(Hi WN! Hope you've been keeping well. We miss you...)
A book suggestion for your niece: "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card. If she's smart and alienated, she will love that book, and she's at about the right age. That and some Heinleins should be enough to make her quite dangerous, later in life - she might end up an engineer or a programmer or an astronaut, you know...
Hi Jen! Hey, thanks for that suggestion. I have really found it subversively fun to share my young reading likes with my niece. All that part of the family is pretty sure I'm not a good influence on kids, but it's *so* delightful to turn this little gal onto some thinking girls books.
It's really been nice because this niece has had lots of troubles with some learning disabilities and the school has pretty much labeled her as somebody "not smart." She'd be a perfect candidate for home schooling but her parents are afraid to try. It did my heart lots of good to hear her so jazzed over Citizen of the Galaxy. You or Rose should have been there to hear her! She's grokked Heinlein. :-)