20+ Fabulous Books for 12 Year Old Girls

Zurika Damani plays the violin with a sprinkle of hip-hop and has just been rejected by Julliard. Her current options are to go to college for pre-law or compete in a contest judged by major college scouts (including Julliard scouts). The only problem is that the contest is during her big sister’s week-long Indian wedding. Thankfully, her cousins band together to help her disappear during the ceremony without being discovered. But things get complicated when Zurika finds out that the group’s South African cousin is a fellow contestant. This is a rambunctious, chaotic story about family and music and featuring a swoony enemies-to-lovers romance. No language or sexual content.

Zahra Khan is a new high school graduate who’s saving up for college—which she’s had to defer because her mom can’t afford to send her just yet. Her mother, though? She thinks their family’s way out is an arranged marriage to a wealthy family. Too bad the family’s son, Harun Emon, doesn’t care for Zahra. Zahra herself is falling for a new waiter in the cafe where she works. So Harun and Zahra band together to make their parents call off the courtship. But we all know that love doesn’t quite play by the rules, don’t we? This is a romantic, tender, feel-good Pride and Prejudice retelling with lots of insight into Bangladeshi culture, arranged marriages, and Bangladeshi film history. It’s really good on audio and free of sexual content or language.

Kasie West books are the perfect romance for this age group and this one is my favorite of the lot so far. It’s about a girl who becomes a podcast host and starts doling our relationship advice. When a boy who she thinks likes her best friend starts asking for advice, she’s invested in helping him out. Soon, though, her helpful feelings begin to feel more like attraction.

Jia, Everett, and Ariel are high school besties whose summer plans could not be any more different. Jia is a Chinese-American helping out at her family’s restaurant in Chinatown while looking after her little sister and grandmother. Everett is a Vietnamese-American off to theater camp in Ohio, while Ariel, the genius Korean-American, is in pre-college grieving the death of her older sister months before. As the summer progresses, all three girls will need their friendship to anchor them through the waves of grief, first loves, and standing up for themselves. I LOVED the depiction of friendship in this book and the way the author brings cities and characters to life. If you loved The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and can’t get enough of emotional, fast-paced YA stories — this book is for you! Nearly no language and no sexual content.

Gary Vo is a Vietnamese-American soon-to-be junior high schooler. Gary and his friend Preston have been at the bottom of the social totem pole forever, and Preston is determined that this is the summer they rise up the ranks. So when they’re approached by two popular classmates with an offer to join their group, the boys are all ears! The task is to steal a bracelet from Gloria Buenrostro (a popular, but mysterious A+ student) so the boys can add it to their collections of tokens from “the hottest girls” in school. Easy enough, no? That is until Gary Vo befriends Gloria and realizes that there’s more to her than meets the eye. This is a richly layered, relatable teen novel about what it means to be a man and how to be a good friend.

Chloe Chang lives a boring life in Oklahoma — with her busy single mom and her two best friends — where she loves watching K-dramas. But when her best friends gift her a 23-and-me test kit for her birthday, things take a dramatic turn. She finds out that her father was a son of the Noh family, a prestigious family in Seoul, South Korea and before she knows it, she’s off to meet them for the first time. Unfortunately, she’s thrust into a web of lies as she realizes that the family might have ulterior motives for reaching out to her. This is a suspenseful, dramatic, and highly engaging YA book about Korean high society, family drama, and finding your voice.

The Boy Next Story is the second book in the BOOKISH BOYFRIENDS series by Tiffany Schmidt—I LOVED this one. You can totally skip the first book, A Date with Darcy, and read this one without missing a beat. I enjoyed this one much more than I did the first book, probably because I could relate more to introverted, overthinker, Rory. I also fell HARD for her love interest. And the intersection of the bookish storylines in this series makes me so happy! I love seeing all the modern takes on classics. This series actually makes me want to read and watch the classics — Little Women & Pride and Prejudice. I would especially recommend it for YA lovers looking for a sweet, fresh take on the classics.

