Farm life book series in reading order

Michael Morpurgo

171 books• 5 series

Sir Michael Morpurgo, born 5 October 1943, is an English author, poet, playwright and librettist best known for children's novels such as War Horse (1982). Morpurgo served as the third Children's Laureate from 2003 to 2005 and is President of BookTrust, a children's reading charity. Recurring themes include outsiders who triumph, survival and bonds with nature, set in places such as the Cornish coast and the First World War trenches. The catalogue holds 171 books from It Never Rained (1974) to Down Burrow Lane (2026), including the Mudpuddle Farm series.

Jon Katz

36 books• 1 series

Dogs and farm life fill the later part of Jon Katz's catalogue; crime fiction fills the earlier. Katz, born in 1947, is an American journalist and photographer who wrote for HotWired, Slashdot and Slate, and whose first books include the Suburban Detective novels and the character Kit Deleeuw. Writing on geek subculture followed, then a long sequence on the relationship between people and animals, closing with Gus's Year in 2020. Thirty-six titles in all.

Gary Paulsen

181 books• 17 series

Survival and outdoor adventure run through Gary Paulsen's writing for young readers. The catalogue holds 181 books, from Some Birds Don't Fly (1968) to Northwind (2022), at a median length of 105 pages. Brian Robeson, Francis Tucket, Duncan Culpepper, Murphy and the World of Adventure books head the series lines, with non-fiction and picture books alongside. No new Paulsen title has appeared since 2022.

James Herriot wrote about veterinary practice in the English countryside, mixing memoir, anecdote and animal stories. The catalogue holds 39 titles published between 1970 and 2023, among them All Creatures Great and Small (1972), All Things Bright and Beautiful (1974) and the 2023 collection The Wonderful World of James Herriot. All Creatures Great and Small is the best known sequence, and Herriot also wrote children's books such as Bonny's Big Day. The books are short at a median of 180 pages, and the catalogue is closed.

Janette Oke, born Janette Steeves on 18 February 1935, is a Canadian author of inspirational fiction, often set in pioneer times with women as the lead characters. Bethany House published Love Comes Softly, the first Oke novel, in 1979. When Calls the Heart (1983) opened the Canadian West series and became the basis for a television series with the same title. The catalogue holds 79 Oke books, with The Pharisee's Wife (2025) the newest. Series include Love Comes Softly, Prairie Legacy, Women of the West, Song of Acadia and Janette Oke's Animal Friends. Subjects include women pioneers, Canada and Christian fiction.

Laura Ingalls Wilder

67 books• 7 series

Laura Ingalls Wilder (7 February 1867 to 10 February 1957) was an American writer, teacher and journalist. The Little House on the Prairie children's books, published from 1932 to 1943, drew on Wilder's childhood in a pioneer settler family. Catalogued Wilder titles from those years include Little House in the Big Woods (1932), Farmer Boy (1933), Little House on the Prairie (1935), On the Banks of Plum Creek (1937), By the Shores of Silver Lake (1939), The Long Winter (1940), Little Town on the Prairie (1941) and These Happy Golden Years (1943). Catalogue subjects include frontier and pioneer life, farm life and families.

Willa Cather

59 books• 1 series

Willa Cather wrote about the Nebraska plains, frontier and farm life, and the immigrants who settled them. Her earliest catalogued titles are short stories from 1896, and the Great Plains Trilogy is the sequence her fiction is grouped around. Sixty-nine catalogued titles, poetry and collected editions included, run through reissues dated to 2022.

Roger Lea MacBride, born in 1929 and died in 1995, was an American lawyer, political figure and writer who inherited Laura Ingalls Wilder's estate. MacBride edited and published further Wilder material, then wrote the Rose Years, a spin-off series set in the Little House on the Prairie world and following Rose Wilder Lane through Missouri farm life and frontier schools. He also pushed the development of the television adaptation, and served a single term as a Republican in the Vermont House of Representatives in the 1960s. Fifteen catalogued titles date from 1976 to 2001.

