Children's and young adult book ideas to give this Sant Jordi

Fantasy books, mystery books, dystopian stories, personal diaries, and traditional tales with block letters, cursive letters, or print letters. And sagas, many sagas. Students from Institut Escola Sant Felip Neri in Barcelona, aged 4 to 15, have recommended their favorite books to us, as well as those that once opened the door to the enjoyment of reading. These are their recommendations for this Sant Jordi.

When Guillem is asked what his favorite book is, he doesn't hesitate: Els Gegants del Pi. L'origen de la cançó. In fact, there's no time to ask him why before he's already opened it and started explaining it out loud, isolating himself from any questions that might be asked. He shows he knows it by heart. “I like the giants, my favorite is Mustafá because he has a pine tree,” he recounts. It's also the story he reads practically every night with his mother just before going to sleep. “The funniest thing about the giants is that they dance,” he says. But although it's clear that for Guillem this story has no competition, he brings another that holds the second position in the ranking: El meu llitet, by J.S. Pinillos (Estrella Polar). “I like those that have lots and lots of drawings,” he says. Once again, he becomes engrossed in the story while everyone listens to him describe the illustrations with emotion.

“I’m a little nervous”, confesses Álex before talking to Criatures, a nervousness she quickly forgets when talking about books: “My favorite story is hardcover and it’s called The dark fly”. She admits she’s a “fan” of this story. “I really like reading, having stories explained to me, and the things stories explain”. Like Guillem, Álex also reads at night with her mother. “While she reads to me, I play games like «Where is the little star? Here or here?»”, she explains. She likes stories so much that she even dares to explain the legend of Sant Jordi. Her version is quite similar to the original but introduces some new nuances, like comparing the knight to Captain America when he tries to stop the flames the dragon throws at him. When asked what is done for Sant Jordi, she replies: “Hugs, kisses, and roses, books, and things are given”.

Zainab really likes dogs, which is why the book she recommends stars this animal, who shares adventures with a robot and a child. It's called En pispa, el lladregot. "Together they do very fun things and the pages also have windows to open," she says. It's a short book – she explains – and written in block letters, which are easier for her to read than cursive. She remembers that the first block letter stories they started reading in class were about a witch. She also used to read with a group of children and with the guidance of a teacher. "We have also taken books in the traveling folder to read at home." Zainab doesn't yet know how she will celebrate Sant Jordi's Day nor is it clear to her what book she will choose, but at school they have already started the preparations. "We've started making a rose and a bookmark, but we still need to create the stem of the rose and the red leaves [sic]," she explains.

Like many children his age, Zack has already read more than one book from the Geronimo Stilton saga. “My favorite is Geronimo Stilton. Secret Agent Zero Zero Ka”, he shyly points out. While showing the cover, he assures that what most captivates him are the numerous and fun adventures that the famous mouse experiences. “I like it because he discovers things. In the case of this book, for example, the spy goes to the same class as Geronimo”, he explains. The illustrations and the games included in the saga (from pages that smell of something specific to games with clues) are another of the things Zack likes most. The series is also characterized by the mix of texts with block letters and others with cursive letters, which allows early readers to practice reading with both types of scripts.

The book Etna recommends, she discovered it at school. “It's School of Secret Powers and very exciting things happen.” “It’s about a boy –she explains– who arrives at the school and has the extraordinary power to move time and things.” Etna enjoys reading and what she likes most is the message each book conveys. “My favorites are adventure stories, because things happen that you don't expect and they get worse and worse, until, in the end, everything settles into its place and the book ends well.” Etna is already counting down the days until Sant Jordi and going with her parents to the Abracadabra bookstore to choose a new story. Last year she remembers being given Stinky Dog in Paris.

Just like Zack, Guillem has also opted for a book series. In this case, for The Mystery Hunters, which features three siblings as protagonists: Ulises, Nora, and Bruno. Although he has read several, he has chosen to recommend the ninth installment of the collection. “It’s a very long series and the mystery always happens when the parents aren’t around,” he explains. Each issue, he adds, presents a mystery and as you read, you find various clues that help you discover, at the end of each story, who the culprit is. In The Case of the Secret Cave the reader has to figure out who is behind the disappearance of one of the siblings from a pair of twins. Guillem will take advantage of Sant Jordi to go for a walk and choose a book.

Martí has chosen the title that kicks off the series Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Percy is a boy of about 12 years old who, when he discovers he is the son of a Greek god, has to complete a secret mission. “I liked it a lot because it reminds me of reality.” He says the whole saga has him “hooked” and he especially likes the fifth one, the one that closes the saga and in which there is a final war. He tried to read them when he was 9 years old but then he didn't like them, it wasn't the right time. He really enjoys reading comics and recommends another series: Cousins SA, about five cousins who create a detective agency. Some books are recommendations from his brother, but he admits that he doesn't like many of them because his brother is more into mystery books. When he reads, he “disconnects from the world”: “They tell me half an hour and when I realize it, an hour has already passed.” His time to read is before going to sleep and what he likes most about Sant Jordi is that his father buys him “a candy rose”.

The book fell into her hands because she won it in a raffle at a school party. “I started reading it and I liked it a lot, and since a friend of mine had won the second one, I asked her for it and I've kept going. ¡Now I'm on the 8th!”, she explains. It's the diary of a girl who has started high school and has the problems of a girl her age: arguments with her sister and parents, with a girl who makes her life impossible, conflicts at school... Aina likes it because “it's an adventure book but at the same time it explains things about real life, about day to day life”. She likes graphic novels and personal diaries. In fact, she also keeps a diary. “Sometimes I sit on the sofa to read with my dad and my mom, and I also read at night to finish relaxing and be able to fall asleep”. For Sant Jordi, besides looking at stalls, she will go to eat with the family because it is her father's saint's day.

