My Top 10: Favorite Children’s Chapter Book Series

~ Hunida

I have always loved reading books. In Elementary school, we’d always have one library day in the week and I’d always look for a book in one of these series:

1. Junie B. Jones by Barbara Park

rsz_junie_b_jones_stupid_smelly_buslol

First book published in 1992
Series Summary: Junie B. Jones, at the start of the series (and in the later books, a first grader) is a kindergartner, and starts the series near her sixth birthday. Her favorite foods include sugar cookies, lemon pie, spaghetti and meatballs, and whipped cream in a can; she does not like Tuna Noodle Stinkle or peas. Other favorites include blueberry pancakes, fruit loops, chocolate covered raisins, grape Kool-aid, orange popsicles, cherry jello, and strawberry shortcake. Junie is not a fan of her grandma’s bird Twitter, or roosters. She was born on June first. When she gets scared while in the dark, her and her stuffed animal Philip Johnny Bob sing “The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow”; she also likes to miss the bus so that her mother has to drive her. When Junie grows up, she either wants to be a janitor or work in a beauty shop. She narrates all the novels in the series. (via Book Series in Order)

2. Cam Jansen Mysteries by David A. Adler

rsz_camone-330First book published in 1980
Series Summary: Cam Jansen is a crack detective with a photographic memory. Together with her friend Eric, she solves every mystery that comes her way. (via Goodreads)

3. Ramona Quimby by Beverly Cleary

rsz_beezus_and_ramonaFirst book published in 1955
Series Summary: Cleary composed Beezus and Ramona, a novel in which Beezus was the focal character. The plot rotated around fourth grade Beezus’ dissatisfactions with her more youthful sister. At that point in 1968, having finished up the Henry Huggins series, Cleary came back to concentrate on the two sisters in Ramona the Pest. It turned into the establishment book of the Ramona series. As distributer, author and analyst Anita Silvey says, “It was verging on unavoidable that Cleary would distribute a progression of books about this uproarious yet engaging character.” (via Books Series in Order)

4. Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish

rsz_ameliabedeliaFirst book published in 1963
Series Summary: The stories involve Amelia Bedelia Rogers repeatedly misunderstanding various commands of her employer by always taking figures of speech and various terminology literally, causing her to perform incorrect actions with a comical effect. Part of her insight into literalism is that she comes from a family who takes everything literally: their method of ridding their house of dust is to “undust the furniture.” However, she almost always manages to win everyone over at the end by baking a delicious pie or cake. Much of her employment is as a maid for a wealthy couple known as the Rogers, who are astute enough to realize her literalism and write their requests as “undust the furniture” and “put the wet towels in the laundry and replace them with clean dry ones,” as opposed to simply “change the towels.” (via Wikipedia)

5. Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey

rsz_220px-captainunderpantscoverFirst book published in 1997
Series Summary: The series revolves around two fourth graders, George Beard and Harold Hutchins, living in Piqua, Ohio, and Captain Underpants, an aptly named superhero from one of the boys’ homemade comic books, that accidentally becomes real when George and Harold hypnotize their ill-tempered principal, Mr. Krupp. (via Wikipedia)

 

6. Goosebumps by R.L. Stine

rsz_goosebumps-welcome-to-dead-house-original-imadzjz2whhzzaxz-b05d57cb-0408-412c-9de2-dd5e08480a27First book published in 1992
Series Summary: The stories follow child characters, who find themselves in scary situations; usually involving monsters and other supernatural elements. (via Wikipedia)

7. The Magic Treehouse by Mary Pope Osborne

rsz_dinosaurs-before-dark-9780679824114First book published in 1992
Series Summary: With a blend of magic, history, science, and danger, the Magic Tree House series follows brother and sister team Jack and Annie on adventures throughout time and all over the world! (via Dogo Books)

 8. The Babysitters Club by Ann M. Martin

rsz_babysttersFirst book published in 1986
Series Summary: The BSC series is about a group of friends, girls between 11 and 13 years old, who live in the fictional, suburban town of Stoneybrook, Connecticut. These friends run a local babysitting service called the “Baby-Sitters Club.” The original four members were Kristy (founder and president), Mary Anne (secretary), Claudia (vice-president), and Stacey (treasurer), but the total number of BSC members varies throughout the series. The books are told in first-person narrative from the perspective of the character named in the title who will confront common problems such as illness, sibling rivalry, peer conflicts, jealousy, and parents’ divorce and remarriage. (via Wikipedia)

9. Horrible Harry by Suzy Kline

rsz_1rsz_horrible_harryFirst book published in 1988
Series Summary: It is based on a 3rd grader named Harry, and his misadventures are told through the words of his best friend, Doug. Harry’s and Doug’s friends are Sidney, Song Lee, Mary, Ida, and Dexter. His teacher is named Ms. Mackle. His principal’s name is Mr. Cardini. (via Wikipedia)

10. Judy Moody by Megan McDonald

rsz_judymoodyFirst book published in 2000
Series Summary: The mercurial Judy Moody will delight any kid who’s known a bad mood or a bad day–and managed to laugh anyway. (via Bing Search)

Can I just add here how absolutely jealous I am that all of these series have their own websites now with all kinds of fun games and such?! I would have loved that!! I was always on PBSKids playing the same games with the same characters.

What were your favorite books to read as a kiddo?

