Posted on 12/01/2009 6:14:54 PM PST by highimpact
I'm seeking help finding a new author and/or book suggestions for my daughter for Christmas. She is 12 going on 13, and very smart (gifted student, genius IQ, home-schooled.) She is moving beyond her pre-teen books.
I'm looking for books/authors that are early adult, without graphic sexual/horror situations. She enjoys mystery, history (fiction or non-fiction), adventure, and romantic comedy. She is a big fan of Brian Jacques and Gail Carson Levine.
Any of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes books would work and for a bit of fun contrasting today's science fiction have her read his "The Lost World".
The Little Britches series (8 books) by Ralph Moody. Autobiography/recollections of growing up in Colorado (& elsewhere) in the early 1900’s. Great, wholesome, honorable tales of survival and family values during rough times. Lots of horse & outdoor stuff. I loved them when I was 10 and read and enjoyed them again in my 50’s.
Digging into the memory banks here for what I was reading at that age. I think my favorites way back then were Christy by Catherine Marshall and Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier. Jamaica Inn by Du Maurier was also a favorite.
One other suggestion if you don’t mind. The Nancey Drew series of books(if you can find them)are a good way for a modern teenager to see what teenagers were like in the late 1930s and early 40s. Not to mention Nancy is a good role model:)
Diary of Anne Frank has nearly nothing to do with concentration camps other than the fear of them. This is a diary written during the time that the family (along with another jewish family) was being hidden in the attic of an office building and the crush she had on the teenage boy of the other family.
My 12 year old loves it and I certainly recommend it. I mostly do so because it makes it real to the kids what it COULD be like. I mean this was a real girl, these were her real words and her real experience.
I see, well I started reading when I was 41/2(really) so don’t have reference as to what age a person should start reading Tom Sawyer, since I read before age 6, but I read it now and then even today, just to refresh my memory of Sam Clemens and his style of writing.
This book looks great! Hope I get it for Christmas.
I’ll tell you a good series that I enjoyed and that is the Xanth series by Piers Anthony. They are not deep, they are not nobel worthy literature, but they are very very cute without being childish. It’s a fantasy world with a lot of cute word play the objects as well as the characters.
has she read the little house series? or the harry potter series? both are very good for that age i think.
i discovered mary stewart at about that same age. her arthurian trilogy is wonderful.
the crystal cave
the hollow hills
the last enchantment.
Oh Oh Oh, I love Authurian legend and that is an excellent book!
The Laura Ingalls Wilder series (Little House in the Big Woods thru The First Four Years)
The Anne of Green Gables series by L. M. Montgomery
I loved both and read all of them over & over again!
and C.S. Lewis for Sci Fi
I think I read every Nancy Drew, Bobsy Twins and Trixie Beldon in my childhood. Figures I’d grow to want a career in forensic/detective work, LOL
Thanks, Highimpact's wife
“has she read the little house series?”
I was thinking about Little House before posting. It’s a definite must-read. Never heard of Mary Stewart. I’ll check her out. Thanks!
“My 12 year old loves it and I certainly recommend it.”
Thanks.
The Endless Steppe by Esther Hautzig is a WWII story told from a very different point of view.
Call It Courage by Armstrong Sperry is a Polynesian tale.
Shadow Hawk by Andre Norton is set in Egypt.
I respect their judgment on the ones I haven't read and concur on the classics, and would add that she might enjoy a trip to Venus with Podkayne Of Mars by Robert A. Heinlein.
I don't think you can harm a child by giving them challenging reading, especially if you have a budding bibliophile.
“Watership Down” by ?Adams? [it’s an adventure about the pursuit of liberty ; the characters are wild rabbits seeking a new land and amazingly enough it’s so well-written that you can become absorbed enough not to think it strange. They encounter fascistlike, communistlike and deranged artsy rabbit cultures living in a welfare state, etc, before finally finding a place suitable for their new colony to thrive and be free. ]
“Traveler,” by the same author as Watership Down, as I recall. It’s not as long or elaborate as that book, but it’s still a good short read. It is a story about the civil war written from the perspective of General Lee’s horse.
Anything from the Hornblower series of books. The main figure is aa Royal Navy officer and they are interesting whether you’re a boy or a girl.
Paul O. Williams has a series of fantasy-adventure books that were fun to read.
Robert Heinlein’s short science fiction stories are good too.
Alan Dean Foster had some good sci-fi books in his earlier years though his fantasy works were weird and not so interesting.
On a more serious note there is “Five Years to Freedom” about Vietnam. Very serious but very readable.
“I don’t think you can harm a child by giving them challenging reading, especially if you have a budding bibliophile.”
Agreed. The more challenging, the better. A “budding bibliophile” is probably a good descriptor.
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