Grandparents book series in reading order

by Jane O’Connor

by Mo Willems

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.

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.

Ann M. Martin

446 books• 24 series

Ann Matthews Martin, born August 12, 1955, is an American writer of children's and young adult fiction and a Smith College graduate. The Baby-Sitters Club, first published in 1986, is the series Martin is known best for, and Martin remains involved with the series and its spin-offs. The catalogue lists 446 books, beginning with Inside Out and Bummer Summer in 1983. Related lines include Baby-Sitters Club Mysteries, California Diaries, Kids in Ms. Colman's Class, Main Street and Doll People. Jessi Ramsey, Pet-sitter: A Graphic Novel (2025) is the newest listed title.

Debbie Macomber

245 books• 35 series

Debbie Macomber, born October 22, 1948, is an American author of romance novels and contemporary women's fiction. Six Macomber novels became made-for-TV movies, and the Cedar Cove novels became a television series of the same name, with Macomber serving as executive producer on the adaptations. Macomber won the first fan-voted Quill Award for romance in 2005 and holds a RITA Award and a lifetime achievement award from the Romance Writers of America. The catalogue counts 245 books between Starlight (1983) and A Date with Santa (2026). Series include Heart of Texas, Midnight Sons, Navy, Those Manning Men, Orchard Valley and Angels Everywhere.

V.C. Andrews was the name used by Cleo Virginia Andrews (June 6, 1923 to December 19, 1986), an American novelist best known for Flowers in the Attic (1979). That novel led to four sequels and two film adaptations. The publisher never classed the books as Young Adult, yet their young protagonists have drawn teenage readers for decades. After Andrews died in 1986, a ghostwriter first hired to finish two incomplete manuscripts went on publishing new books under the V.C. Andrews name. The catalogue carries 108 books under that name from 1979 to 2025, across series such as Dollanganger, Casteel, Cutler, Landry, Logan and De Beers.

Barbara Taylor Bradford began in non-fiction, with Fashions That Please Him (1970) and a run of interior decorating guides, then wrote A Woman of Substance (1979) and the family sagas that followed. Businesswomen, inheritance and mothers and daughters are the standing subjects. 47 catalogued books include the Emma Harte and Harte Family sagas, Cavendon Hall, the House of Falconer and the Ravenscar novels. The Wonder of It All, published in 2023, closes the catalogue.

David Walliams

56 books• 6 series

Born David Edward Williams on 20 August 1971, David Walliams is an English actor, comedian, writer and television personality. Walliams rose to fame with Matt Lucas on the BBC sketch shows Little Britain (2003–2006) and Come Fly with Me (2010–2011), judged Britain's Got Talent from 2012 to 2022, and wrote and starred in the sitcom Big School. Walliams's children's books have sold more than 50 million copies. The catalogue lists 56 titles from Inside Little Britain (2006) to The World’s Worst Superheroes (2025), including The Boy in the Dress (2008), Mr Stink (2009), Billionaire Boy (2010), Gangsta Granny (2011) and Awful Auntie (2014).

Guardians of Ga'Hoole is one of the series by Kathryn Lasky, an American children's writer born June 24, 1944, who writes for adults as Kathryn Lasky Knight and E. L. Swann. Lasky's children's work also includes Dear America and The Royal Diaries books, Wolves of the Beyond, Sugaring Time and The Night Journey, and honours include a Newbery Honor, the National Jewish Book Award and the Anne V. Zarrow Award for Young Readers' Literature. The catalogue holds 159 books from I Have Four Names for My Grandfather (1976) to Sacred Light (2026), including Tugboats Never Sleep (1977), The Weaver's Gift (1980) and Beyond the Divide (1983). Horses Of The Dawn, Bears Of The Ice and Camp Princess are further series, and subjects name owls, wolves, diaries and Jews.

