If she liked Nancy Drew, she may also like Trixie Belden. Or The Hardy Boys…clean, wholesome adventure/teen detective stuff.
The Little House series…think this was the inspiration for the Little House on the Prairie tv series.
Heinlein’s juveniles. Maybe start her with something like Podkayne of Mars.
I found Cart and Cwidder to be rather boring, and it’s not an essential part of the series. Jones is an excellent author, though. Some of her books are meant for adults, but most are very good for readers of any age. I can never get through the end of Dogsbody without bawling, though.
I read, and greatly enjoyed, Heinlein’s juveniles when I was a kid, and they hold up.
I would NOT give her David Edding’s books. They might be OK for boys, but I found his attitude towards women to be between irritating and downright insulting.
Depending on how mature she is, she might really, really like the Sheepfarmer’s Daughter trilogy by Elizabeth Moon. A young woman’s father tries to force her into an unwanted marriage, and she runs away and joins the army. There is a near rape in one of the books, but it’s not terribly graphic. I like Moon’s fantasy far more than I do her science fiction.
When my daughter was 13, she read a copy of The Silent Tower and The Silicon Mage by Barbara Hambly to tatters. Again, there are sexual situations. One minor female character has a girlfriend, and one main male character is male, but has a thing for teenage boys. I was OK with this, but other people vary. Dragonsbane, also by Hambly, is another great book. People are in sexual relationships without being married, but I don’t think that there’s anything more explicit than a kiss shown.
The Spiderwick Chronicles by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black
The Goosebumps series by R.L.Stine and the Babysitters Club series by Ann M. Martin were really popular in the 90’s
Percy Jackson and the Olympians series - Rick Riordan
Tollkien’s The Hobbit (and if she really, really likes it, maybe the Lord of the Rings)
My niece and nephew are currently raving about the Warriors series, by Erin Hunter. They’re not quite so enchanted with her current series, Seekers, but they are reading them. (She’s almost 14, he’s 10).
Ursula LeGuin’s Earthsea stories (A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan, The Farthest Shore, Tehanu, The Other Wind, Tales from Earthsea)
Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern - especially the first trilogy (Dragonflight, Dragonquest, and The White Dragon) and the Harper Hall trilogy (Dragonsinger, Dragonsong, and Dragondrums)
Any of those should be suitable for a 13 year old. And I’d say have her give Harry Potter another try. He’s 12 at the start of the first book, and they are very well written, and are intended as juveniles.
When she’s a bit older, you might also consider:
Tanya Huff’s “Blood” series, if she likes vampires specifically (Vicki Chase and Henry Fitzroy), with kind of a mystery element to each novel (some minor sexual tension, but nothing really explicit)
Glen Cook’s Garret P.I. stories
Hope that helps
Tamora Pierce, starting with either the first of the Circle Universe books, or, in the Tortall universe, either the Immortals books or the Protector of the Small series.
The first she wrote in the Tortall universe were the Song of the Lioness books - and they’re excellent, but I think the others are a good starting point too, with the Song books there to step back for more background once she reads the others.
That’s what I was going to suggest, as well.
Also:
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, by Joan Aiken
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E. Frankweiler, by E.L. Konigsburg
The Westing Game, by Ellen Raskin
anything by Marguerite Henry
Holes, by Louis Sachar
anything by Diana Wynne Jones
The Secret Country books, by Pamela Dean
Summers at Castle Auburn, by Sharon Shinn
The Safe-Keeper books, by Sharon Shinn
and a maybe:
The President’s Daughter, by Ellen Emerson White. The later books in the series get pretty heavy, though I think a 13-year-old could definitely handle them. They are really wonderful, and recently updated to fit the times.
I have read two of the four books from the aboveforementioned Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars.
Wow.
Just awesome reads.
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Hmm…on the Sherlock Holmes track, I remember enjoying another Baker Street Irregulars series from when I was younger, by one Robert Newman—The Case of the Baker Street Irregular was the first book in the series.
I’m guessing that if Harry Potter was too scary, Anno Dracula’s right out. A pity—I’d have really gotten a kick out of that at that age.
Terry Pratchett’s YA Discworld books: The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, The Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky, and [url=]Wintersmith.
How about…
Darn. Yeah, those are awesome. To this day, Alanna is my foremost hero, beautifully powerful and sweetly flawed.
Hmm…what about
D’oh!
Okay, then
Drat!
Hmmm…what else hasn’t been mentioned?
Ooh! The Positronic Man, the novel form, written by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg. It’s a fairly easy read, but expect some challenging dinner conversation as she nears the end. It’s a great introduction to a great author whose other works she’ll be ready for in a few years.
Also The Golden Goblet, by Eloise Jarvis McGraw. I read this just a few years ago, as an adult, and was just captivated. My mom uses it in her sixth grade English/Social Studies class.