XO, Hunida

Featured Image by Debby Hudson

Published by Hunida

39 thoughts on “My Top 10: Favorite Children’s Chapter Book Series”

  1. Wowww! I love this post!! You know, I was born and bred in Japan, never have lived abroad, so the books when I was a kiddo were apparently Japanese books. But back in a couple of years when I started reading English novels, I started with children’s books and my faves are Judy Moody series and Ramona Quimby series. Oh, I also loved (maybe it’s middle-grade books…) Andrew Clements!!

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    1. Yay!! Thank you 😀 I’m glad you liked this post, Noriko! & YES! Oh my gosh, I looked up Andrew Clements, I forgot all about him! I remember reading The Janitor’s Boy & The Report Card by him!

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  2. I love this! LOVED the Goosebumps series, and Captain Underpants was the bomb. 👌 You’ve actually made think about my own children’s books I loved growing up and inspired me to make a post – if you don’t mind? 🙂

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  3. I think I’m the only person on the planet who did NOT like Junie B Jones. I hated those books as a kid. I did like Judy Mood and Ramona Quimby but my FAVE was the Babysitters Club. I was excited that I saw it on your list because most people I know don’t even remember the book. I have read every single book in the series AND used to own the movie (which wasn’t THAT great but it was ok). I also like Goosebumps but I honestly didn’t know Captain Underpants was a book! Cool

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    1. You know what, when I was looking up the summary for Junie B Jones there were SO many parent complaints about her. They said she is too negative and naughty haha.
      I can’t remember if I ever watched the BBC movie but yesss!! I loved the books! 😀 Captain Underpants had the best pictures and also some of the story was always told in comic style! They were super fun. I still have yet to watch the movie!!

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      1. Girl the movie is HILARIOUS! And Junie B was pretty negative. She was never happy it seemed like to me lmao. Maybe that’s why I didn’t like the book cause I was a happy go lucky kid lol

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        1. Lol yes! That’s why parents hate her too. They were like “she’s bratty and throws too many tantrums… always used the word stupid and is always grumpy” LOL.

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    1. Yeah, the first book was released in 1955!! When I was looking it up I saw there was a Beezus & Ramona movie!! Have you seen it?! And that’s so cute that you read Captain Underpants to your son. That’s been turned into a movie, too. I haven’t seen it yet either… lol have you?! 😀

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    1. Amelia Bedelia!!! Her nephew is writing new books about her that are still coming out nowadays. Oh my gosh, I couldn’t remember Animorphs but I looked it up and I remember those books covers but I don’t think I ever read them! I never heard of Bunnicula before though and the book covers don’t look familiar.

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  6. Some of these series I have never even heard of, but man I LOVED Goosebumps. I liked The Babysitter’s Club too. I used to have a Mallory doll. lol I also read Captain Underpants, Amelia Bedelia, and Junie B. Jones. Another series that I was completely in love with as a kid was the Amelia’s Notebook series.

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    1. That’s so awesome that you had a Mallory doll! & I thought you may be a Goosbumps fan. 😉 Aww I never read Amelia’s Notebook!! I didn’t even know there were other books about her until I looked it up for this post!

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  7. All of these took me back to Elementary school! I had a subscription to The Magic Tree House books through Scholastic 😂 those and Pony Pals. I forget so many of the books I used to read! Sammy Keyes was one of my favorites, but those were older days lol.

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      1. Haha I was such an avid reader that my mom let me get books every now and then through them! I got my first 4 Harry Potter books through it, too (: haha Sammy Keyes was really good! I started reading it in 7th grade though. It’s a middle school series more than children’s lol

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  8. We’re basically the same age (I turn 23 in September), so these books bring back all the feels for me! I haven’t thought about them in so long. I was basically obsessed with Junie B. Jones and Amelia Bedelia! I also have memories of trying out Captain Underpants but I wasn’t allowed to read it for long because my parents thought it was stupid, lol. But all of these books made up my elementary days! Such nostalgia. ❤

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    1. Aww we are really close in age! I’ll be 23 in June! 😛 LOL. That’s too bad your parents didn’t let you read Captain Underpants… maybe because of the comics?
      Thank you for commenting!! Glad you liked the post. 😀

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      1. Yeah I guess they just felt like I should engage my mind with more mature “literature” lol. XD Even though I was in elementary school. 😉 You’re literally three months older than me, so neat!

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  9. Yes to so many of these! Junie B. was a fave, so were the Babysitter’s Club! I also loved Amelia Bedelia, Ramona, The Magic Treehouse, and Goosebumps. I was always obsessed with books so I read nearly everything I could get my hands on haha!

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  13. I only remember captain underpants (loved those) and goosebumps lol. I came back to the US when I was about to go I to 4th grade, and around that time I also discovered Harry Potter big because I didn’t know English, everything I read was in Spanish and idk..I don’t remember anything I read besides those three haha

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      1. Didn’t realize how many typos had gone into that comment lmao. Stupid ipad. And omg really?!! But you’ve seen the movies right?! I want to start reading them again 😁
        And I only briefly watched parts of it not the whole movie lol. I want to watch it whole.

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          1. Ah that’s okay! 🙂 I haven’t read the books in English for years, so it’ll be interesting to read them in English for the first time, though I don’t think it would be as weird since I’ve already seen the movies?

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