Take your readers on a literary adventure.
This year’s Children’s Book Week invites us all to “Book an Adventure”. It’s a wonderful opportunity to introduce young readers to storytellers whose works focus on the themes of discovery, courage and friendship. Here are 10 authors whose adventure stories we think deserve special attention.
TIP: You can look up each of these authors on Britannica School to learn more about their life, work and accomplishments.
Jackie French
Jackie French is a prolific Australian author with over 200 titles across fiction and non-fiction. Her works, such as Diary of a Wombat, are full of rich storytelling grounded in Australian life. Meanwhile Somewhere Around the Corner and They Came on Viking Ships are both adventure stories set against a historical backdrop.
P. L. Travers
Although often identified as English, P. L. Travers was actually born in Queensland, Australia. Her novel Mary Poppins, about a sensible English nanny with magical powers, blends fantasy and realism into a series of whimsical adventures that have enchanted readers for close to a century.
Grace Lin
Grace Lin’s Where the Mountain Meets the Moon combines tales inspired by Chinese folklore with the adventures of a girl who meets various people and magical animals on a journey to find a solution to her family’s poverty. Her stories are a great way to introduce children to meaningful narratives about culture and diversity.
Ruskin Bond
Ruskin Bond has written about 500 short stories, articles, essays, and novels over a career spanning more than six decades. Beloved for his gentle tales set in India’s hill regions, Bond’s stories will evoke childhood curiosity and a strong sense of place.
Gary Paulsen
The author of Hatchet, Gary Paulsen’s immersive survival adventures teach young readers about resilience and self-discovery in nature.
Discover more adventure authors with Britannica School
Kenneth Grahame
Kenneth Grahame is best known for The Wind in the Willows, a warm, sentimental tale of a group of animal protagonists – Mole, Rat, Badger, and Toad – who get up to all sorts of adventures (and misadventures) in the English countryside.
Astrid Lindgren
Swedish author Astrid Lindgren wrote some 100 children’s books, about half of which were translated into English. Although best known for her humorous adventure stories (such as her popular tales about the horse-lifting redhead Pippi Longstocking) she also penned mysteries, fantasies, folklore, realistic fiction, and picture books.
Rick Riordian
Author of the hugely popular Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, American author and teacher Rick Riordan blends Greek mythology with modern-day settings, making mythology accessible and thrilling for young readers.
Andy Griffith
Australian children’s author and educator Andy Griffiths started his writing career composing short stories to amuse his students. In 2011, together with illustrator Terry Denton, he published the first book in his Treehouse series, which follow the adventures of main characters Andy and Terry and their ever-expanding, multilevel treehouse (there’s a bowling alley, a see-through swimming pool, a giant catapult, and even a marshmallow machine).
J.R.R Tolkien
The man who invented Middle-earth, Tolkien’s classic fantasy adventure novel The Hobbit is richly inventive and perfect for young readers who enjoy quests, wizards, elves, dragons, and epic battles.
Ideas for Your Classroom or Library
Celebrate adventure and reading in your learning spaces with these ideas:
- 📚 Adventure Shelf: Create a reading display featuring one book from each of the authors above (or you can curate your own list of writers). Include a prompt like “Where will your next adventure begin?”
- 💬 Read-Aloud Sessions: Invite students to read a short, exciting passage from one of the books and discuss what makes it feel adventurous.
- ✏️ Creative Responses: Encourage students to map a character’s journey, write a short sequel, or illustrate a scene from the book.
- 🧙 Author Bio: Using the Author Biography worksheet, have students create a biography of their favourite adventure author. What are 3 questions they would ask them if given the chance?
Cover Image Credit: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin [image]. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 20 August 2025, from https://school.eb.com.au/levels/high/assembly/view/281451