I was searching for a book this weekend for my daughter and found The Wish, which looked really interesting.
When I was 9 I was allowed to read Stephen King’s IT, although I mainly read the kids parts, as that was the only stuff I was interested in. Anything about sex, I had no idea what was going on anyway, and found it boring. I would imagine that there are some parents out there who wouldn’t like their kids to read that, though! For a big juicy book, how smart is she? I read Gone With the Wind around the same time and loved it. Please know that at the same time I was obsessed with Babysitter’s Club and Sweet Valley High.
I guess I would +1 to the Roald Dahl suggestion, he is my all time favorite author. That autobiography Boy made me really happy that my dentist wasn’t bad when I got to read about his tonsils getting removed! Man, I didn’t really help much unless the girl has a morbid curiosity that the parents condone.
I also read the Deenie book and actually got sent to the principals office in 3rd grade for reading Judy Blume’s “Forever”. I got to go right back to class when they called my mom and she told them she bought it for me. I was raised by two excellent people, they just kind of treated me as a little adult. No trauma here at all, other than a massive love for horror movies!
Ooh, The Wish looks good, I just put that on my Amazon wishlist, thank!
I don’t remember nunneries, care to remind me? I agree about the misogyni, but I remeber it being more of the “women are impossible” variety (and the writer not being able to write women at all, although he’s hardly alone there).
I don’t remeber being insulted by any of his stuff, since I never felt like he said “all women are wortless”, it was more “these particular female characters are anoying as hell”. Believe you me, I would have shredded his books if I had ever felt insulted. Then again, maybe the relevant bits just went over my head.
While reading, I always felt like the “women are silly” sentiments always came from rather insular characters (say, Belgarath) and I just wrote it off as those characters being slightly potty, old, or both.
A Drowned Maiden’s Hair has a female protaganist and seems appropriate for her age
She might enjoy Eragon, Eldest…(which the internet has just taught me is called the Inheritance Cycle) by Christopher Paolini. My son started them when he was 10, but his 14 year old cousin was reading them at the time so I never was sure if he was really enjoying them or should have waited.
He’d heartily endorse Percy Jackson and the Olympians series as well as the Dave Barry/Ridley Pearson books already mentioned.
How about some kid friendly horror books? Clive Barker’s The Thief of Always would be good. You might want to wait a few years before The Books of Blood, though 
Does she like cats? If so, the *Warriors *series might be a good idea. Not exactly great literature, but the stories are fun and interesting and there are a *lot *of them.
*The Egypt Game *by Zilpha Keatley Snyder was always a favorite of mine, as was *The Hero From Otherwhere *by Jay Williams (half of the team that wrote the *Danny Dunn *series (which was good but is probably too dated now unless they’ve updated it)).
*The Three Investigators *series is good too, if you can find it anymore.
All my stuff is pretty dated, though, except for Warriors. I’m remembering what I read and enjoyed when I was a kid.
Seconded. and a plus one to the Madeleine L’Engle books.
I also loved Harriet the Spy, and Nancy Drew at about fourth grade. Ooo! Amazon also links to From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.
I just remember that one guy put his wife in a nunnery because she didn’t obey him, or something like that. I think that nunneries were used to threaten other women, too. I got rid of his books a long, long time ago, and the misogyny was the major reason. A minor reason was that I don’t like “fated hero” stories.
No real advice, just wanted to say that’s a good trade if you can get it. A good book is much more useful than most of the 9 year old girls I know.
I think there must be some confusion. While Eddings is a bit misogynistic, (Which is a little odd, because apparently he collaborated heavily with his wife) there were no nunneries in the Belgariad, or even anything similar. The world is entirely lacking in any such sort of structure. Certainly, no characters are ever sent to any or threatened with such. The closest thing I can remember a female character even being left behind was when a noncombatant woman was left in the hands of a powerful “saintly” religious figure while the heroes went off to do something dangerous. It wasn’t a punishment, and certainly not a “get thee to the nunnery!” moment. It’s more like “Mr. Pope Sir? We really don’t want to take Her Imperial Majesty to Mordor with us. Can she stay with you for a few weeks because we can’t think of anywhere that could possibly be safer?”
While many Eddings women were shrewish, many of his men were dense, foolish, or curmudgeonly and everyone teases everyone else about everything. No nunneries. o.o
I delayed opening this thread because this is the only place I know where I can get beaten to recommending “A Wrinkle In Time.”
I really, really loved the Doctor Doolittle books. I know there was one where he rode a crystal snail across the floor of the ocean.
I was always a huge fan of The Enchanted Forest Chronicles. Devastatingly funny take on a lot of fairy tale conventions, with a strong, smart, assertive heroine. Good stuff for girls that age. My mom taught sixth grade for a long time, and the first book in the series was one of her “hook books” for reluctant readers for many years.
Another good one, though she might still be a touch young for it, is Summer of the Monkeys, by Wilson Rawls. It’s by the same guy who wrote the wholly depressing Where the Red Fern Grows, that people always give kids that age to read, but this book is absolutely hilarious. Heartrending, especially at the end, but in a way that makes you feel good, not the WTRFG way that makes you want to crawl into a hole and die.