15 Books For Tweens Who Like Percy Jackson
Kiki Kallira Breaks A Kingdom by Sangu Mandanna
Published: July 2021
Kiki Kallira has always
been a worrier. Did she lock the front door? Is there a terrible reason
her mom is late? Recently her anxiety has been getting out of control,
but one thing that has always soothed her is drawing. Kiki's sketchbook
is full of fanciful doodles of the rich Indian myths and legends her
mother has told her over the years.
One day, her sketchbook's
calming effect is broken when her mythological characters begin
springing to life right out of its pages. Kiki ends up falling into the
mystical world she drew, which includes a lot of wonderful discoveries
like the band of rebel kids who protect the kingdom, as well as
not-so-great ones like the ancient deity bent on total destruction. As
the one responsible for creating the evil god, Kiki must overcome her
fear and anxiety to save both worlds--the real and the imagined--from
his wrath. But how can a girl armed with only a pencil defeat something
so powerful?
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Loki's Wolves (The Blackwell Pages series) by K.L. Armstrong and Melissa Marr
Published: May 2013
In Viking times, Norse
myths predicted the end of the world, an event called Ragnarok, that
only the gods can stop. When this apocalypse happens, the gods must
battle the monsters--wolves the size of the sun, serpents that span the
seabeds, all bent on destroying the world.
The gods died a long time ago.
Matt Thorsen knows every Norse myth, saga, and god as if it was family history--because it is family
history. Most people in the modern-day town of Blackwell, South Dakota,
in fact, are direct descendants of either Thor or Loki, including
Matt's classmates Fen and Laurie Brekke.
However, knowing the
legends and completely believing them are two different things. When the
rune readers reveal that Ragnarok is coming and kids--led by Matt--will
stand in for the gods in the final battle, he can hardly believe it.
Matt, Laurie, and Fen's lives will never be the same as they race to put
together an unstoppable team to prevent the end of the world
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The Relic of Perilous Falls (Will Wilder series) by Raymond Arroyo
Published: March 2016
Will Wilder is a
mischievous, headstrong twelve-year-old with an otherworldly gift—he
alone can see the nefarious creatures encroaching on Perilous Falls. For
nearly a century, a sacred relic has protected his hometown from the
raging waters surrounding it. But when Will “borrows” the relic for his
own purposes, he accidentally unleashes an ancient evil.
As
boats sink and hideous creatures crawl from the rising waters, Will must
set things right before it is too late. With the help of his sweet (if
lethal) Great Aunt Lucille, the curator of a museum of powerful
artifacts, Will proves that the actions of one twelve-year-old boy can
change the world.
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Aru Shah and the End of Time (Pandava series) by Roshani Chokshi
Published: March 2018
Twelve-year-old Aru Shah
has a tendency to stretch the truth in order to fit in at school. While
her classmates are jetting off to family vacations in exotic locales,
she'll be spending her autumn break at home, in the Museum of Ancient
Indian Art and Culture, waiting for her mom to return from her latest
archeological trip. Is it any wonder that Aru makes up stories about
being royalty, traveling to Paris, and having a chauffeur?
One
day, three schoolmates show up at Aru's doorstep to catch her in a lie.
They don't believe her claim that the museum's Lamp of Bharata is
cursed, and they dare Aru to prove it. Just a quick light, Aru thinks. Then she can get herself out of this mess and never ever fib again.
But
lighting the lamp has dire consequences. She unwittingly frees the
Sleeper, an ancient demon whose duty it is to awaken the God of
Destruction. Her classmates and beloved mother are frozen in time, and
it's up to Aru to save them.
The only way to stop the demon is to
find the reincarnations of the five legendary Pandava brothers,
protagonists of the Hindu epic poem, the Mahabharata, and journey through the Kingdom of Death. But how is one girl in Spider-Man pajamas supposed to do all that?
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The Accidental Invasion by Gregory Mone
Published: April 2021
Kaya, raised in the undersea, high-tech world of Atlantis, has always been fascinated by the legends about life above the water. Despite the government’s insistence that they’re only stories, she can’t help but dream about the Sun People—and when a group of officials known as Erasers move to bury those legends for good, Kaya sets out to the surface to uncover the truth once and for all.
In the world above, where climate change has led
to giant tsunamis that threaten Earth’s coasts, all Lewis wants is to
spend more time with his scientist father. When he stows away on his
dad’s top-secret research trip, he finds himself thrown headfirst into
an adventure much bigger than he bargained for.
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Titans by Kate O' Hearn
Published: July 2019
Fifteen years ago,
Olympus was destroyed and the Olympians were resettled on Titus. Since
then Earth has been declared a quarantined world. Neither Titans nor
Olympians are allowed to visit and under no circumstances are humans
allowed on Titus. The Titans and Olympians are keeping the peace. But
the deep-seated mistrust still lingers, so when a human ends up on
Titus, he could be the spark that reignites the war…
Astraea is a
Titan, granddaughter of Hyperion, and now a reluctant student at the
brand-new school, Arcadia. She just knows that it’s going to be awful,
and that there is no way that Titans and Olympians will ever get along!
