wow.

[sisyphusshrugged]

My dazzling friends list and the ever-erudite commenters at Making Light have been contributing to a list of book recommendations for a precocious 9YO, which I'm putting behind a cut for anyone who could use one.

In no particular order, I'm afraid

Lloyd Alexander - Prydain books, Westmark books, the Kestrel duology, The Iron Ring, The Wizard in the Tree, The First Two Lives of Lucas-Kasha
The Hobbit
E. L. Konigsburg - anything by, esp. Mrs. Basil E, The Second Mrs. Giaconda
Joan Aiken - Wolves of Willoughby Chase, sequels
Rawlings - The Yearling
LeGuin - the first three Earthseas
Pinkwater - anything by, esp. Lizard Music, Mush books, Looking for Bobowicz
Joan Aiken - esp. Wolves of Willoughby Chase series, short stories
Snarkout Boys
Diana Wynne-Jones - anything by, esp, Dogsbody, Archer's Goon, Chrestomanci series
Pullman - His Dark Materials series
Geoffrey McSkimming - Cairo Jim/ Jocelyn Osgood
Madeleine L'Engle - anything by, esp. Meet the Austins, Arm of the Starfish, Ring of Endless Light, Dragons in the Waters, The Young Unicorns, A House Like a Lotus
Elizabeth Enright - Gone-Away Lake, Return to Gone-Away, The Saturdays, Four-Story Mistake, Spiderweb For Two
Heinlein's juveniles
Eleanor Cameron - Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, Stowaway to the MP, Mr. Bass' Planetoid
E. Nesbit - Five Children and It, Phoenix and the Carpet, Story of the Amulet, The Story of the Treasure Seekers, The Would-be-goods, The Railway Children
Evelyn Sibley Lampman - The City Under the Back Steps by
Tove Jansson - Finn Family Moomintroll + sequels and prequels
Hilda Lewis - The Ship That Flew
Edward Eager - Half Magic, Magic By the Lake, Knight's Castle, The Thyme Garden, Magic or Not, The Well Wishers, Seven-Day Magic
John Masefield - The Box of Delights, or When the Wolves were Running, Ransome - Swallows and Amazons
Patricia Wrede - Enchanted Forest books, Mairelon the Magician, The Enchanted Chocolate Pot
Scholastic historical series Dear America
The American Girl books
Doris Gates -- Blue Willow, Little Vic
Gary Soto
William Mayne - anything by, esp The Grass Rope. Or A Swarm in May.
Jane Yolen
Gail Levine - anything by, esp. Ella Enchanted
Maxim Gorky's Autobiography
Henrik Ibsen plays
Bertolt Brecht - Black Boy
O.R. Melling- anything by
She'd probably love Archer's Goon or the 5 books in the Chrestomanci series Robin McKinley - the Hero and the Crown
Susan Cooper - The Dark is Rising Series
The Hobbit
Diane Duane - Wizard series.
Mary Poppins
Neil Gaiman - Stardust, Coraline
Susanna Clarke - Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell
George MacDonald - The Princess and the Goblin, The Princess and Curdie
John Barnes - One for the Morning Glory
Lucy Maria Boston - Children of Green Knowe, Treasure of Green Knowe
Kara Dalkey - Little Sister, The Heavenward Path
Peter Dickinson - juveniles, esp. The Changes trilogy (The Devil's Children, Heartsease, and The Weathermonger), Tulku, King and Joker, Time and the Clockmice, Etc., Seventh Raven
Donna Jo Napoli- esp. Stones in Water, For the Love of Venice
Garth Nix - The Old Kingdom books (Sabriel, Lirael, Abhorsen), Mister Monday
John Steinbeck - esp. The Red Pony, Travels With Charley
Cynthia Voigt
Sherwood Smith - "Wren" books, starting with Wren to the Rescue
Astrid Lindgren - Bill Bergson series, Ronia, the Robber's Daughter
L.M. Montgomery - esp. Anne of Green Gables
Burnett - A Little Princess, The Secret Garden
Eddison - The Worm Ouroborous
Susan Cooper - The Dark is Rising Sequence, Seaward
Diane Duane - Young Wizard books, particularly the first two
Suzy McKee Charnas - The Bronze King
the first two Green Knowe books
the original Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Three Investigators, Cherry Ames, Trixie Belden, and Dana Girls books
Karen Kushman - Catherine, Called Birdie, and The Midwife's Apprentice
Robin McKinley - Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword
Cornelia Funke - The Thief Lord and Inkheart
Tamora Pierce - The Lioness Quartet
John Bellairs - House with a Clock in its Walls series
Norton Juster - Phantom Tollbooth
EA Poe
Shirley Jackson
Carroll - Through the Looking Glass, Alice in Wonderland
Francesca Lia Block - juveniles
TH White - The Once and Future King
The Sword in the Stone
John Fitzgerald - Great Brain series
Naomi Nash - anything by, although only You Are So Cursed and Chloe, Queen of Denial are out yet
EB White - anything by
Dahl - juveniles
Steig - Dominic
Years Best F&SF
Pratchett - anything by
Judy Blume - Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, Otherwise Known As Shelia the Great, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing
Lemony Snicket - Series of Unfortunate Events
Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black - The Spiderwick Chronicles: The Field Guide; The Seeing Stone; Lucinda's Secret; The Ironwood Tree; The Wrath of Mulgrath
Adams: Hitchhiker's Guide series
Sheri Tepper - juveniles
Anne McCaffrey - Pern books
Diane Duane: So You Want to Be A Wizard series
Sachar - Holes
Piers Anthony - Xanth books
Mercedes Lackey
Bruce Coville
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
L Frank Baum
Voltaire
Uncle Wiggily
the Hobbit
Dover Favorite Poems of Childhood
Wilder - Little House
Deborah and James Howe - Bunnicula series
Penelope Farmer - Charlotte Sometimes
Jean Hager -The Whispering House
Katherine Patterson - The Bridge to Terabithia
Mary Downing Hahn - Wait til Helen Comes
Caroline B Cooney - The Fog, The Snow, and The Fire trilogy
Adams - Watership Down
Jeff Smith - Bone
Robert Asprin - Myth Adventure series, Phule's Company series
Craig Shaw Gardner - Wuntvor Chronicles
Esther Friesner
Ray Bradbury - the Man in the Ice Cream Suit
Connie Willis - esp Bellwether
Robin McKinley - except Deerskin
Lawrence Yep - Dragon series
Penelope Farmer - The Ear, the Eye and the Arm
David Wiesner
Frances Mary Hendry - Quest for a Maid



