These would be for a 9 year old girl who reads at a pretty high level. I am looking for books that would interest her.
She has read the Harry Potter books and liked them and I have introduced her to some of the “classics” like Half Magic, How to Eat Fried Worms, The Wrinkle in Time books and the like.
I am leaning towards more of that later type category. Think Newberry Award type books.
Thanks!
PS - The first one to recommend any of the Twilight books gets the back side of me hand. 
The Egypt Game by Zilphia Keatley Snyder enraptured me at that age. The detailed descriptions of the game are the best part.
So did The Girl With The Silver Eyes by Willo Davis Roberts, about a little girl with magic powers–very much like Matilda by Roald Dahl…
For that matter, how about ALL those Roald Dahl books? Matilda and The Witches were my favorites.
My daughter just finished reading * The Invention of Hugo Cabret * which she adored. I read it too and really enjoyed it. It has a really complex plot line with a great deal of mystery, but it all becomes clear by the end.
Check it out!
Additionally:
She has read most of the Dahl books as well as the Black Cauldron series. Loved them both.
While we are all here, I could also use some help remembering some authors and titles.
There was a book about a kid who found out that his grandfather (?) was a magician, his grandfather was showing him how to open a door between worlds or something and got distracted and was lost. So the kid had to learn magic to get grandpa back. I remember a scene with him learning transformation and doing something to his desk and having trouble getting it back the right way. I think there was a female cousin or sister or something that ultimately helped him.
I also remember a series of books that took place on the moon. Like there were people there. At one point they visit earth and get captured and the protagonists anti grav device is taken apart or something? Kind of vague, I know.
More to come I am sure. Thanks for all the ideas so far.
The So You Want To Be A Wizard series is pretty good, author is Diane Duane.
I recommend Daniel Pinkwater a lot for boys, but he’s also great for girls. Lizard Music is one of my childhood favorites, and he has a relatively new one, The Neddiad, that I thought was a pip.
From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler comes up a lot, and E.L. Konigsburg has a bunch of other books that are also great, for 9 years old I would say The View From Saturday.
Elizabeth Enright is a terrific author (and underrated, I think, because her subject matter seems a little dated at first glance, it’s all brothers and sisters having adventures kind of stuff, but she’s as GOOD writer) - The Saturdays, The Four Story Mistake, Gone-Away Lake, are a few titles.
If she likes books like Little House (I’m assuming she’d already have read the Little House books), Carol Ryrie Bink’s Caddie Woodlawn is good.
Recent titles that I liked a lot:
Masterpiece, by Elise Broach
The Penderwicks (series, there are three), by Jane Birdsall
When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead (if as you say, she’s a strong reader at 9, usually I would say this is more of a 10 - 11 recommendation)
11 Birthdays, by Wendy Mass
Here is a list I made for a friend (who wanted suggestions for her daughter), sorry it’s so long, I’m like one of those crazy Cafe Society “list machines” - but I do love all of these!!!
These are great! Keep 'em coming!
Also, do the “name these books” from my other post upthread ring any bells?
How about The Hobbit?
The Chronicles of Narnia are good, if you don’t mind the religious symbolism.
Where the Red Fern Grows and Summer of the Monkeys by Wilson Rawls were childhood favorites of mine.
More tearjerker animal novels are The Yearling by M. K. Rawlings and Old Yeller (and other books) by Fred Gipson.
Most of my suggestions have already been mentioned, but my 9-year-old has been enjoying the Percy Jackson Lightning Thief series.
Has she read Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events books?
Seconding Percy Jackson, though I haven’t read any of them personally. But, my 11-year-old nephew loves them. The author is Rick Riordan.
Surprised no one’s mentioned Norton Juster’s great The Phantom Tollbooth. It’s a classic, it’s very clever, and it will get her thinking about language, mathematics, and ideas. And it’s a good story.
Susan Cooper’s Darkness Rising gave me an agreeable sense of mystery when I was a preteen; though she might find it a bit tame next to Harry Potter.
I’m trying my best to come up with some not already mentioned. Glory’s list is epic!
Almost everything by Diana Wynne Jones, who has written what feels like a hundred hilarious and moving children’s and young adult fantasy novels. If she likes Harry Potter she will probably love DWJ.