David introduces the 18th book in the collection Diary of a Wimpy Kid, which humorously narrates the life of young Greg Heffley through texts and drawings. He particularly likes this one and number 14. “But the whole series is really cool, and it’s about a kid who enters middle school and experiences a new stage of life.” A bit like him, who has just started middle school: “You feel identified with the new things and new experiences he goes through. And he’s a funny and mischievous character,” he assures. “There’s quite a bit of text but there are also images, and then it’s less boring to read, especially for people who don’t like it as much.” But he also likes reading books without images so he can imagine what is being explained himself. He usually reads in the afternoons, when he has time, on weekends, or at night. Now that Sant Jordi is coming, he recommends books “about things you like, to learn, and then, at the same time, you learn not to make spelling mistakes.” He already has one in mind about football, a sport he is fond of.

It's one of the last books she's read and she says she connected a lot with it because of the writer's way of writing. “She writes in a very deep way, but at the same time not very complicated. And although the story has nothing to do with me because it takes place in a dystopian future where humanity no longer lives but survives, the way the protagonist expresses her fears, what she feels, makes me feel reflected in it,” highlights Aina. Friends recommended it to her and she admits it was a “good buy”. She often exchanges books with friends and they recommend them to each other. She likes to read adventure, science fiction, fantasy, and criminology books. “Also that there is a bit of a love story but not that it is all romantic, which I find too cloying”. And she admits that she also reads “to escape the world” and enter new ones, so it doesn't matter to her if the protagonists are boys or girls, although she admits that she connects more with female characters. And while she explains that many people she knows “don't read”, her class is very fond of reading, especially the girls.

Lena recommends a book that, as she herself says, “has its years”. Reunion, which is the original title, was published in 1972 and narrates the intense friendship between two 16-year-old boys, one Jewish and the other a Christian aristocrat, in Germany in 1932, at the height of the rise of Nazism, and their subsequent reunion. “You can read it in a day because it is very easy to read, it reads very quickly, but the way it is written and the depth of the thoughts I loved and I cried with the ending”, she says. Lena grew up surrounded by books because her mother works in a publishing house, and it is she who recommends many titles to her, “especially those more classic books”, explains this young woman.

When choosing a book, she says that apart from the story being well-constructed, she looks at whether it is well-written: “The way an author writes is very important to me, because if it is too simple, you don't delve as deeply”. The Harry Potter saga was her gateway to literature and since then she has not stopped reading. She does it whenever she has a moment. “I had always read, but Harry Potter was the moment I said: «Wow, I love reading!»”. She cites Jules Verne, Rebecca Yarros, and Hannah Whitten among her favorite authors, and whenever she can, she escapes to the library, although she admits that among the books she buys, the ones she borrows, and the ones she is given, titles pile up. Regarding mandatory high school readings, she assures that she doesn't feel “identified” with some of them and doesn't connect, and that she prefers when they are made to read more current novels.

She explains that she loves Sant Jordi: walking, roses, and, of course, buying books. But she admits it's a danger: “Because I accumulate a lot of books and in the end, if I buy more, I'll have to leave home, because we don't have space!” And for those who don't like reading, she has the following message: “If you don't like reading, it's because you haven't found that point of reading. It's not like watching a series that just passes you by. You have to concentrate, but you have to try because once you manage to reach that point where you are totally immersed in the story, then you will get hooked on the book. And I can assure you: you will love reading!”, she concludes.

This young adult science fiction saga is Íria's choice. The protagonist is Katniss Everdeen, 16 years old, who lives in the post-apocalyptic and dystopian country of Panem, where the Capitol has seized power and oppresses the rest of the territory, made up of 12 districts. The Hunger Games is an annual televised event in which 24 young people are forced to fight each other until only one survivor remains. “I like it because it mixes fiction and action with social criticism that can be adapted to my life. And I also like it because the games are made as if they were a spectacle, and how it explains it, from the point of view of those in the Capitol and those in the districts,” says Íria.

Her older sister recommended the book to her. She has two and they are also avid readers. “She has the whole collection and I got hooked very quickly,” she admits. Although she has enjoyed the film adaptations, she recommends reading the books. She usually likes all the books her sister recommends to her – that was also the case with the Harry Potter saga –, with the exception of “Victorian era” ones. She really likes dystopian stories, but also mystery books, like Agatha Christie's, but Harry Potter was the saga that got her hooked on reading.

From a book, she values that it is well written and that she can connect with the character even if she is not going through the same thing. And she doesn't have a preferred genre. As for her classmates, she assures that in class there are very avid readers but also others who “read very little, only the mandatory school books”. “I wish it were more evenly distributed and that everyone read a little,” she says. Among friends, they also recommend books to each other: “Sometimes we even read them at the same time and ask each other: what chapter are you on? And we comment on what's happening, and it's really cool.” She understands that they spend more hours on screens “because if you've been studying all day, in the end you want to disconnect and it's easier to do it with a movie, which doesn't require much effort”. She admits that sometimes she is tired and thinks: do I have to read now? “But I tell myself «Do it», because in the end I really enjoy reading”. For Sant Jordi, she will go for a walk and look at the bookstalls, and she already has a few titles on her list.