers
Four nature novels we love and recommend for younger YA readers
If you know a 9-12-year-old, here are some stories we LOVED and are happy to recommend for the younger YA reader. (We had a great time reading them ourselves!)
Recommended in our upcoming (June 1) Summer 2024 issue, the classic wilderness survival story, HATCHET by Gary Paulsen. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, paperback 2006/originally published 1987, 192 pages (Ages 9+) Newbery Honor winner.
Thirteen-year-old Brian Robeson has plans to spend the summer with his father in Canada when the private plane he’s on crashes in the wilderness. Armed only with a hatchet, Brian survives by confronting his fears and self-pity, learning survival skills (building a campfire and shelter and learning to hunt and fish), and adjusting to the dangers of the forest including encounters with bear, moose, and a tornado. A turbo-paced wilderness survival adventure that kids and adults will enjoy. Hatchet is the first in a five-book series about Brian by Paulsen.
From our inaugural Autumn 2022 issue, a story about friendship, family, and raptor rehabilitation, A BIRD WILL SOAR by Alison Green Myers. Dutton’s Children’s Books/Penguin Random House, 2021, 390 pages. (Ages 9-12) Winner, Schneider Family Book Award.
A Bird Will Soar is centered around Axel, a boy who loves birds and volunteers at a raptor rehabilitation center. When a tornado damages his home and destroys a nearby eagle's nest, Axel must learn to adjust with change. There are many surprises and discoveries for the reader; this heartfelt story addresses friendship and forgiveness, lost and found families, autism, growing up, and growing braver.
From our Winter 2023-4 issue, a story of migration, family, and the Arctic, LEILA AND THE BLUE FOX by Kiran Millwood Hargrave, Tom de Freston (Illustrator), Orion Children’s Books, 2022, 250 pages. (Ages 9+). Winner: Wainwright Children's Writing on Nature and Conservation Award.
Based on the true story of an Arctic fox who walked two thousand miles from Norway to Canada, Leila and the Blue Fox is a collaboration between award-winning bestselling author Kiran Millwood Hargrave and illustrator Tom de Freston.
Twelve-year-old Leila is mad at her mom, the arctic researcher who she hasn’t seen in six years, and who left her in England after fleeing Damascus, and now wants her in Norway. You’ll cheer for the intrepid Leila and the fox as they trek across the ice and sea. We loved this book, a rich story of science, climate change, endangered species, immigration, and challenging family relationships. Tom de Freston’s choices--using translucent papers to evoke arctic ice and cloudy watercolor to suggest cold and fog--are perfect partners to Hargrave’s poetic storytelling.
From our Autumn 2023 issue, recommended by panelist Shelly Plante: THE EVOLUTION OF CALPURNIA TATE by Jacqueline Kelly, Henry Holt and Company (hardcover), 368 pages. (Ages 9-12). The story of a girl becoming a scientist in the late 1800s. Newbery Honor winner.
“While I don’t think you need to have lived in Central Texas to enjoy this book, I admit that living here, coupled with my love of stories set in the late 1800s, made this book a delight from beginning to end. Jacqueline Kelly’s descriptions of the natural world in Calpurnia’s life were familiar to me. The whole book is fascinating, and I loved watching Calpurnia’s evolution as a naturalist. Kelly interweaves the growth of Calpurnia’s relationship with her Granddaddy with an awareness of what it was like to be a girl growing up in that time.”
—Shelly Plante, Nature Tourism Manager for Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, and member of our Book Recommendation Panel