Recommended site: Chicklit

Comments

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

Piers Anthony sucks.

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

but to a 9YO does he suck?

And in comparison to series books about characters from bad sitcoms does he suck?

You see what I'm getting at.

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

I would still answer "yes" to both questions, though.

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

Well, you know, I hear you, but, well, puns...

[damiana-swan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but also sexual content. And he seems to be under the impression that he understands women, which, well, he doesn't.

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

sigh.

True enough.

The thing is, about that, I'm leaning a little toward letting her be exposed to that sort of attitude and debunking it (as with The Women, most MGM musicals, the wimpification of Hermione in the Harry Potter movies)

I guess I'm remembering his earliest books rather than why I stopped reading them.

[damiana-swan.livejournal.com]

Y'know ... as far as that goes, you could let her read Heinlein's early works, the ones he wrote for teenage boys. (Space Cadet, Rolling Stones, Have Space Suit Will Travel, etc.) They mostly had boys as main characters, but the girls in them definitely were not wimps, and often were brighter than the boys.

Of course, Heinlein also thought he understood women and also was wrong (and also was a sexist pig in many ways) but at least his female characters had spines and brains.

[zoje-george.livejournal.com]

Oh! Yes, and a really good Heinlein for that? The Door Into Summer. The woman/girl in that novel has a spine all right. Plus, Pete the cat.

Only Heinlein I've read more than once and I love it.

[damiana-swan.livejournal.com]

I love that book! Pete is one of my favorite Heinlein characters.

[zoje-george.livejournal.com]

Mine too. I love Pete.

"Pete jumped on my lap and demanded to know what was going on RIGHT NOW."

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

His later stuff drives me up a wall, but I have a sneaking fondness for Podkayne.

[kodi]

Can we watch when you expose her to and debunk Dave Sim's Cerebus?

I think there's value to reading some Xanth books as early as possible, because it's a lot less embarassing to say "Yeah, I was totally in love with Piers Anthony when I was 9" than it is to say the same thing, only replacing 9 with 23.

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

Yeah... I was addicted to Piers Anthony when I was younger (heck, next time you see Golem in the Gears in a used bookstore, look in the back of the book for my name), but I realize later that he's junk food for the soul: tastes good at first, but really, he's not very good.

Although I love and recommend A Spell for Chameleon, after about the sixth or seventh book in the Xanth series, it turns into farce with a fair bit of sex and not much else to recommend it.

[kiplet.livejournal.com]

Piers Anthony is such a sexist pig-dog that HM would doubtless end up throwing him across the room.

His books, rather. But hey.

[zoje-george.livejournal.com]

It'll give her a chance to work on her throwing arm. Gotta have a good, strong arm before you get to the Ayn Rand.