Enid Blyton

957 books• 42 series

Enid Blyton (11 August 1897 to 28 November 1968) was an English children's writer and one of the best-selling authors of children's literature, with more than 600 million copies sold and translations into ninety languages. Blyton wrote on education, natural history, fantasy, mystery and biblical stories. Noddy, the Famous Five, the Secret Seven, the Five Find-Outers and Malory Towers are the best-remembered Blyton books, and St Clare's, Mary Mouse and Toyland Stories are also listed. The catalogue opens with The Enid Blyton Book of Fairies (1924), and The Naughtiest Girl in the School (1930) and The Adventures of the Wishing-Chair (1937) follow. Titles dated after Blyton's death also appear, up to Stories of Wonders and Wishes (2023).

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

131 books• 11 series

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, born in 1933, wrote 131 catalogued books for children and young adults across half a century. Shiloh, a quartet of children's novels, won the Newbery Medal in 1992, and the Alice McKinley series became one of the most frequently challenged sets of books of the early 21st century. The Boy/Girl Battle, Bessledorf Mysteries, Witch Saga, Cat Pack and Roxie and the Hooligans fill out the list, which runs from To Make a Wee Moon (1969) to Roxie and the Hooligans at Buzzard's Roost (2018). Family life, schools, friendship and siblings are the constant subjects, at a median of 154 pages.

Patricia MacLachlan (March 3, 1938 to March 31, 2022), born Patricia Marie Pritzkau, was an American children's writer. MacLachlan's novel Sarah, Plain and Tall won the Newbery Medal in 1986 and gave its name to a series. The catalogue holds 63 books for young readers, including the Barkus series, Arthur, for the Very First Time and My Poet (2022). Family life, dogs, grandparents, friendship and frontier life are frequent subjects.

Carol Drinkwater is a British actress, writer and filmmaker born on 22 April 1948 and based in France. Drinkwater played Helen Herriot in the television adaptation of All Creatures Great and Small, which brought the 1985 Variety Club Television Personality of the Year award. The catalogue lists 30 books from The Haunted School (1985) to An Act of Love (2022). Molly and Molly on the Run appeared in 1996 and The Olive Farm in 2001. Olive and Molly are the named Drinkwater series, and subject tags include Provence, farm life, the olive trade and children's fiction.

John Steinbeck

44 books• 1 series

John Steinbeck's catalogue holds 44 titles, from Cup of Gold (1929) through to Steinbeck in Vietnam in 2012. Social conditions and American life supply the subject matter, with travel writing and the Cannery Row grouping among the named sets. Early entries include The Pastures of Heaven (1932), The Red Pony (1933), Tortilla Flat (1935) and In Dubious Battle (1936). The catalogue is listed as complete.

Wendell Berry (August 5, 1934 - August 31, 2026) was an American novelist, poet, essayist, farmer, environmental activist and cultural critic closely tied to rural Kentucky. Berry set out agrarian themes in The Unsettling of America (1977) and The Gift of Good Land (1981). The Port William novels and stories, including A Place on Earth, Jayber Crow and That Distant Land, examine rural community life. Berry received the National Humanities Medal, delivered the 2012 Jefferson Lecture and belonged to the Fellowship of Southern Writers. The catalogue lists 104 books from Nathan Coulter (1960) to Marce Catlett (2025).

Pearl S. Buck

99 books• 1 series

China is the subject Pearl S. Buck is catalogued for. East Wind: West Wind (1930) is the earliest of 99 entries, followed by The Good Earth (1931), Sons (1932) and A House Divided (1935); House Of Earth is the one named series. Farm life, marriage, families and social customs fill the subject tags. No newer title is dated, and the listing is marked likely complete.

Jane Gardam wrote for children and for adults and worked as a literary critic, with reviews in The Spectator and The Telegraph and writing for BBC Radio. Gardam took the Whitbread Award twice, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2005 and appointed OBE in the 2009 New Year Honours. Thirty-five books are catalogued between A Few Fair Days (1971) and The Stories of Jane Gardam (2014), with Old Filth the one series listed. England, family life, adolescence and girls recur as subjects.

