10 Favorite Book Series for Girls

I learned to read independently when I was 7 years old and I’ve pretty much had my nose in a book ever since. This week when a friend asked for some series book recommendations for girls ages 8 and 10, my mind went back to my family’s weekly library visits in the 1970s.

I can’t remember if our public library had a limit on how many books we were allowed to check out at once or if my mother established the limits. Either way, I always read all of my books and all of my four siblings’ books before the next trip to the library the following week. It seems like we had a limit of 3 books per person, which gave me 15 “new” books to read each week, including a fair share of picture books since my siblings were younger.

My favorites were, of course, the books I got to choose, which were invariably series books. Once I found an author I liked I immediately checked to see what else the library had by that author and then I would read them all.

When I started jotting down girl’s series books for my friend this week I couldn’t seem to stop, so I’m going to limit this list to books I remember reading when I was between the ages of 8 and 10, which are currently in print. That means they have stood the test of time. Your library probably has most of them.

Disclosure: The links below are affiliate links to Amazon where I might earn a small commission should you choose to purchase.

Little House on the Prairie

By Laura Ingalls Wilder. Set in the 1870s. This is the first series of books I ever read. My mother had started reading them aloud to us before I started school. Once I learned to read I couldn’t wait to read them for myself. I read the entire series the summer between 1st grade and 2nd grade. I have read it numerous times since.

• Little House in the Big Woods
• Little House on the Prairie
• Farmer Boy
• On the Banks of Plum Creek
• By the Shores of Silver Lake
• The Long Winter
• Little Town on the Prairie
• These Happy Golden Years

Betsy-Tacy

By Maud Hart Lovelace. Set between 1897-1917. The first four books in the series are for and about younger girls, while the remaining books are about Betsy’s teen and young adult years so would probably be more of interest to older girls.

• Betsy-Tacy
• Betsy-Tacy and Tib
• Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill
• Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
• Heaven to Betsy
• Betsy in Spite of Herself
• Betsy Was a Junior
• Betsy and Joe
• Betsy and the Great World
• Betsy’s Wedding

Regional America

By Lois Lenski. Set in the early-to-mid-1900s. Some are about girls. Some are about boys. What I love about them is that they depict regional lifestyles around the country as they were before television homogenized a lot of the cultural differences between regions. I’ve been trying to collect them for my personal library for several years. So far I have five. They have been hard to find. However, I discovered most of them are now available on Kindle.

• Bayou Suzette
• Strawberry Girl
• Blue Ridge Billy
• Judy’s Journey
• Boom Town Boy
• Cotton in My Sack
• Texas Tomboy
• Prairie School
• Mama Hattie’s Girl
• Corn-Farm Boy
• San Francisco Boy
• Flood Friday
• Houseboat Girl
• Coal Camp Girl
• Shoo-Fly Girl
• To Be a Logger
• Deer Valley Girl

Childhood of Famous Americans

By various authors. Biographies focusing on… well, the childhood of famous Americans. They had orange hardback library bindings when I was reading them in the mid-1970s. I have a number of them in my personal library now, discards from a public library–about half orange, a few blue, and several multi-colored covers. Many titles are still available in paperback or digitally. There are way too many to list.

Oz

By L. Frank Baum. Most everyone has read and/or seen the movie The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. What you may not know is that there is a whole series of books about the Land of Oz. I read them in 3rd or 4th grade. The illustrations are fun. These books are apparently now in the public domain because you can download the e-books for free (linked below).

• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
• The Marvelous Land of Oz
• Ozma of Oz
• Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz
• The Road to Oz
• The Emerald City of Oz
• The Patchwork Girl of Oz
• Tik-Tok of Oz
• The Scarecrow of Oz
• Rinkitink in Oz
• The Lost Princess of Oz
• The Tin Woodman of Oz
• The Magic of Oz
• Glinda of Oz

Ramona the Pest

By Beverly Cleary. Set in the mid-to-late-20th-century. Classic childhood novels about neighborhood children in Portland, Oregon. I finally got to visit that neighborhood last fall!

• Beezus and Ramona
• Ramona the Pest
• Ramona the Brave
• Ramona and Her Father
• Ramona and Her Mother
• Ramona Quimby, Age 8
• Ramona Forever
• Ramona’s World

B is for Betsy

By Carolyn Haywood. Set in the mid-20th-century. These are great for young readers transitioning into chapter books. There’s the Betsy series for girls and the Eddie series for boys, though I read them both, as well as other non-series books by the same author. Several of these are out-of-print.

• “B” is for Betsy
• Betsy and Billy
• Back to School With Betsy
• Betsy and the Boys
• Betsy’s Little Star
• Betsy and the Circus
• Betsy’s Busy Summer
• Betsy’s Winterhouse
• Snowbound With Betsy
• Betsy and Mr. Kilpatrick
• Merry Christmas from Betsy
• Betsy’s Play School

All of a Kind Family

By Sydney Taylor. About a Jewish immigrant family in the early 1900s. I remember the library books of this series had beautiful full-color covers.

• All-of-a-Kind Family
• More All-Of-A-Kind Family
• All-of-a-Kind Family Uptown
• All-of-a-Kind Family Downtown
• Ella of All-of-a-Kind Family

Trixie Belden

By Julie Campbell or Kathryn Kenny. This was my favorite “girl sleuth” series. I would put this series on the upper end of this age range–probably 5th to 7th grade. There were 39 books in the series. I’m not sure how many are currently in print.

• The Secret of the Mansion
• The Red Trailer Mystery
• The Gatehouse Mystery
• The Mysterious Visitor
• The Mystery Off Glen Road
• The Mystery in Arizona
• The Mysterious Code
• The Black Jacket Mystery
• The Happy Valley Mystery
• The Marshland Mystery

Anne of Green Gables

By L.M. Montgomery. I hesitated about including Anne on this list because I discovered her when I was about 13 or 14, and I’m not sure I would have enjoyed her as much at age 10 as I did later. Most of the books in the Anne series would be more of interest to teens or adults. However, the first book in the series, Anne of Green Gables, is a classic for older girls, and Book 7, Rainbow Valley, focuses on the childhood of Anne’s children, so it would probably appeal to younger readers as well.

• Anne of Green Gables
• Anne of Avonlea
• Anne of the Island
• Anne of Windy Poplars
• Anne’s House of Dreams
• Anne of Ingleside
• Rainbow Valley
• Rilla of Ingleside
• The Blythes Are Quoted

What series do you remember reading when you were in school?