The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman
I’d reccomend the Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander (The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, The High King, not so much The Castle of Llyr and Taran Wanderer, though). Eilonwy’s not the main character, but she’s definitely got a mind of her own.
Pretty much anything L. M. Montgomery has ever written. Almost every single one of her stories/books revolves around an Anne or Emily-like character.
My all-time favorite book ever, Indian Captive, the Story of Mary Jemison by Lois Lenski. Calico Captive by Elizabeth George Speare is a similar story (pre-Revolution girl captured by Indians) but not as good. (advanced grade school and up)
Caddie Woodlawn, already mentioned has a “sequel”, Magical Melons, by Carol Ryrie Brink. (advanced grade school and up)
Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire. This is a different take on Cinderella. (middle school and up)
Bread and Jam for Frances, Bedtime for Frances, and A Bargain for Frances (and other Frances books) by Russell Hoban. Frances is actually a badger, but clearly female. This is definitely at the age-3 end of the spectrum.
I don’t think anyone has mentioned Patricia Wrede’s series. It begins with Dealing With Dragons and there are 3 others, but I cannot remember the titles at the moment. They all have strong female characters, but I believe only the first has a female main character. They were possibly my favorite books ever for quite a long time. I need to re-read them!
Dealing with Dragons is about a princess who runs away and goes purposely to live with a dragon. They continue with her finding a husband, defeating various enemies, and end with a book about her son. They are all excellent - funny and well written without being condescending.
She also wrote Maerelon the Magician, and The Magician’s Ward, about a street rat adopted by a performing magician who turns out to be a real magician. It is set in a pseudo-Victorian/Regency England.
Another book about dragons was Susan Fletcher’s Dragon’s Milk and series. A young girl has to rescue baby dragons, basically. It’s not as ickily sentimental as you might think.
Diana Wynne Jones is my favorite YA author. Some of her books feature strong female protaganists, for example:
Howl’s Moving Castle - The eldest daughter in a family of 3 knows it is her duty to be the wicked step-sister, not to go on adventures. But when she is turned into an old woman by a Wicked Sorceress she loses her inhibitions and goes to work for the Evil Wizard. Very good stuff. Contains one of my favorite poems as a plot point: Song by John Donne. It’s apparently going to be made into a movie, created by Studio Ghibli (!) i.e. the anime studio that created Spirited Away.
Dogsbody - The stars are people, and when Sirius is set up he is punished for a crime he didn’t commit by being sent to earth as a dog. He is adopted by a kindly Irish (female) orphan and must survive in dog form and absolve himself of the crime. I have a signed copy! Hurrah!
The Dalemark Chronicles - A series of 4. I say series, but that’s not really the right word. It’s difficult to explain. At any rate, 2 of them have female protaganists. Spellcoats is set in prehistoric Dalemark and is a prequel of sorts. In this land, magic can be done by weaving an ancient language into fabric. Tanaqui (my namesake) is a master weaver. The other, The Crown of Dalemark, is set in modern day Dalemark - until the protaganist is sent back into Dalemark of what would probably correspond to the 1700-1800’s of our time. The plot is impossible to explain, really.
Witch Week - About a school that is the perfect opposite of Hogwarts. An alternative world where witches are real and still burned and “at-risk” students are sent to schools like these.
I’m getting tired and DWJ has incredibly complicated plots so I’ll just list a few others with female main characters:
Hexwood, A Tale of Time City, Year of the Griffin, Fire and Hemlock, Aunt Maria…
Sherwood Smith wrote a series of fantasy books about a girl called Wren as well as another duo of books called, I believe, Crowd Duel and Court Duel, also featuring a female protaganist.
Someone mentioned Lloyd Alexander but I don’t think s/he mentioned the Vesper Holly books. These are not so much fantasy as adventure. They feature, essentially, a young, female, Indiana Jones, told from the POV of her retired adventurer and now respectable adopted uncle. They are set in the early 1900’s.