Since her mom died during the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s been just Chloe and her dad. She worries about their finances, so when she has the chance to go on a school trip to Broadway, she’s hesitant to tell him. On a good note, there’s a boy she maybe likes? He works at a boba tea place in her neighborhood, and things are going well until an altercation at the shop ends with Chloe being banned from the boba tea place. What unfolds is a string of chaotic, surprising, and satisfying events, including a boba-making business, two lost lovers reuniting, and a new furry family member. Bubble Trouble is a lighthearted, feel-good middle grade romance — the exact kind constantly sought out by kids in this age group.

Eliza Lin has never had a boyfriend and moves every couple of years because of her mother’s exec role. Now she’s a new kid again at an international school in Beijing with a viral essay about as boyfriend she doesn’t have. She convinces a classmate and famous author to fake date her until the storm blows over. And we all know how fake dating goes. This is a cute YA rom-com about identity (especially when it’s hard to put the finger on “home”), life in the spotlight, and embracing vulnerability.

The art in this book is phenomenal, and it is also a sweet YA romance featuring Val, a girl who feels like she’s destined for constant heartbreak. I appreciated the plot, but it’s on the longer side and has fantastical elements this author is well known for. Readers who love romance and a touch of fantasy will adore this one. No sexual content and zero language. It also tackles several important themes (parental abandonment, identity, alcoholism) sensitively.

Fox Point’s Own Gemma Hopper follows 7th grader Gemma Hopper, whose mother has left their family. Gemma lives with her dad, older brother Teddy, and their twin younger brothers. While their dad works overtime to fend for the family materially, Gemma is saddled with caring for the home and her twin siblings while also serving as a ball machine/practice partner for her brother, who’s a baseball prodigy of sorts. One day, while practicing with Teddy, she strikes him out with two impressive pitches, capturing the attention of some scouts from a competitive baseball team. All of sudden, Gemma now also has star potential. Can both siblings find a way to work together? This is an engaging graphic novel about family (absent mothers), baseball, and sibling relationships.

Since their father died, sisters Gigi and Lucy haven’t seen eye to eye. Their mother is worn out by her grief and her demanding job and can’t deal with their constant bickering. Now, Lucy is a new 6th grader at the school where Gigi is the 8th grade Queen Bee, and on Lucy’s first day, the girls get into an altercation that ends with Lucy challenging her sister (and school fencing champion) to a duel. What follows are chapters alternating between each girl’s first-person narration as they go between the past and present, exploring their relationship, where it went wrong, and planning their fencing duel. This story has sports, friendship, sisterhood, family, grief, and even a grandparent relationship, lending it some major kid and adult appeal! It’s a spectacular debut–one of the best I’ve ever read.

Rich kid Alice Ogilvie and her new tutor Iris Adams are forced to work together when one of Alice’s former besties (who stole her boyfriend) is found murdered with Alice’s ex-boyfriend as the prime suspect. As the two girls collaborate in this funny, cozy mystery, they end up finding a warm friendship with each other — and the shocking culprit.

Avery is a high schooler living in her car when she discovers she’s been named heiress to the fortune of Tobias Hawthorne, a man she never knew. There’s only one condition: She has to live in the family home with Hawthorne’s kids and grandsons (one of whom was heir apparent) for a year — while solving some intriguing riddles along the way. I didn’t love this one as much as many teens do, but it is a huge favorite, and I like that there’s barely any strong language. It’s also a traditional mystery with little to no gritty elements.

Weatherby is a new kid at a Boston private school. She’s at the school on a sailing scholarship and immediately is thrust into a world she knows nothing about. Old school phone booths, scrambled phone service at school, friends with kids who go to the country club, and a boy who seems to hate her guts. Jack is a rich kid at the school who is also on the sailing team and is constantly pressured by his father to be the best. When the money for a famed school trip is stolen, Jack, Weatherby, and some of their friends are invited to play a high-stakes secret game that leads to the revelation of shocking family secrets. This suspenseful mystery, told from Jack’s and Weatherby’s perspectives, is fast-paced and high-stakes, perfect for the upper middle-grade crowd.

