When I first started reading as a kid, I cut my proverbial teeth on the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books. They were pulp detective stories, and there were a lot of them.
I eventually graduated to other series: the Star Wars fiction of the early ’90s was some of the earliest series fiction I read. I also got into epic fantasy, which is known for being series-based, and preferred science fiction stories that spanned over multiple books (like the Wing Commander fiction).
Here are some of the series that I’m enjoying, on my own or with my daughters today. One of them I started way back in the early ’90s!
The Owl Diaries
The Owl Diaries are part of Scholastic’s Branches book line, aimed at newly independent readers. I picked up the first and second Diaries books for my oldest daughter and she loved them.
The series follows Eva Wingdale and her friend Lucy as they go on adventures. In the first book, Eva is organizing a spring festival but may be in over her head. In the second book, Eva thinks she’s seen a ghost! Or has she?
Unlike a traditional chapter book, which changes formats to the more standard text-only layout of a novel with only occasional illustrations, Diaries meshes the longer text of a chapter book with the side-by-side artwork that is common in early childhood books. This creates a fun, eye-catching layout that, in my opinion, is one of the things that caught-up my daughter and kept her reading.
Old Man’s War
The Old Man’s War series is one of my favorite science fiction series. It combines serious adventure with light-hearted fun without beating the reader over the head with the scientific details of faster-than-light travel, or cloned human bodies, or in-brain computers.
The End of All Things is the latest addition to the OMW series, arriving on shelves on Tuesday. It’s a direct sequel to the events in The Human Division and deals with the split in humanity (Earth versus the Colonial Defense Forces) and the on-going attacks on human and alien outposts.
Shannara
The world of Shannara has spanned decades in our world and millennia in Four Lands. Terry Brooks has written a number of books, some originally unconnected (from a reader perspective), that now carry our world through an apocalypse and into the world of Shannara.
The current running trilogy is The Defenders of Shannara (book two, The Darkling Child, is now on sale), starring Paxon Leah. He has inherited his ancestor’s sword, which is storied to be the magical blade that once helped protect the Four Lands. When Paxon’s sister is abducted, he must go to her rescue, where he discovers there might just be some truth to the legendary blade and his ancestry.
Shannara is a series that I always find time to read and re-read. I always learn something new from it, and always have a good time with old and new friends along the way. I’m eagerly awaiting the day when I can share these with my daughters.
There are mine; what series are you hooked on? Share below!
Click through to read all of "Stack Overflow: Get Hooked On a Series" at GeekDad.If you value content from GeekDad, please support us via Patreon or use this link to shop at Amazon. Thanks!