Two of my daughter’s very favorites:
Bloomability, by Sharon Creech
Ella Enchanted, by Gail Carson Levine
And I only skimmed the thread, so maybe I missed it, but did anybody say* Little Women*?
Wise Child, and the sequels Juniper and Colman, by Monica Furlong. Wise Child is one of my favorite books of all time, especially because I’m interested in medieval Britain and
If Harry Potter is “too scary” for her if she tries it again, I don’t think she’d like John Scalzi’s Zoe’s Tale, but it’s a good book and she might enjoy it. It’s also one I recommend every chance I get.
Has she read Coraline or The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman? They’re written for a slightly younger audience, but I didn’t read them until I was in my late teens/early twenties and love them both.
The Chrestomanci series by Diana Wynne Jones is really fun, besides her other works mentioned in the thread. I read most of the Chrestomanci books when I should have been working on my penultimate year of university.
Any of Terry Pratchett’s YA stuff, not just the Discworld novels, is a good idea. I especially recommend the Bromeliad trilogy: Truckers, Diggers, and Wings. I read them before I started reading Discworld, because I wanted to see if I liked Terry Pratchett but didn’t want to start in on a HUGE series (there are over 30 Discworld novels, I think) in case I didn’t like them but still had to finish them because it’s kind of rude not to finish reading a story. Luckily, I adored them.
When I was 13, I stayed up all night reading Summon the Keeper by Tanya Huff. It’s not YA, but it’s not a hard read either. And it’s ridiculously fun.
I think I was 14 when I started reading the Wind on Fire series by William Nicholson. I really enjoyed it, but haven’t done a reread in several years (I’m 22 now) so my opinions might have changed.
koryphos, just to nitpick, Harry is an infant at the beginning of the first book, and when it picks back up with his life, he’s 10 and about to turn 11. His age for the majority of each book is that book’s number in the series plus 10.
She might enjoy the Chronicles Of Vladimir Tod by Heather Brewer, starting with Eighth Grade Bites. If she enjoys EGB, it continues with Ninth Grade Slays, Tenth Grade Bleeds, and Eleventh Grade Burns and Twelfth Grade Kills is due for release this September.
While not necessarily a juvenile series, I read it as a teen and thorougly enjoyed them:
The Mrs. Pollifax Series by Dorothy Gilman.
Start with The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax.
Mrs. Pollifax is a widowed grandmother, president of her garden club, that becomes a CIA agent. Great reads and I would consider acceptable for teens.
My daughter Attacklass, being a 13 year old girl who has read many of the above mentioned books, has a few suggestions:
-the Fablehaven series by Brandon Mull (Attacklass’s favorite book series)
-the Warriors series by Erin Hunter
-the Alanna series by Tamora Peirce
-the Skulduggery Pleasant series by Derek Landy (it’s kind of intense and a bit scary)
-anything by Jerry Spinelli
-anything by Eric Walters
-anything by Gereldine McCaughrean
-The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
-Framed by Frank Cottrell Boyce
-the Echo Falls Mysteries series by Peter Abrahams
-the Janie Johnson series by Caroline B. Coonie
-The 10 PM Question by Kate DeGoldi
-Ninjas, Piranahs, and Galileo by Kimberly Pauley
-The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (maybe for when she’s a bit older, there’s cursing and substance use and other inappropriate content, Attacklass found it a bit too intense although she really liked it)
Hope this helps.
.
My boy of the same age really likes those too. He’s also reading the Rick Riordan books, but his eyes light up for the new Fablehavens.
A very underrated series of books that WAS my childhood/early teen years. Animorphs.
Long story short it’s about a bunch of teenagers who can turn into animals who fight aliens. It’s a very funny, action packed, and educational (about the animals) series. The series itself is about 50 books deep, and has about 6 or 7 companion books along with it.
Frankenstein. The fact that it (at least in its first edition) was written by a teenaged girl might resonate with her.
She will, this very year, stop reading kid’s and YA books and start reading the same books you read.
the redwall series.
I’m chuckling at this because I am a 31 year old woman with a degree in English Lit and I’ve been reading YA novels almost exclusively for the past year.
Seconding Hunger Games trilogy. Truly awesome.
Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld is the best book I’ve read this year. Steampunk re-imagining of WWI, awesome. He’s also the author of the Pretties and Uglies series but I couldn’t get into them. Oh, and like almost all the books I’m going to mention this is the fist in a trilogy; the second has yet to be written.
The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan is a total popcorn book- a zombie film in book form. Not a lot of literary merit but highly entertaining. I’ve just started the sequel, The Dead Tossed Waves.
The Maze Runner I just finished and liked it pretty well. The protagonist is a boy and it’s an awesome mysterious dystopic setting, kind of WTF like the Cube movies. Also beginning of a trilogy, looks like the second, The Scorch Trials, is due in October. Yay.