Jill Paton Walsh, 1937 to 2020, was an English novelist and children's writer, born Gillian Bliss and later Baroness Hemingford. Knowledge of Angels, nominated for the Booker Prize, stands among the best known of the work, along with the Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane mysteries that continued Dorothy L. Sayers's series. The Imogen Quy mysteries follow, with the University of Cambridge among the catalogued subjects, beside a long run of children's fiction on history and the Second World War. The catalogue lists 48 titles dated 1965 to 2013, opening with Wordhoard: Anglo-Saxon Stories (1965) and taking in Fireweed (1969), The Dolphin Crossing (1970), Goldengrove (1972) and The Emperor's Winding Sheet (1974). The Late Scholar (2013) is the last catalogued title.

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.

Fern Michaels was the pen name of Mary Ruth Kuczkir, born Mary Ruth Koval on April 9, 1933, who died on November 12, 2025. The American novelist wrote romance and thrillers, including the Texas quartet, the Captive series, Family Blessings, Pretty Woman and Crown Jewel. Michaels's output passed 200 books with an estimated 150 million copies sold. The catalogue lists 190 titles, from Pride and Passion (1975) to A Season of Secrets (2026). Series include the Sisterhood, Godmothers, Men of the Sisterhood, Lost and Found, Vegas, Kentucky and Twin Lights. Female friendship, vigilantes and revenge appear among the subject tags.

Fredrik Backman

13 books• 5 series

Swedish author Fredrik Backman, born in 1981, also works as a blogger and columnist. A Man Called Ove (2012) opens his catalogue of 13 books, which runs to My Friends (2025). Other titles include My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry, Britt-Marie Was Here, Beartown, Us Against You, Anxious People and The Winners. His books were number one bestsellers in Sweden and have been published in more than twenty-five languages. Subjects include hockey teams, neighbours, friendship, and fathers and sons.

Adriana Trigiani

24 books• 8 series

Adriana Trigiani is a New York City-based author, playwright, television writer and producer, film director and entrepreneur who has published a novel every year since 2000. Big Stone Gap (2000) opens the 24-book catalogue, followed by Big Cherry Holler (2001) and Milk Glass Moon (2002). Trigiani's series include Big Stone Gap, the Valentine Trilogy and Viola. Subjects include Italian American families, mountain life and domestic fiction. Do You Want Me to Go? (2026) is the newest title.

Anne Tyler, born on October 25, 1941, is an American novelist, short story writer and literary critic. Tyler's 30 catalogued books run from If Morning Ever Comes (1964) to Three Days in June (2025), with family life, marriage, widowhood and Baltimore as recurring subjects. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (1982), The Accidental Tourist (1985) and Breathing Lessons (1988) were all Pulitzer Prize finalists, and Breathing Lessons won in 1989. Other honours include the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence in 2012.

Margaret Atwood

89 books• 8 series

Margaret Atwood, born November 18, 1939, is a Canadian novelist, poet, literary critic and inventor. The Handmaid's Tale, a dystopian novel from 1985, is the best-known Atwood work. Atwood's output includes 18 poetry books, 18 novels, 11 non-fiction books, nine short fiction collections, eight children's books and two graphic novels. The catalogue opens with The Circle Game (1964) and runs to Book of Lives (2025), with The Edible Woman (1969) and Surfacing (1972) along the way. Series include MaddAddam, Handmaid's Tale and Angel Catbird. Awards include two Booker Prizes, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Franz Kafka Prize and the Order of Canada.

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.

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.

Melody Carlson, born March 2, 1956 in San Francisco, is an American author of more than 250 books for women, teens and children, including the Diary of a Teenage Girl series. The catalogue lists 298 books from 1995, when Contemplative Bible Reading and How to Start a Quality Childcare Business in Your Home appeared, to All Booked Up (2026). Series include Carter House Girls, On The Runway, TrueColors, 86 Bloomberg Place, Secret Life of Samantha McGregor, Beary Patch Bears and Fruit Troops. Subjects include Christian life, high schools, friendship, Bible stories and stories in rhyme. Carlson grew up in Springfield, Oregon, attended Lane Community College and lives in Sisters, Oregon.

