Books That Were Written By Children That Can Teach Us Something
While most people may think of authors as adults locked away in their study and typing away at a keyboard, that's not always the case. Some authors may be eating a bowl of cereal and scrolling through Instagram while waiting for the school bus.
Age is just a number for some of these young authors who have had a book published before graduating from high school or even younger. The books written by these younglings range from how-to guides to epic fantasies. Check out who these authors are and the books that they have written.
Griffin Blade And The Bronze Finger By Luke Herzog
In 2014, at just 14 years old, Luke Herzog published not his first but second novel under Why Not Books. Set in the land of Alastian, the novel follows the story of a character named Griffin Blade who is a master thief that steals a valuable gem for a man who has a bronze finger.
He ends up traveling with a group of unusual companions as they become the central characters in the battle for power in Alastian. During his quest, Griffin learns more about the man with the bronze finger and even more about himself and his past.
Just Jake By Jake Marcionette
In 2014, 13-year-old Jake Marcionette's book Just Jake hit the shelves. The book is loosely based on the author's own life about a boy named Jake and his experiences in school, making friends, and everything else about being in middle school.
After Marcionette had finished his book, he found a literary agent, who managed to get him a deal with Grosset & Dunlap, an imprint of Penguin Group. Not only did they publish his book, but they also offered Marcionette a contract for multiple Just Jake books in the upcoming years.
Total Teen Adventure By Tony Budolovic
Born in 2000, Tony Budolovic was an average kid growing up who especially liked writing. By the time he was six, he wrote his first book The Way to the Future, a book packed with ghosts, dragons, potion shops and more. However, when he was 10 years old, he published Total Teen Adventure.
It's a 180 page novel about a group of teenagers that were taken from their summer vacation and tricked into a competition where everything was secretly recorded. Being one of the youngest authors in the world, it looks like Tony is going places.
The Magnificent King Of Pasta: Jacob Shaw
Jacob Shaw was just 10 years old when he sat down to write The Magnificent King of Pasta. The book follows the character named William whose father was a welder and his mother descended from a villainous lineage.
In a life-changing decision, William decides to set off on his own path and take control of his own life. Throughout the novel, William is guided by his magic and his conscience to save Pastaland and its people from the corrupt and evil-ruling Salastro.
The Strand Prophecy By Brianna and Brittany Winner
Brianna and Brittany are identical twins who also happen to be dyslexic. However, they are both gifted in writing and when they were 12-years-old came out with their first novel The Strand Prophecy in 2008. In 2009, the book was being nationally distributed through Barnes & Noble and the twins won a Benjamin Franklin Award for Best Adolescent Fiction.
While in high school, they completed four novels, including two from the Strand series, a guide to writing a screenplay, and a comic book. They also started a nonprofit called Motivate 2 Learn to inspire young readers and writers.
How To Talk To A Girls By Alec Greven
By the age of nine, Alec Greven had become a New York Times best-selling author for his book How to Talk to Girls. While at school, Greven noticed an issue in his friend group, none of them knew how to properly talk to girls. So, he wrote a book about it.
He gave advice such as comb your hair, ditch your sweatpants, and don't look desperate. It wasn't long until he was being interviewed by stars such as Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien, and Ellen DeGeneres. He also came out with other how-to books like How to Talk to Moms, How to Talk to Dads, etc.
Swordbird By Nancy Yi Fan
Born and raised in Beijing, Nancy Ti Fan moved to Syracuse, New York when she was seven years old. As a sixth grader, she learned about the September 11 attacks. Which deeply affected her.
That night, she woke from a vivid dream about birds and decided to write a story about birds as a way to promote peace, with the end result being Swordbird. It was published by HarperCollins in 2008 and initially printed 50,000 books. Ti Fan followed up with two other books Sword Quest and Sword Mountain.
Maradonia and the Seven Bridges By Gloria Tesch
Gloria Tesch was just 10 years old when she began writing her book Maradonia and the Seven Bridges. On her 13th birthday, she celebrated the publication of her two novels Maradonia and the Seven Bridges and Maradonia and the Escape from the Underworld.
In the next few years, she wrote four more books that were titled Maradonia and the Gold of Ophir, Maradonia and the Dragon Riders, Maradonia and the Law of Blood, and Maradonia and the Battle for the Key.
Conspiracy Of Calaspia By Suresh and Jvoti Guptara
Born in 1988, Suresh and Jyoti are twins with an Indian father and an English mother. When the pair were 11, they wrote their first draft of their fantasy novel, about Bryn Bellyset, heir to an empire who has to save Calaspia from an evil force that was thought to be extinct.
By the time that the twins were 17, their book was a best-seller with more than 70,000 copies printed. The book was the first in a trilogy known as the Insanity Saga and they are working on the second one.
Help Hope & Happiness By Libby Rees
In an unfortunate chain of events, when Libby Rees was six years old, her parents split up. While dealing with her emotions, she wrote Help Hope & Happiness when she was nine. It is a 60-page book that doubles as a self-help guide for kids on how to cope when their parents get a divorce.
