5 Wholesome Book Series You Can Share With Your Children

Jan 16, 2025

Parents should know what their children are reading. Not only do some modern books contain dreadful things that aren't fit for the parent's eyes, let alone the children, but sometimes even the older books contain content that isn't quite right for where the child is developmentally.

Herein lies a problem. Children, once they learn how, can be voracious readers, and often their demands for books can outpace their parents' ability to vet books. So here is a list of five book series that are free of objective content and should be safe for ten-year-olds, and maybe younger, depending on how strong of a reader the child is and how mature they are.

Of course, there's nothing stopping adults from reading these series as well. Family read-aloud, anyone?

So, without further ado, here are five series for the little voracious reader.

The Hero's Guide Series

You've all read the fairy tales about Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Rapunzel, but have you ever wondered whaqt happened next?

This trilogy by Christopher Healy follows the hilarious hijinks of the princes charming. You know, those princes that save the princesses in all those fairy tales and for some reason never have a name? Yeah, this is their story.

The Redwall Series

Brain Jaques's Redwall series can be summed up simply as "epic fantasy but with talking animals." Each volume in this lengthy series features the lovable dwellers of the great Redstone Abbey and the Mossflower Wood around them as they fight evil, solve riddles and feast.

This series is a great deal more violent than the other series in this list. The good animals fight rats, stoats, and all sorts of nasty things, Mr. Jaques pulls no punches. Characters often get hurt, and not a single book passes without some heroic death. So this might not be for the more tender-hearted readers. But when they can, children, especially boys, will devour this series. The series contains twenty-two books full of rollicking adventures. Each one is mostly stood alone. I would recommend trying to read them in publication order, but if you can't find all of them, any order can do.

I've had great luck finding these books in thrift stores, so if you're on a budget, this might be an easier series to pick up.

The Luck Uglies

As the name would suggest, this trilogy by Paul Durham is a little dark. Set in the gloomy village Drowning, the series follows Rye O'Chanter, and her many misadventures with the dreadful Bog Noblins, the cruel Earl Longchanse, and the mysterious band of criminals known as the Luck Uglies.

This story explores the concept of good and evil while keeping them distinct. No excuses are made for evil, but often things aren't as simple as they seem. The people who should be good are not, and it is up to the most unlikely heroes to pick up the slack.

This book series is sadly out of print, but it can still be found.

The Mysterious Benedict Society

Stepping away from Fantasy, we have the Mysterious Benedict Society. Set in a world not unlike our own. (In fact, I'd say it was our own except, for the life of me, I can't figure out what time period it's set in.) The series follows a group of extremely talented children who are recruited by genius Nicholas Benedict to save the world from a mysterious force who is attempting to brainwash the world.

While in the other stories rely heavily on action, this series is more cerebral. The protagonists use their brains to solve conflict more than their brawn. The series is chock-full of puzzles and mind-bending mysteries

There are five books in the world of Mysterious Benedict Society, four books following the children, and a prequel about Nicholas Benedict's own childhood. All are worth checking out, though I would recommend reading them in publication order, with the prequel after the original trilogy.

The Chronicles of Narnia

This series needs no introduction. The great children series of the Author of Screwtape Letters, Mere Christianity, and Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis wrote the first book The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe as a way to creep past the watchful dragons and get children familiar with the themes Christianity in a way that was easier for them to grasp, and even almost eighty years later, they hold up. This series is a great read aloud for the whole family, and afterward you can enjoy the films together. No, not the Disney ones, and most certainly not whatever is going to be coming out of Netflix. The original BBC ones. Sadly, they stopped with the Silver Chair, but they are still worth the watch if you can find a copy.

Nowadays, the books are ordered chronologically with The Magician's Nephew as the first, but I recommend you read them in the order that the author wrote them, starting with the Pevensie children's' adventure in the Wardrobe, which is, of course, The Lion, The Witch, And the Wardrobe.

By Shadow of Hassen

What do you think of these book series? Do you have recommendations? Leave a comment and let us know.

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