Favorite Book Series

While there are solo novels that can stand the test of time, there are book series that also stand the test of time. The books within the series can stand alone as pillars of the written community, but they also hold up other books to create a series that changes the way people see the world.

Below, you will find a list of series that have changed the way I have related to people and helped me to make friends I may not have made other ways. This list is by no means exclusive, but it is a good starting point if you'd like to make your reading list a bit longer.

• The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
• I'm not going to lie about this, the only reason I first read these books was in order to watch the movies. My dad loves these books and movies, which is a reason that I was interested in them as well. He told me, since I was such a book nerd at the time, that I had to read the trilogy and The Hobbit before I could watch any portion of the movies.
• I'm pretty sure I don't have to give an explanation about what these books are about.
• The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
• This book series was one that I read only because of the cartoon movie of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe which was released in 1979. After having watched the VHS (yes, I am that old), I happened to be looking at the books on the bookshelf and found the box series. Knowing I had the time to read all seven books, I started reading the first one of the series and have never looked back since. 
• Just so you know, I am one of those people who believe that the books should be read in chronological order, not publication order. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, just Google it.
• The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
• If you don't already know, I was homeschooled K-12 along with my other siblings. Part of our school work included visiting the public library once a week. When my siblings and I were old enough, we got our own library card and checked out our own books. This helped us with responsibility and reading. On one of the days my siblings and I were looking through the Young Adult Fiction section, we came across the first of these book. I can't remember which one of us checked the book out first, but we soon all checked it out and read it.
• This series is all about an underground city called Ember. The first book is about two 14 year old kids, a boy and a girl, who are trying to figure out why their city is deteriorating and the electric lights are always going off. That's when they find out that they're underground. The rest of the series is about what happens after they figure everything out.
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
• To be honest, this is another book series I read in order to watch the movies. My sister was the one who read it originally (her college roommate recommended it to her) and she told us all about this amazing new book series that was about to be made into movies. She shared her Kindle book with us and we all went to town reading it. We all fell in love with it and finished the first book before the movie originally came out. We made a sibling day of going to watch the movie in theaters.
• Of course, this is a series I hope I don't have to explain to my readers.
• Bonnets and Bugles by Gilbert Morris
• When I was younger, I wasn't much of a reader (I know, shocker). I was a quite the tomboy when I was in elementary school (being homeschooled allowed me to be outside a lot of the day during good weather). Most of my friends during this time were boys, so reading really wasn't something I did for recreation.
• My older sister actually tried to get me to read more by suggesting this series at the church library. When I finally cracked and started reading the books, I fell in love with reading about the kids who helped in the Civil War.
• The Adventures of Nathan T Riggins by Stephen Bly
• These books were another series in the church library that I checked out in middle school and early high school that helped me catch the reading bug.
• Nathan Riggins is a young teenager who is trying to figure out how to adjust to life in a small town in the Wild West. He finds a wolf and an Indian pony along the way of befriending several kids in town and the local Indians.
• The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner
• These books are some of the reasons I fell in love with reading. I remember back in elementary school (remember, I was homeschooled) when my siblings and I would sit around and take turns reading a chapter at a time of the first book of this series. When we finished the book, we would spend days upon weeks pretending that we were the kids in the book who were living in a boxcar to get away from the people who took us in.
• From there, my siblings and I would rush to the church library in order to check the next book of the series out before the others, that way we would be the first one to read ahead.