The Hunger Games doesn’t really do casual readers. One minute your child is picking it up because everyone in their class is on about it, the next they’re surfacing from Mockingjay asking what on earth they’re supposed to read now.
If you’re reading this, my guess is you’ve already typed books like The Hunger Games into Google. And you’ve probably spotted the problem.
Every list says Divergent, Maze Runner, Red Rising. Teen books, written for teen readers, with teen romance and teen violence. Your reader is 10 or 11. There’s a real gap between the book they just loved and the books the internet wants to hand them next.
Hopefully this list closes that gap. Six survival stories with proper stakes, every one hand-picked for the Little Reads library and every one right for a 10 to 12 year old.
Why most “like The Hunger Games” lists don’t work for this age
In ten years of teaching I watched The Hunger Games work its magic on hundreds of Year 6 readers.
And what hooked them was a young person forced to grow up fast, making impossible choices, in a world where the adults have failed.
That’s what you need to be looking for next. Not the dark dystopia and not the violence, which is exactly what you don’t want more of at this age. Stakes, survival, and a lead their own age or close to it.
Everything below has it. (And if it is action in general they love, our hand-picked action books for children shelf has a tonne.)
Books like The Hunger Games for an 11 year old
The Enemy by Charlie Higson
The Enemy
The Enemy is the closest thing I’ve found to the Hunger Games.
Everyone over fourteen has succumbed to a deadly virus, and now the kids must keep themselves alive in a London gone feral.
Charlie Higson writes survival with real grit but keeps his young readers in mind.
For the confident reader at the top of this age band.
Where the World Turns Wild by Nicola Penfold
Where the World Turns Wild
Where the World Turns Wild is the one for the younger end.
Juniper lives in a walled city from which nature has been banished after a man-made disease, and she and her little brother dream of escaping into the wild.
If The Hunger Games felt a touch old for your reader, start here and work up.
Endgame: The Calling by James Frey
Endgame – The Calling
Twelve Players, chosen across thousands of years, waiting for a game they never thought would happen.
Then the meteors strike.
This is the pick for the child who loved the arena scenes, the alliances and the strategy, and wants more of exactly that.
Ground Zero by Alan Gratz
Ground Zero
Ground Zero is the survival story without the dystopia.
Brandon is visiting his dad on the 107th floor of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
Alan Gratz writes it minute by minute, and this was the one that constantly had a waiting list at the school library.
Serious subject matter dealt with in an appropriate way for exactly this age.
Resist by Tom Palmer
Resist
Resist has the closest character arc to Katniss.
In the Nazi-occupied Netherlands, after the murder of her uncle, a girl joins the resistance against an occupying regime that controls everything, including the food.
Tom Palmer writes short, punchy historical fiction.
Based on real events (Audrey Hepburn’s wartime childhood).
TrooFriend by Kirsty Applebaum
TrooFriend
TrooFriend is dystopia but not in a typical format.
The TrooFriend 560 is the latest in artificial intelligence, a robot friend who never steals, lies or bullies.
Except this one is developing feelings, and has just run away with her human.
A sinister near-future story that might conjure up some big questions so proceed with caution…
The famous ones (and where they actually sit)
Divergent, Maze Runner, Legend. They dominate every list, and they’re genuinely good, but they’re teen books. We deliberately don’t stock them, because our library stops at 11.
There are stepping stones with some of that epic weight, though. Northern Lights for parallel worlds and a heroine with everything at stake. Wolf Road for wilderness survival (it is the step-up pick in our Books Like Holes guide, which shares a lot of readers with this page). And Fever Crumb for strange far-future cities.
And if what they actually loved was a hero discovering a hidden world, What to Read After Percy Jackson is the sister list.
Not sure they’re ready for the trilogy?
If your child hasn’t read The Hunger Games yet and you’re wondering whether they should, I’ve written a whole piece on what age The Hunger Games is right for. The quick answer is that we stock the full trilogy for age 11, and the books on this page are good either side of it.
Every book here, and 3,000+ hand-picked others behind them. A free account gets you 100+ free books to test the water, and the full library is £7.99 a month after a 7-day free trial. Cancel anytime. The next survival story is sorted.