It was published a year later by Aultbea Publishing and has been translated into Dutch, Italian, Japanese, and Mandarin. Aultbea signed her for two more books with most of the money she earns goes to the charity Save The Children.
Heartsongs By Mattie Stepanek
Heartsongs was the first of many books of poetry by Mattie Stepanek before he was even a teenager. However, he unfortunately passed away before his 14th birthday due to a rare case of muscular dystrophy, the same illness that killed his sister and two brothers.
Jimmy Carter gave his eulogy, Oprah Winfrey called him one of her greatest guests and he now has foundations, scholarships, public parks, and special days named in his honor. Luckily we still have his words that have even been turned into music at Carnegie Hall.
In The Forest Of The Night By Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
At just 13 years old, Amelia Atwater-Rhodes was described as being the "teen successor to Anne Rice" after she wrote her young adult vampire novel In the Forests of the Night. The story was published by Random House in 1999 with her next novel Demon In My View being published the next year becoming an ALA Quick Pick for Young Readers.
She wrote two more books in the vampire series and later completed a five-book series about shapeshifters which was hailed by critics.
Eragon By Christopher Paolini
After graduating from being home-schooled at 15, young writer Christopher Paolini decided to write the book Eragon. His parent's small publishing company published it in 2002 and that summer the book was discovered by Carl Hiassen who loved it. The following year, Hiassen's publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, released a second edition and Paolini went on to become a New York Times best-seller.
Paolini continued the series with three more books: Eldest, Brisinger, and Inheritance naming the series the Inheritance Cycle. He's even recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records recognizes Paolini as the youngest author of a bestselling series.
The Neon Bible By John Kennedy Toole
John Kennedy Toole wrote The Neon Bible When he was 16 in 1954. The story is about a boy named David who grows up in rural Mississippi during the mid-20th century. Here, he loves learning about racial, social, and sexual bigotry. Unfortunately, he couldn't get the book published and went on to wrote Confederacy of Dunces, which he also struggled to get published.
Toole committed suicide in 1969 and Confederacy of Dunces was published posthumously and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1981. Eight years later, The Neon Bible was published and was even turned into a movie.
My Book for Kids With Cansur By Jason Gaes
At the age of 7, Jason Gaes, who was ill with a rare form of cancer known as Burkitt's lymphoma. He decided to write a book about his successful two-year battle with the disease to help give hope to other children.
He explains operations, radiation, and chemotherapy, about how friends don't laugh at baldness, and that being sick doesn't always mean that you die. His twin brother Tim and older brother Adam illustrated the book with all of the misspellings and errors left uncorrected.
This Can't Be Happening At MacDonald Hall By Gordon Korman
While in seventh grade, Gordon Korman was required to write a "novel" during the year by his English teacher. The assignment turned into the manuscript for Korman's first novel This Can't Be Happening At MacDonald Hall. The book was impressive enough that it was published by Scholastic Press in 1978.
Korman went on to write six more books in the MacDonald Hall series as well as numerous other series such as 39 Clues. In total, he has sold more than 17 million books since the seventh grade.
She was Nice to Mice By Ally Sheedy
Before she became a famous actress, acting in films such as The Breakfast Club, she made an appearance on the show To Tell The Truth. This was because she was Alexandra Elizabeth Sheedy, the 12-year-old published author of She was Nice to Mice, a historical tale based on the life of England's Queen Elizabeth I.
The story follows a rodent living in Buckingham Palace who meets figures such as the Queen of England, William Shakespeare and more. The book has been described as "the memoirs of a literary mouse."
Looking Back: A Chronicle Of Growing Up Old In The Sixties By Joyce Maynard
Looking Back: A Chronicle of Growing Up Old in the Sixties was a memoir written by Joyce Maynard when she was just 19. In high school, Maynard had won numerous writing awards and even scored a job at the New York Times. t was there that she was assigned to write "An Eighteen Year Old Looks Back on Life."
Author J.D. Salinger then contacted her and while the two started as pen pals, it eventually became romantic and the two even lived together in secret. She did not mention him in her memoir but broke her silence in her 1999 memoir Home in the World.
The Outsiders By S.E. Hinton
Author Susan Eloise Hinton began writing her coming-of-age story about the Greasers and Socs when she was just 15-years-old. It took her a total of 18 months to complete and it was published in 1967 when she was 18-years-old.
While her story was wildly popular, she was urged to use a non-gender-specific pen name so that the public didn't know the book was written by a woman. The book is often a required reading in schools today and was adapted into a film starring Tom Cruise, Rob Lowe, and Matt Dillon.
The House Without Windows By Barbara Newhall Follett
Barbara Newhall Follett wrote her first novel, The House Without Windows when she was just 12-years-old. Although she had some help from her father, the book was published by Alfred A. Knopf when she was 13 in 1926.
When she was 14, she went on to publish The Voyage of Norman D, which was about her father abandoning her mother. The book received critical acclaim although it was the last book that she ever published. At 25, she walked out of her apartment with all of her money and was never seen again.