Greer, Joya, and Kiki are three best friends born just after Hurricane Katrina. Now 12 years after the catastrophe, they’re dealing with personal life struggles. Greer feels responsible for an accident that left her sister paralyzed from the waist down and has stopped running track–something she loved dearly before the accident, Kiki is grappling with an absentee father, and Joya is trying to help her financially strained family. Kiki decides that the three girls will sign up for a triathlon to get Greer back into running, but the plan ends up changing all three girls’ lives. The Hurricane Girls is a warm, stirring, and sparkling middle grade book about female friendships, body image, sports, and self-forgiveness.

When Rory moves to Cincinnati, Ohio, with her dad after her parents’ separation, she meets Abby, a tall fellow basketball lover, and the two become fast friends. Imagine their shock when they find out that their dads can’t stand each other — and not because they coach the city’s rival basketball teams but because of something that happened years ago when THEY were middle schoolers. Bishop takes us through the girls’ lives as they dig into what happened between their dads, telling the story from multiple perspectives: the girls’, their dads’, and a ball-playing nun in their lives. Free Throws, Friendship, and Other Things We Fouled Up is a fast-paced and compelling book about true friendships, family secrets, forgiveness, and basketball.

In The Braid Girls, Maggie’s summer is off to a rocky start when her parents announce that she has a half-sister—a daughter her father never knew about until now. Callie’s presence throws off soft-spoken Maggie’s dynamic with her outspoken best friend Daija, even more when Callie joins their hair-braiding business. The Braid Girls is a sweet, relatable middle grade book about sisterhood, entrepreneurship, and finding your voice. 

In this companion to A Song Called Home, Kyra’s mother is an alcoholic in recovery. She could always count on having her best friend, Lu — until now. Lu has new friends and splits her time between both friend groups, eventually asking Kyra to join them sometimes. Kyra is also getting bullied for being bigger than most other 13-year-olds. Already, Kyra does so much at home: cooking, and even helping her mom out with her cleaning job. But then her mother starts acting weird, leading Kyra to believe that she’s relapsed. I loved how the author shows readers that recovery is not linear and I enjoyed watching Kyra feel safe in her own skin. Hand to fans of Sumner’s Maid for It and readers who love books featuring food and cooking.

Maudie is a sweet, autistic girl spending the summer with her dad. When her dad’s home is razed in a California wildfire, they move to the small beach town where her father grew up. Throughout the summer, as Maudie makes new friends, starts learning to surf, and enters a surfing contest, a secret tugs at her–one her mother has asked her to keep from her dad. The Fire, The Water, and Maudie McGinn is a vivid, triumphant, and authentic coming-of-age story about discovering one’s inner strength.

It’s the 90s, and Tori (Victoria) Reeves is planning the first magnificent summer with her father since he left their family over two years ago. He now has a new partner and two kids but is taking Victoria and her two siblings with his new family camping in Ohio. As the trip progresses, Victoria and her siblings realize that their father hasn’t changed much from the emotionally abusive parent he was. But will he stop Victoria from writing her own story? The First Magnificent Summer is a vivid, heartwrenching, and emotionally resonant book about dealing with difficult parents and navigating a first period.

This stunning graphic novel follows Cinzia, an Avvisi’s/newswriter’s apprentice living in sunny Sianerra. Cinzia and her mestra write news stories/pamphlets to the city, but not everyone likes it when they tell the truth. After an edition exposing the ruling family for extortion, Cinzia and her Mestra are arrested at night, and she has to join forces with the princess to fight back against censorship. This is a beautiful graphic novel about activism, speaking the truth, and speaking up despite censorship. 

Apple and Dorothy are half-gods, descendants of the Greek gods Zeus and Hera and Pandora, respectively. When Dorothy’s mother refuses to return to Olympus one solstice, she becomes a full human and is soon killed in a car accident, leaving Dorothy and her father grieving. Motivated by a promise she made to Dorothy’s mother, Apple befriends Dorothy. But when the gods rule that all half-gods must return home to Olympus and take their place as gods or remain human, Dorothy chooses Earth, to Apple’s dismay. Apple’s fear of losing Dorothy leads her to make a decision with terrible consequences. As a non-fantasy reader, I loved this book — how clever, creative, and profound it is, especially in the way it approaches friendship and grief. I think fans of Greek mythology will love it.