Lois Lowry

52 books• 8 series

Lois Lowry, born Lois Ann Hammersberg on March 20, 1937, is an American writer of books for children and young adults. Lowry's work includes The Giver Quartet, Number the Stars, the Anastasia series and Rabble Starkey, and takes on dystopias and difficult themes for young readers. Number the Stars won the Newbery Medal in 1990 and The Giver won it in 1994. Gooney Bird Greene received the 2002 Rhode Island Children's Book Award. Several Lowry books, The Giver among them, have been challenged or banned in some schools. The catalogue holds 52 Lowry books from A Summer to Die (1977) to Building 903 (2026).

Robin Jones Gunn

99 books• 14 series

Robin Jones Gunn is an award-winning Christian author of more than 100 books. Christy Miller and Sierra Jensen are series for teen girls, and Christy Miller's characters carry on in Christy and Todd: College Years, Christy & Todd: The Married Years, Christy & Todd: The Baby Years and Katie Weldon. Glenbrooke and Sisterchicks are further series, and Sisterchicks in Gondolas won the Christy Award in 2007. The site lists 99 books from 1985 to Shortbread in the Highlands (2026), starting with the Billy 'n' Bear titles of 1985.

Ransom Riggs

16 books• 4 series

Ransom Riggs, born February 3, 1979, is an American writer and filmmaker, and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2011) is the Riggs book best known to readers. Hollow City (2014), Library of Souls (2015) and A Map of Days (2018) appear in the catalogue alongside graphic novel editions, Tales of the Peculiar (2016) and Miss Peregrine's Journal for Peculiar Children (2016). The list of 16 titles begins with The Sherlock Holmes Handbook (2009). The Sunderworld series reached a second volume in 2026.

Jane Yolen

237 books• 22 series

Jane Yolen (Jane Hyatt Yolen, February 11, 1939 to June 11, 2026) was an American author of fantasy, science fiction and children's books. The Devil's Arithmetic, a Holocaust novella, is the best-known Yolen work, and Owl Moon and The Emperor and the Kite are among the others. The short works Sister Emily's Lightship and Lost Girls both won Nebula Awards. The catalogue counts 237 books from The Witch Who Wasn't (1964) to Daddy Plays a Mean Guitar (2026). Series include Commander Toad, How Do Dinosaurs...?, Pit Dragons, the Young Merlin Trilogy, Books of the Great Alta and Tartan Magic. Yolen worked as an editor, collaborated most often with Adam Stemple, and in 2012 became the first woman to give the Andrew Lang lecture.

Jean Craighead George

100 books• 11 series

Julie of the Wolves won Jean Craighead George the Newbery Medal, and My Side of the Mountain (1959) earned a Newbery Honor. George, born July 2, 1919, and died May 15, 2012, was an American writer of more than one hundred books for children and young adults, with the environment and the natural world as recurring themes. George also wrote at least two guides to cooking with wild foods and an autobiography, Journey Inward, and was the U.S. nominee for the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1964. The catalogue lists 100 books from Vulpes, the Red Fox (1948) to Crowbar: The Smartest Bird in the World (2015). Series include 13 Moons, Ecological Mysteries, American Woodland Tales and One Day in the..., and subjects name wolves, owls, falcons and ecology.

Penelope Lively

65 books• 3 series

Penelope Lively, born in 1933, is a British writer of fiction for children and for adults, and holds the title Dame. Moon Tiger took the Booker Prize in 1987, and The Ghost of Thomas Kempe (1973) won the Carnegie Medal for British children's books. Her catalogue runs to 65 titles published between 1970 and 2021, from Astercote (1970) to Metamorphosis (2021), taking in The Whispering Knights (1971), The Driftway (1972), The House in Norham Gardens (1974) and A Stitch in Time (1976). Ghost stories, English social life, the Second World War, and space and time recur as subjects.