Also, I prefer the Westmark series to the Prydain books myself. The gals have a bigger part there than in the Prydain books, I think. They are somewhat more mature books however, with no magic and so on. The Kestrel in particular is a sobering book, about war.
Garth Nix’s Sabriel and an earlier book whose name escapes me are also very good. They are fantasy, set in a world where the dead hang around to come to life with the help of necromancers on a daily basis. I resisted reading them for a while because his earlier book, Shade’s Children, scarred me for life, but I’m glad I finally got around to it.
The Perilous Gard is a wonderful book. The author (Elizabeth Marie Pope) also wrote one other book, The Sherwood Ring, which is good, though not as good as PG. It also features a female main character.
With non-fantasy books, I really can’t tell you. I despised most of the “let’s be as depressing as we can because hell, real life is depressing and kids need to figure that out as soon as possible” books about death, terminal illnesses, suicide, divorce, and other unpleasant things that seemed to be all the vogue in the 80’s and 90’s. There are enough depressing things in RL for me to deal with without reading about it, thanks.
They were apparently all considered great literature, though, because I never read a single fantasy book in school. I was inevitably forced into reading the “my parents got divorced and then my mom died and my dad ran away with the lady from the circus and I found out I had leukemia” type things. [/rant]
I’ll recommend The Keeper of the Isis Light, and its sequels, The Guardian of Isis and The Isis Pedlar, all by Monica Huges.
Good sci-fi for young 'uns!
More specifically, the whole Northern Lights trilogy – a very strong and resourceful young female main character without taking anything away from the various male characters. But be warned: Pullman’s books may offend some religious sensibilities (not that it bothered me, but I know it bothers some people).
Let me add my strong endorsement for A Wrinkle in Time, which is one of the best fantasy novels of all time, never mind “children’s book” or “strong female character” or any other qualifier. And Madeleine L’Engle has easily 20 other books out in two interrelated series covering two generations of two families, of which Meg Murry (Wrinkle’s protagonist) is a member of one.
I asked Skulldigger for additional suggestions from her own childhood – she noted the Trixie Belden, Nancy Drew, and Sue Barton series, and the Beezus and Ramona series (for marginally younger readers than the others, as Nancy Drew is for marginally older).
Amanda is not available for comment, but I know she thinks very highly of the Judy Blume novels, and claims that the Ashley and Mary Kate stories are much better reading than one might expect of a marketing-gimmick kids’ book series.
Also: Enchantress from the Stars, and the assoaciated The Far Side of Evil, by Sylvia Engdahl
Slight hi-jack:
This was made into an episode of PBS’ Wonderworks and starred a relatively unknown Bridget Fonda.
I’m midteen, although I happen to read at an adult level, so it’s a bit difficult for me to judge what books would be good for other teens. Historical fictions happen to be my favorite, and your kids might be interested in reading some of the following:
A few years ago, I was reading:
The Royal Diary series by Scholastic books
The Dear America series by Scholastic books
Adult level books I love:
Pillars of the Earth (sorry, I can’t remember the author)
The Memoirs of Cleopatra by Margaret George
Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles by Margaret George (incidently, she’s one of my favorite authors.)
The last two have a little bit of sex in them, but the emphasis of the book is not placed on that, and I’m mature enough that it doesn’t bother me or send me into giggle fits. Also, you pick up some interesting facts while reading an enthralling book, which is wonderful for someone like me who has a passion for learning about people in history.
All of the above books have prevented me from getting the sleep I should because I simply could not put them down on occasion. I just got so caught up in the plot. (Just one more chapter. Alright, one more. Just another one. What harm can one more do?) I brought The Memoirs of Cleopatra with me when I went to Greece, and almost didn’t want to leave the hotel room, I was so caught up in the book.
~Monica
If I had to choose one thing from this list, I’d get the Enchanted Forest series by Patricia C. Wrede. Deal with Dragons, Searching for Dragons, Talking to Dragons, and one more I can’t remember. Several good female characters. Cimorene, the princess, Morwen, the witch, and Kazul, the dragon.
