I know of many good books, but they won't work well with kids as they require a lot of context one gets from living many years.
What books for kids age 10-13 have you discovered along the way that you wish you had read as a kid?
There's also the Lord of the Rings novels and the works of the greater Legendarium (Silmarillion, Children of Hurín, etc.)
The books I wish I read as a kid were the Count of Monte Cristo, the Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged, all of which I had read at the cusp of adulthood despite having the aptitude to understand the works as a teenager.
The premise was something along the lines of a future earth, that has faced catastrophic ecological collapse and led to three social stratas. The bottom class, which lived in the underground ruins of the old world, living in darkness and physical mutations are common. Then there was the perceived middle/upper class. Who lived in surface, and enjoyed a life of luxury, but it was all artificial, down to the sand on the beaches, which were plastic. I believe it was encompassed in a massive container to protect them from the dangers of the "outside world" (described at the point as being an inhospitable wasteland). All of this was built literally on top of the ruins on which the previous group lived.
And then there was a somewhat unknown class. You see, while the middle and upper class people were busy living in their plastic world, another group of the most elite had returned to old world, and started to rebuild... For themselves. The rebuilt enjoyed a mix of both the return of nature and the advance technology humanity had developed. Majority the underground underclass and the superficially wealthy upper and middle classes had no idea of , this outside a select few of the most powerful people within the upper society.
If I remember correctly, the plot focused on people from the middle/upper class strata recruiting and using the underclass bottom dwellers, some who had generated useful mutations, to fight against the highest elite, who were seen as hiding and exploiting for themselves the reborn earth and ecosystems. Ofc, they didn't tell any of these new recruits this until it was time to fight.
I'm probably remembering this wrong, but it's been frustrating I can even remember the name of the book. It did feel like I was more targeted towards kid/teenagers than some of the aforementioned books while still having a an interesting plot and morally ambiguous characters, actions, etc.
What year do you remember reading the book in? That may help narrow it down.
Like watching TV...huge void. Well except hero cartoons, action movies, actually had useful tips now that I'm a Roman Law hero. So May 12, 2012 I was told "you're our hero" by the victims in the spur of the moment after delivering from the criminal, (those are the criteria that must all be met for hero status in the context of Roman Law). He was issuing death threats, later gang mates too, and I realized, "oh I you actually are supposed to wear a mask, the cartoons were right." There's other smart things in there.
Still, my kids are around the same age as yours and haven't read those books despite my recommendations. :-) But they have also found some really great reading material by themselves through the school and library. Books and graphic novels that I wish were around when I was younger.
A very tender coming of age story, perfect for children.