At least she’s got her best friend, a winged-horse named Zephyr, to keep
her company. Then the night before the first day of school, Astraea
hears her parents discussing something terrifying: a human has been
spotted on Titus. But that’s not possible. All routes to Earth via the
Solar Stream have been closed—no one can travel between the two
worlds…or can they?
When Astraea and Zephyr get detention on
their first day—for fighting with a centaur—they’re sent to the orchards
to harvest nectar. There they discover a human boy named Jake. How he
got to Titus is a mystery to him and to them. They have to get him home
before anyone else discovers him.
But what the trio uncovers is
something much bigger than one human boy. It’s a scheme to take down the
rulers of this world, conquer it, and then do the same across the
galaxy. Can a group of kids stop the invaders? Or is Titus, like Olympus
before it, doomed?
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Curse of the Night Witch by Alex Aster
Published: June 2020
On Emblem Island all are
born knowing their fate. Their lifelines show the course of their life
and an emblem dictates how they will spend it.
Twelve-year-old
Tor Luna was born with a leadership emblem, just like his mother. But he
hates his mark and is determined to choose a different path for
himself. So, on the annual New Year's Eve celebration, where Emblemites
throw their wishes into a bonfire in the hopes of having them granted,
Tor wishes for a different power.
The next morning Tor wakes up
to discover a new marking on his skin...the symbol of a curse that has
shortened his lifeline, giving him only a week before an untimely death.
There is only one way to break the curse, and it requires a trip to the
notorious Night Witch.
With only his village's terrifying,
ancient stories as a guide, and his two friends Engle and Melda by his
side, Tor must travel across unpredictable Emblem Island, filled with
wicked creatures he only knows through myths, in a race against his
dwindling lifeline.
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Coming of the Dragon by Rebecca Barnhouse
Published: October 2010
Rebecca Barnhouse weaves
Norse gods, blood feuds, and a terrifying dragon into this spectacular
retelling of the end of the Old English poem Beowulf.
When
he was a baby, Rune washed up onshore in a boat, along with a sword and
a pendant bearing the runes that gave him his nickname. Some people
thought he was a sacrifice to the gods and wanted to send him right back
to the sea. Luckily for Rune, King Beowulf disagreed. He lifted the boy
from the boat and gave him to Amma, a wisewoman living on a farm far
removed from the king’s hall, to raise as she saw fit.
Sixteen
years later, Rune spends his summers laboring on the farm. And at King
Beowulf’s request, he comes to the hall each winter for weapons
training. But somehow he never quite fits in. Many people still fear he
will bring a curse on the kingdom. Then a terrible thing happens. On a
lonely crag on a mountain that belongs to the giants, someone awakens a
dragon. It is time for Rune to find the warrior inside himself and prove
to the doubters once and for all that he is a true hero.
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The Serpent's Secret (Kiranmala and the Kingdom Beyond series) by Sayantani Dasgupta
Published: February 2017
MEET KIRANMALA: INTERDIMENSIONAL DEMON SLAYER
(Only she doesn't know it yet.)
On
the morning of her twelfth birthday, Kiranmala is just a regular sixth
grader living in Parsippany, New Jersey... until her parents
mysteriously vanish and a drooling rakkhosh demon slams through her
kitchen, determined to eat her alive. Turns out there might be some
truth to her parents' fantastical stories-like how Kiranmala is a real
Indian princess and how she comes from a secret place not of this world.
To
complicate matters, two crush-worthy princes ring her doorbell,
insisting they've come to rescue her. Suddenly, Kiran is swept into
another dimension full of magic, winged horses, moving maps, and
annoying, talking birds. There she must solve riddles and battle demons
all while avoiding the Serpent King of the underworld and the Rakkhoshi
Queen in order to find her parents and basically save New Jersey, her
entire world, and everything beyond it...
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Book of the Dead by Michael Northrop
Published: January 2015
Nothing can save
eleven-year-old Alex Sennefer’s life. That’s what all the doctors say,
but his mother knows it’s not true. She knows that the Lost Spells — the
most powerful piece of the Egyptian Book of the Dead — can crack open a
door to the afterlife and pull her son back from the brink. But when
she uses the spells, five evil ancients known as the Death Walkers are
also brought back to life.
Now terrible things are starting to
happen. Mummies are awakening. New York is overrun with scorpion
messengers. And worst of all, Alex’s mom and the Lost Spells have both
disappeared. Alex and his best friend, Ren, will do anything to save his
mom and save the world . . . even if that means going head-to-head with
a Death Walker who has been plotting his revenge for 3,000 years.
Read
the book, then continue the adventure online! Build your own Egyptian
maze, hide treasure and protect it with traps, then challenge your
friends to play through!
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Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman
Published: March 2008
The winter isn't ending. Nobody knows why. And Odd has run away from home, even though he can barely walk and has to use a crutch.