Also, Merdith Pierce’s Dark Angel series. It’s set on the moon, and Aeriel, a slave, seeks revenge on the vampire who killed her mistress, and ends up saving him. The three books are the Dark Angel, A Gathering of Gargoyles, and the Pearl of the Soul of the World.
The Secret Garden and Little Women.
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH might be stretching it a bit, but it could be seen as a strong female character.
From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil T. Frankweiler.
The Westing Game is a phenomenal book, and everyone in the world should read it right NOW!!
I can’t recall the name of the book (or if it’s different than the title of the movie), but the book from which the Disney film Bedknobs and Broomsticks was adapted.
That’s all I can think of right now.
No, wait…Island of the Blue Dolphins and Jacob Have I Loved. Both of them Newbury Award winners. A third Newbury winner, Bridge To Terabithia.
The Moorchild by Eloise McGraw is really wonderful. About a changling–I remember really loving it in about… er, fifth… grade?
I saw Sabriel but I don’t know if someone listed Lirael and the JUST-CAME-OUT Abhorsen. WHAT an astounding series. eeeeeee
My votes go for all the Phillip Pullman books too–His Dark Materials and Northern Lights trilogies.
There’s always Catherine Called Birdy and The Midwife’s Apprentice by Karen Cushman. Although the latter got the Newbury, I’ve always liked the first one better.
Girl With a Pearl Earing by Tracy Chevalier is good for older adolescents–though I’m not sure if I’d call the girl strong all around.
hmm… I know I know more, but my brain is dying.
**Dave, the God, wrote; **
Dave, I sense you are blocking. Tell us how you really feel. 
I would like to throw out another title:
**Never Miss A Sunset ** by Jeanette Gilge.
Turn of the century girl with a house full of siblings finds out Mama is going to have *another * baby. This means that our heroine must stay home and help mama instead of going to school. Hatred for the unborn baby and resentment of missing school and doing drudge workand feelings of terrible guilt when the baby is a stillborn. Not your typical teen angst book.
It is a Christian book, ( which I didn’t know when i received it when I was 12) and I just ate the thing up and read it at least 25 times as a kid.
Hey, the link to **Heartless Bitches ** is pretty cool. Thanks.
Apologies, misread your post as for 3 year olds. Doh.
Love and Rockets by the Hernandez Brothers is a pretty wild kinda comic book series thing. Theme’s may be too mature for what you’re looking for, but several of the characters are very strong female characters.
Well, if we’re allowed to suggest comics, the Elfquest Graphic Novels are great. The hero is male, but the females are all strong and the society has gender-equality. It’s also great storytelling and the art is superior.
Heh, for older kids, maybe. Elfquest gets SEXY! Orgy with the snow elves, anyone? Or that strip by firefly light scene?
I convinced my mom to buy me the original 4 color volumes for Christmas one year when I was in high school. I’m so glad she didn’t flip through the things.
Cutter = hot hot hot!
For the teens, Mercedies Lackey might be good, if they’re into fantasy. Her books (there are far too may to list here, sorry) are very entertaining, and pretty much always have at least one strong female charichter in them.
The Secret Garden and A Little Princess
The Anne of Green Gables series and the Emily series by L. M. Montgomery
The later books in the Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace. The last few books in the series deal with Betsy’s determination to go to college and become a writer.
Little Women and its two sequels, Little Men and Jo’s Boys
Also the other books by Louisa May Alcott (except for Jack and Jill)
Patricia Beatty’s historical fiction novels
Lois Lenski’s regional fiction
Any of Jean Little’s books
Any of Marilyn Sachs’s books
The Wrinkle in Time series by Madeline L’Engle
I wouldn’t recommend Meet the Austins, though. In my opinion, it’s not up to the standards of the Wrinkle in Time series. Much of Meet the Austins deals with Vicky having to learn to defer to her perfect older brother, John. There is also an obnoxious foster sister, Maggie, who spends most of her time breaking things and picking fights - not a good female role model, in my opinion.