Also:
A Room Made of Windows (my personal fave at her age)
Walk Two Moons
The Boggart
The Jungle Book and Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (I found Tom Sawyer dull in comparison)by Mark Twain
To Kill a Mockingbird**
Mrs Frisby and the Rats of Nimh
Ender’s Game
Julie of the Wolves
The Little Prince
Shabanu: Daughter of the Winds*
My Side of the Mountain
Lord of the Flies*
The Wind in the Willows
The Hall Family Chronicles by Jane Langton; my favorite (but saddest) is The Fledgling
The Diary of Anne Frank*
*The first few of Brian Jaques’ *Redwall series (which should have died a long time ago) are good. Redwall, Mossflower, Mattimeo, Mariel of Redwall, Salamandastron, and Martin the Warrior
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede
Heidi
Number the Stars
Goody Hall
Understood Betsy
The first of the Emily series by LM Montgomery (I liked her better than Anne)
The Indian in the Cupboard and sequels
The … Fairy Books, by Andrew Lange
The Princess and the Goblin
The Mouse and the Motorcycle
*
**contain some heavy material such as child marriage, criminal trials for rape, murder, slavery, racism, genocide etc.I read most of these by the time I was 10 or so with much enjoyment and without emotional scars, though!
Lots of girls at that age love animals, especially horses, so Marguerite Henry, Walter Farley, and Jim Kjelgaard might be worth a shot.
The 13 Clocks, by James Thurber
Book of a Thousand Days, by Shannon Hale (unless I’m forgetting anything unsavory about it. I remember loving it when I read it a few years ago)
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, by Joan Aiken. Probably my very favorite book as a child.
Seconding The Westing Game and From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankwiler.
And three newer books that didn’t work so well for me but might really hit the right notes for a 9 year old:
The Mysterious Benedict Society, by Trenton Lee Stewart
The Name of this Book is Secret, by Pseudonymous Bosch
Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians, by Brandon Sanderson
Have you tried Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising books? I loved, loved, loved them as a child (and still do.) Or Diana Wynne Jones - The Nine Lives of Christopher Chant, for example, is great.
When I was a little older I fell for Tamora Pierce like old growth timber for a lumberjack. Might be a bit mature for her now. (Very nice lady, by the way.)
Yep–my high-reader third-graders love the Lightning Thief series. I read the first one as a matter of research. It’s not fantastic literature (e.g., not The Prydain Chronicles), but it’s pretty fun stuff.
One of those super-good readers came in to class the first day with The Hunger Games. I haven’t read it, but they’re young-adult; others can speak to their appropriateness.
Inkspell, by Cornelia Funke, has a female protagonist and is excellent. The books center a family who can read a story and bring something in the story to life–but there’s always a cost. I haven’t read the second in the series. The first one isn’t gory or anything, but there’s definitely violence in it.
Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book is pretty good, and Coraline is flippin’ great.
Last recommendation: The Watsons Go to Birmingham is a surprisingly fun book about a black family that visits Birmingham during the civil rights movement. I avoided it for a long time, afraid that it was going to be Deep and Meaningful and Relevant and Tragic. Nah, it’s just a great novel for kids. Newbery winner, too!
Glory already mentioned them but I have to second these:
Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
And I have to add the following:
by Keith Roberston
Henry Reed, Inc.
Henry Reed’s Journey
Henry Reed’s Babysitting Service
by Eleanor Estes
The Moffats
Rufus M
Ginger Pye
The Middle Moffat
Pinky Pye
by Robert Lawson
Ben and Me
by Robert McCloskey
Homer Price
Centerburg Tales
by Carl Hiaasen
Hoot
+1 on Dianna Wynne Jones. The first time I read Harry Potter, I thought how much it seemed like Dianna Wynne Jones. I especially liked Archer’s Goon and The Lives of Christopher Chant.
I also just recommended in another thread, Whales on Stilts! by M.T. Anderson.
+1 for A Series of Unfortunate Events.
IMHO, the “Little House” series by Laura Ingalls Wilder should be mandatory for EVERY little girl!
~VOW
When I was that age, I read the horse books (Black Stallion, Misty of whatever) and a lot of Andre Norton’s books. I also read a lot of Heinlein’s juveniles. I read some of Diana Wynne Jones’ books to my daughter when she was that age (Lisa is dyslexic, so I read to her until the end of middle school), and the reason that she took up recreational reading is because of DWJ. Now she’s an avid reader. I also read a lot of Beverly Cleary.
I read a couple of the “Little House” books as a young girl, but found them boring to the point of tears. Now that I’m an adult, I can appreciate how different Laura’s life was, and how she had to do without so many things that I take for granted.