Fifty Great Novels for Adults That Adopt a Child’s Point of View

(I’ve arranged these novels chronologically by the characters’ ages, from birth to twelve, pinning each book as best I could (though it involved some guesswork) to the age of the youngest point-of-view character. You’ll find a companion list for characters age 13 to 18 here.)

 

  • birth: The Character of Rain by Amélie Nothomb

  • age 3: The Complete Tales of Ketzia, Merry, and Lucy Gold by Kate Bernheimer

  • age 4: The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson

  • age 5: Arcadia by Lauren Groff

  • age 5: Lightning Bug by Donald Harington

  • age 6: A Death in the Family by James Agee

  • age 6: How I Became a Nun by César Aira

  • age 6: Such Small Hands by Andrés Barba

  • age 6: Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

  • age 6: The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt

  • age 6: The Summer Book by Tove Jansson

  • age 6: My Home Is Far Away by Dawn Powell

  • age 7: The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue

  • age 7: The Tooth Fairy by Graham Joyce

  • age 7: Beasts and Children by Amy Parker

  • age 7: We, the Animals by Justin Torres

  • age 7: The Lines by Anthony Varallo

  • age 7: Down the Rabbit Hole by Juan Pablo Villalobos

  • age 8: Things That Fall from the Sky by Selja Ahava

  • age 8: The Butterfly Lampshade by Aimee Bender

  • age 8: The History of Luminous Motion by Scott Bradfield

  • age 8: They Came Like Swallows by William Maxwell

  • age 8: Last Things by Jenny Offill

  • age 8: The Mountain Lion by Jean Stafford

  • age 8: The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis

  • age 9: The Wildlands by Abby Geni

  • age 9: Bee Season by Myla Goldberg

  • age 10: The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks

  • age 10: Jim the Boy by Tony Earley

  • age 10: A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes

  • age 10: A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

  • age 10: The Notebook by Ágota Kristóf

  • age 10: Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli

  • age 10: Vaclav & Lena by Haley Tanner

  • age 10: The Chrysalids by John Wyndham

  • age 11: A Field Guide to the Aliens of Star Trek: The Next Generation by Joshua Chapman, Age 11 by Zachary Auburn

  • age 11: Empire of the Sun by J.G. Ballard

  • age 11: How to Behave in a Crowd by Camille Bordas

  • age 11: The River by Rumer Godden

  • age 11: Welcome to America by Linda Boström Knausgård

  • age 11: Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943-1954, by Jeffrey Cartwright by Steven Millhauser

  • age 11: The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

  • age 11: The Love Song of Jonny Valentine by Teddy Wayne

  • age 11: Lotería by Mario Alberto Zambrano

  • age 12: The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

  • age 12: The Good Times Are Killing Me by Lynda Barry

  • age 12: The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

  • age 12: Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban

  • age 12: Cargill Falls by William Lychack

  • age 12: Pobby and Dingan by Ben Rice

— September 21, 2020


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