Edward Eager’s Half Magic would be a great choice.
You could follow it up with Knight’s Castle.
Judy Blume also writes some good tweenie books, Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret, Then Again, Maybe I Won’t, Fudge, Blubber. Deenie and Forever, however, I would not recommend until she’s a bit older.
Thank you all for the suggestions. I’ll have to give her mom a call and run a few of these by her to make sure she hasn’t read some of them. It helps that I’ve read about half these books when I was her age, I’d just needed my memory refreshed, apparently.
Thanks all.
I’d suggest anything by Roald Dahl. He is laugh out loud funny.
I was reading Judy Blume books at that age. Apart from maybe Forever I don’t think they’re too old for her.
Deenie, IMHO, should wait until she’s about 13 or so. The rest are fine.
Whoa. I definitely read Deenie well before 13. I don’t think it scarred me or anything.
Lots of my own recommendations are already accounted for, except for the Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace.
A few more to add -
Terry Pratchett - The Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky and Wintersmith are all titles my daughter adored.
Rick Riordan - Percy Jackson and the Olympians, which comprises The Lightning Thief, The Sea of Monsters, The Titan’s Curse, The Battle of the Labyrinth, The Last Olympian.
Jonathan Stroud - The Bartimaeus Trilogy, which comprises The Amulet of Samarkand, The Golem’s Eye and Ptolomey’s Gate
Another good series is Sydny Taylor’s All-of-a-Kind Family.
And anything by Beverly Clearly.
Let’s not forget Nancy Drew. When I was around her age I devoured that series.
Yeah, I’m an old fart. I imagine they would still be available? Please tell me they are…
I went with this. I’m a big Pratchett fan and if I can corrupt my niece early, I figure it will be a job well done. I feel kind of cheap since I bought paperbacks as a gift instead of hardcovers, but tried to make up for it by buying four books. The three mentioned here plus The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents.
Thank you all again for the wonderful suggestions.
It’s still available. Some of Alexander Key’s other books are also available. I particularly loved The Forgotten Door, and re-read it frequently. Zenna Henderson also wrote several books and stories with the same motif, and are similarly appropriate for kids.
Eddings is too misogynist for me. His female characters are sometimes sent to nunneries for being inconvenient to males. While this is historically accurate, I really don’t like books that use this as a method of getting rid of female characters that are simply standing up for themselves. I certainly wouldn’t give any of his books to a young girl. On the other hand, once you read one of his series, you’ve basically read them all.
Hey, paperbacks are more portable than hardbacks, and these are books that she can read for the rest of her life. I loved all four of those books, and I read them as an adult. What’s more, you can give her Pratchett books in the future.
Most of my old favorite paperbacks are falling apart, that’s what I was concerned about when I said that. And hopefully we’ll have another little Pratchett fan when she’s done reading these.
All the books I came in here to recommend are recommended.
So, I will add a linky To my favoritist kid bookplaceon line.
If you want to keep a list for the next gift giving occasion, my twelve year old daughter - who was like your niece at her age - recommends the Peter Pan prequels by Dave Barry & Ridley Pearson:
Peter and the Starcatchers
Peter and the Shadow Thieves
Peter and the Secret of Rundoon
Cave of the Dark Wind: A Neverland Book*
Escape from the Carnivale: A Neverland Book*
Blood Tide: A Neverland Book*
“These are funny, well written, and not babyish.” says grayhaireddaughter1
*These don’t involve Peter Pan, they tell the story of what’s happening in Neverland while Peter is in England.
Also, she seconds the recommendation of Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Le Ministre de l’au-delà.
“I also recommend the book “So B. It” By: Sarah Weeks” begins grayhaireddaughter1 happy to talk about the pros and cons of every book she’s ever read, “I do not recommend The Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, no matter how good people say it is because it’s like popcorn, it’s tasty, but not very satisfying. Vampirateswas also a good book. It was about vampire pirates…obviously. The Alex Rider series by Anthony Horrowitz was pretty good but he wrote these REALLY COOL horror stories The Complete Horrowitz Horror which was more superfantabular. Junie B. Jones is a series written for 6-8 year olds which even now I always go back too because they make great popcorn books. Fever 1793 was about a plague and the The Pink Fairy Book, part of a series my mom read when she was my age (each book is different color and has different stories from around the world) are good because there not those stupid sugarcoated fairytales like now because people get their heads cut off and stuff. I had to read The Giver in 5th grade and it was cool to read a book about the future where technology was pretty much the same as it is now. That’s pretty much all I can think of now because I just read through the books ‘appropriate’ for my age too quickly and too long ago to remember them.”
Oh, how could I have forgotten Kenneth Oppel? Airborn, Skybreaker and Starclimber are superb adventures in the style of Robert Louis Stevenson, while the whole Silverwing series is a great set of stories about bats.
Robin McKinley - particularly* Beauty, The Outlaws of Sherwood, The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown*.
StG
yes they are. They’re published in little hardcover books with the original artwork from when we were kids. My daughter has devoured every one and prefers the retro feel of the old ones to the new more modern series.
They’ve also been rejigged into a comic book series, along with the Hardy Boys and The Baby Sitters’ Club.