Out in the forest he encounters a bear, a fox, and an eagle - three creatures with a strange story to tell. Now Odd is faced with a stranger journey than he had ever imagined. A journey to save Asgard, City of the Norse Gods, from the Frost Giants who have invaded it. It's going to take a very special kind of boy to defeat the most dangerous of all the Frost Giants and rescue the mighty Gods. Someone cheerful and infuriating and clever. Someone just like Odd...
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Paola Santiago and the River of Tears by Tehlor Kay Mejia
Published: August 2020
Space-obsessed
12-year-old Paola Santiago and her two best friends, Emma and Dante,
know the rule: Stay away from the river. It's all they've heard since a
schoolmate of theirs drowned a year ago. Pao is embarrassed to admit
that she has been told to stay away for even longer than that, because
her mother is constantly warning her about La Llorona, the wailing ghost
woman who wanders the banks of the Gila at night, looking for young
people to drag into its murky depths.
Hating her mother's
humiliating superstitions and knowing that she and her friends would
never venture into the water, Pao organizes a meet-up to test out her
new telescope near the Gila, since it's the best stargazing spot. But
when Emma never arrives and Pao sees a shadowy figure in the reeds, it
seems like maybe her mom was right. . . .
Pao has always relied
on hard science to make sense of the world, but to find her friend she
will have to enter the world of her nightmares, which includes unnatural
mist, mind-bending monsters, and relentless spirits controlled by a
terrifying force that defies both logic and legend.
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The Cassandra Curse (Muse Squad series) by Chantel Acevedo
Published: July 2020
Callie
Martinez-Silva didn’t mean to turn her best friend into a pop star. But
when a simple pep talk leads to miraculous results, Callie learns she’s
the newest muse of epic poetry, one of the nine Muses of Greek mythology
tasked with protecting humanity’s fate in secret.
Whisked away
to Muse Headquarters, she joins three recruits her age, who call
themselves the Muse Squad. Together, the junior muses are tasked with
using their magic to inspire and empower—not an easy feat when you’re
eleven and still figuring out the goddess within.
When their
first assignment turns out to be Callie’s exceptionally nerdy classmate,
Maya Rivero, the squad comes to Miami to stay with Callie and her Cuban
family. There, they discover that Maya doesn’t just need inspiration,
she needs saving from vicious Sirens out to unleash a curse that will
corrupt her destiny.
As chaos erupts, will the Muse Squad be able
to master their newfound powers in time to thwart the Cassandra Curse .
. . or will it undo them all?
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Freya and the Magic Jewel by Joan Holub and Suzanne Williams
Published: May 2018
“Gold and Gullveig I
cannot see. But here is a vision that comes to me; Adventure for you is
about to start. Near Asgard you must find the heart. A Secret world
there hides away, which holds the power to stop doomsday!”
When
eleven-year-old Freya hears that prophecy from her magical jewel, she
isn’t sure what to make of it. Doomsday? She will find the key? Mere
seconds after that prediction, she receives a mysterious invitation to
Asgaard Academy from the powerful Odin, who commands her to “bring her
magic” to Asgard.
With encouragement from her twin, Frey, Freya
reluctantly heads out on their new adventure. And Freya’s first
challenge begins before she even steps foot in Asgard. While trying to
navigate the treacherous BiFrost Bridge, she drops her magical jewel off
the bridge, and a sneaky pair of dwarves take her jewel down to the
world of Midgard!
Without that jewel, Freya thinks she is
powerless. But with the help of her pod-mates at Asgaard, Freya
discovers a world that is bigger and more mysterious that she ever
imagined! There, she learns the true terror that Ragnarok—the doomsday
her jewel warned her about—could mean for Asgard Academy if she and her
new friends, the Thunder Girls, don’t stop it!
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The Jumbies by Tracey Baptiste
A spine-tingling tale rooted in Caribbean folklore that will have readers holding their breath as they fly through its pages.
Corinne
La Mer isn't afraid of anything. Not scorpions, not the boys who tease
her, and certainly not jumbies. They're just tricksters parents make up
to frighten their children. Then one night Corinne chases an agouti all
the way into the forbidden forest. Those shining yellow eyes that
followed her to the edge of the trees, they couldn't belong to a jumbie.
Or could they?
When Corinne spots a beautiful stranger speaking
to the town witch at the market the next day, she knows something
unexpected is about to happen. And when this same beauty, called
Severine, turns up at Corinne's house, cooking dinner for Corinne's
father, Corinne is sure that danger is in the air. She soon finds out
that bewitching her father, Pierre, is only the first step in Severine's
plan to claim the entire island for the jumbies. Corinne must call on
her courage and her friends and learn to use ancient magic she didn't
know she possessed to stop Severine and save her island home.
With
its able and gutsy heroine, lyrical narration, and inventive twist on
the classic Haitian folktale "The Magic Orange Tree," The Jumbies will
be a favorite of fans of Breadcrumbs, A Tale Dark and Grimm, and Where
the Mountain Meets the Moon.
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