Lisa Wingate

32 books• 10 series

Lisa Wingate has 32 books in this catalogue, from Tending Roses (2001) to The Last Father-Daughter Dance (2026). Texas is among the subjects, and the Wingate series include Texas Hill Country, Moses Lake, Daily, Texas, Carolina Chronicles and Blue Sky Hill, alongside standalone novels and non-fiction. The subjects also cover Christian fiction, Christian romance, historical fiction, farm life, sisters and town life. Good Hope Road and Texas Cooking both appeared in 2003.

Beverly Cleary

49 books• 12 series

Beverly Cleary (born Beverly Atlee Bunn; April 12, 1916 to March 25, 2021) was an American author of children's and young adult fiction. Henry Huggins (1950) was the first book, and Ramona Quimby, Beezus Quimby, Henry Huggins with the dog Ribsy, and Ralph S. Mouse became the recurring characters. Cleary's books have sold 91 million copies worldwide. The catalogue records 49 books through 2013, grouped into series such as Henry Huggins, Ralph S. Mouse and Ellen & Otis, with humour, family life, school and pets among the subjects.

Lauraine Snelling is an American author of Christian fiction who has published since 1982. Snelling's historical series draw on Norwegian immigration and the author's own heritage. The Scandinavian-American Hall of Fame inducted Snelling in 2012 at Norsk Høstfest, and sales exceed 5 million copies. The catalogue counts 102 books, from Tragedy on the Toutle (1982) to Fair Are the Meadows (2026). Series include Golden Filly, High Hurdles, Red River of the North, Dakota Plains, Daughters of Blessing and Leah's Garden, with horses, pioneer life and North Dakota among the subjects.

R.L. Stine

589 books• 64 series

Robert Lawrence Stine, born October 8, 1943, is an American novelist who writes horror fiction for children. Goosebumps, the series Stine created, sold more than 400 million copies in 35 languages and grew into a franchise of two television series, video games, comics and two feature films. Fear Street, Stine's horror sequence for teenagers, passed 80 million copies and was adapted for film. Stine has been called the Stephen King of children's literature. The listing runs to 590 titles, from How to Be Funny (1978), published as Jovial Bob Stine, to How to Train Your Dummy, scheduled for 2027.

Beth Wiseman is an American writer of romance from Texas, and subject headings for Wiseman books name the Amish, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Christian romance, Christian fiction, farm life and young women. The 86 books listed span 2008 to 2026, with early titles including Plain Perfect (2008), Plain Promise (2009), Plain Pursuit (2009), Plain Paradise (2010) and Plain Proposal (2011). Series include Daughters of the Promise, Land of Canaan, Amish Inn, Amish Garden, Amish Home and Amish Celebrations, and An Amish Second Chance (2026) is the newest title.

Amish life supplies the setting for Linda Byler's Christian romances. Lizzie (2003) opens a catalogue of 55 titles that reaches A Christmas Surprise (2026), with Lizzie Searches For Love, Sadie's Montana, Lancaster Burning, Hester's Hunt for Home and Stepping Stones among the series. Courtship, teachers, horses and Pennsylvania fill the subject tags.

Robin Lee Hatcher writes Christian and historical romance, with 103 books in the catalogue from Stormy Surrender (1983) to To Find Where She Belongs (2026). Hatcher has been a RITA Award finalist eleven times and has won it twice, and has received Lifetime Achievement Awards from Romance Writers of America and American Christian Fiction Writers. Series include Women of Hope, King's Meadow, Coming To America, Hart's Crossing, Sisters Of Bethlehem Springs, Where The Heart Lives and Legacy Of Faith. Subjects include frontier and pioneer life, Idaho and young women.

Jane Smiley

40 books• 6 series

Jane Smiley, born September 26, 1949, is an American novelist and the winner of the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for A Thousand Acres (1991). The catalogue holds 40 Smiley books from Barn Blind (1980) to Lidie: The Further Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton (2026). The Greenlanders (1988), Moo (1995) and The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton (1998) are among the titles. Series include Horses Of Oak Valley Ranch, Last Hundred Years: A Family Saga and Ellen and Ned. Subjects include horses, ranch life and rural families.