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

Ayn Rand got me in trouble. I was explaining the name of my blog to one of the parents at HM's school and I got maybe a little too confidential and referred to her as "kind of a sick bitch, really"

[zoje-george.livejournal.com]

Heeee!

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but we have some great "Wow, that was pretty stupid" conversations about stuff like that.

Ya shoulda been there when we MSTed The Women.

[zoje-george.livejournal.com]

That list should keep her entertained... for about a year. Hee!

Thanks for the chicklit plug. We're not just about the forums though, we have content too!

Now back to working on my Breakfast at Tiffany's article.

[alicetheowl.livejournal.com]

I see only one mention of Roald Dahl, which I must emphasize.

He was my favorite author when I was in second and third grade. And he's a lot of fun to read aloud. Usually I'd plow through most of it during the day, and my parents read me a chapter or two for a bedtime story. Worked out nicely.

That was the same year my father read me The Hobbit over the summer.

And if only I'd known about Diana Wynne Jones, back when I was 9 years old . . .

I also read a lot of Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume (though Blume tends to talk about the growing-up stuff, which made me a little squirmy before I was experiencing any of it).

[syphilis.livejournal.com]

You should read Roald Dahl's adult stuff! Not for the faint-hearted, but genuinely good stuff! I enjoyed the wife swapping story, myself! http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679729917/qid=1101860894/sr=2-3/ref=pd_ka_b_2_3/103-9214512-0535028

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

Lamb to the Slaughter is one of my favorite short stories.

[syphilis.livejournal.com]

That's one of my favs too! You've reminded me that I really need to sit down and do some rereading!

[alicetheowl.livejournal.com]

I didn't realize he'd written anything for adults. I'll have to check it out. Thanks!

[cheshyre]

Tamora Pierce - The Lioness Quartet
I'd say, Tamora Pierce - ALL her works. [If we lived geographically closer, I'd lend them to you.]

Also, you may want to start on the Lemony Snicket books soon, before the movie comes out later this month and affects her perception of the characters.

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

She just finished 11.

I have to find one one of these days and get started.

[Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<ljuser="jonquil">') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.]

She just finished 11.

I have to find one one of these days and get started. <ljuser="jonquil"> recommended them long ago so I gave them the go-ahead sight unseen.

Bone

[(Anonymous)]

I am buying the whopping big BONE compilation, the having of which makes having BONE, Volume 1 redundant.

I can bring this back East with me for M-R's perusal. As I recall, it's quite kid-friendly.

I'd also consider loaning my collection of BEANWORLD comics, but she would have to agree that they're not to be mussed, bent, bathed, left open with the spine up, & etc.

Stefan

Re: Bone

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

See, she might well agree, and she would be very sad when it didn't happen, which it wouldn't. I'll add it to the list.

Are you going to be at the Reilly's Xmas Eve, and which K&K and Outsider's Club books do we owe you? She's read them literally to pieces.

[mrdankelly.livejournal.com]

A Clockwork Orange, Jr. Edition. In which Little Alex learns to respect others feelings, not leave his clothes on the floor, and to clean his room, otherwise he becomes severely nauseated and filled with a fear akin to feeling buried alive.

I might have made that up.

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

You're such a twist.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

I would keep a 9-year-old off Connie Willis's THE DOMESDAY BOOK, maybe. Everybody dies. It's a plague year, after all.

I believe, alas, that Daniel Pinkwater's Snarkout books are out of print except in omnibus editions. Wonderful if they can be found, however.

And, okay, they're Way Christian (but then, so's L'Engle) but for a precocious nine-year-old, the C.S. Lewis Narnia books are also worth a gander. I liked them quite a bit before I noticed the heavy-handed allegory. Another one I don't see: Robert C. O'Brien's THE SILVER CROWN. It used to be a major pain to find, but seems to be back in print.

And if the nine-year-old is at all interested in horses, the various Marguerite Henry books are fun.

[mearagrrl.livejournal.com]

Oof yeah, Doomsday book depressed the hell out of me. It's fabulous, but gawd.

Glad to see someone else has recommended Elizabeth Enright, E Nesbit, and Eager!! All faves that I thought last night as I was going home that I should add to my recommendations.

And as someone said above, there are a bunch of other Tamora Pierce that are good (and a few that are more age-appropriate-aimed, that she could start with and try out).

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

Also, if she likes Susan Cooper, she might also like Alan Garner. Or THE OWL SERVICE at least.

Owl Service

[(Anonymous)]

The owl service might be a little confusing at that age (I remember being baffled by it myself at a young age, after loving Garner's earlier books), but Garner's duology Weirdstone of Brisangamen and Moon of Gomrath is wonderful.

[domystic.livejournal.com]

my kids and i have read and re-read the better oz books for years - esp. glinda of oz, the patchwork girl of oz, and the marvelous land of oz - for years. we own them all in hardcover. i was inordiantely thrilled a few years ago when the tin woodman of oz was re-released: the story of how he was offered a choice between having a kind heart or a loving one; he chose the kind heart, and forsook his loyal munchkin sweetheart nimmie ammie, who was then enslaved by a wicked witch. when the tin woodman tells this story to his friends, they prevail on him to rescue nimmie ammie. the fundamental drama: the difference between kindness and loving. with the best illustrations ever!

also - the original peter pan - a much darker tale than later interpretations. also with topnotch illustrations (in the original).

also - the back of the north wind by george macdonald - another victorian story, this one about a boy named diamond who develops a kind of stockholm syndrome with the north wind (a beautiful lady with long black hair, most of the time). he has a little sister named dulcimer. did i want to name my children after characters in this book? i did.

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

Ooooh... the original Peter Pan. I'm reading that right now. That is a LOT more dark than I knew. Peter Pan is a true git, and Tinkerbell is evil.

I'm still looking for a strong, sympathetic character. (Wendy is sympathetic but not strong. Peter Pan is not sympathetic.)

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

I thought it was interesting that the whole thing rotated around the idea of the mother as a warm blanket of security and caregiving when clearly Mrs. Darling was as good as absent.

What Wendy thought she should be to the boys, it looked like to me, was a sheepdog who sewed on buttons.

Dear America

[(Anonymous)]

I haven't read any of the Dear America series myself (not being a US-dweller), but I've read some persuasive argument for avoiding them: mainly that they are fiction presented as first-hand accounts, thereby laynig the ground for confusion in young readers.

Re: Dear America

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

That's interesting - I'll have to take a look at them.

She really likes the American Girl books on handling school, social life, homework, emotions and writing, so I'm pretty comfortable with their stuff.

Hey, nobody ever said branding didn't work.

a couple more suggestions

[(Anonymous)]

Here's a couple that I liked around the same age I was reading Pinkwater, Konigsburg, L'Engle, and Le Guin--

Ellen Raskin:
The Mysterious Disapperance of Leon (I Mean Noel)
Figgs and Phantoms
The Tattooed Potato and Other Clues
The Westing Game

E.W. Hildick:
The Active-Enzyme, Lemon-Freshened, Junior High School Witch
The Top-Flight, Fully Automated Junior High School Girl Detective

All strong female protags, IIRC.

[rosamund.livejournal.com]

::tries to remember what the Traceyvillians (aka younger school) were reading when she helped out with their reading:: My own reading habits at 9 are probably not helpful.

Most of mine have already been mentioned.

Lessee, I must plug Alan Garner's Elidor. The Brisingamen ones may be a little too scary.

Burnett's The Lost Prince if you can find it is very good.

Ohh, one of my own favourites. Elizabeth Goudge's The Little White Horse, complete with strong heroine.

Michelle Magorian's Goodbye Mr Tom, though a strong character death warning here.

Both Redfern and myself must plug Dahl's Matilda once again.

She may like Kipling, particularly The Jungle Books, Kim and Stalky & Co.

Mildred D. Taylor's Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry where the protagonist is a nine-year-old girl.

Bette Greene's Summer of My German Soldier was always popular.

Judith Kerr's When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit I remember reading when I was only a little younger than HM. Very good.

You may want to just cast your eyes over these three as they can be a little harrowing, particularly the first.

Gillian Cross' The Prime Minister's Brain series and The Dark Behind the Curtain also highly recommended.

Lessee, Jostein Gaarder's The Solitaire Mystery and (possibly) Sophie's World.

The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke is very entertaining. Plenty of action and twisty-turny plot.

Then there's the Stravaganza series which is, like Magicians of Caprona, set at least partly in an alternate Italy. The titles so far are City of Masks and City of Stars with the third to be titled City of Flowers.

And I'll leave you with Tales of the Otori, a sequence by Lian Hearn. Though, given that it's in the Japanese tradition (aka practically everyone dies) you may wish to wait on it.

OK, I *really* read too much.

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

*stare*

Oh, there's no such thing, it just frightens me that you remembered all those titles and authors.

[rosamund.livejournal.com]

::grins::

Well, some I didn't remember entirely and had to enlist Amazon's help for.

Others live on my shelves...and up the stairs and along the bed--stop me if this sounds familiar ;)

And others again are such a part of my life that I could never forget them.

[jmhm.livejournal.com]

Hmmm.

Shelves... stairs... bed...

These are the places where the piles of books are slightly higher, right?

I've, um, heard.