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Children's books

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What next for my Y7 avid reader?

31 replies

TheBobbinIsWoundUp · 11/06/2020 15:11

She’s just finished Brave New World, before that she re-read all the Arthur Ransomes, she’s just starting the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency but after that she’s out of books.

She’s finding lockdown quite anxiety provoking, so I don’t want anything likely to make that worse (so not 1984 or any of the teen angst style novels). She’s read all the children’s classics (Little Women etc).

She likes a story but is happy with non fiction as well, if it’s well written (she loved the Usborne books on politics and economics).

Can anyone recommend anything that might work for her?

OP posts:
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Lobsterquadrille2 · 29/06/2020 21:12

The Greengage Summer - I've just found it in a box and still love it.

ThreeCubesBalancing · 29/06/2020 21:02

Oh, also I Capture the Castle, The Changeover, and Madeleine L’Engle’s Austin family books.

SorrelForbes · 29/06/2020 21:01

Penelope Lively?
Beverley Nichols?

ThreeCubesBalancing · 29/06/2020 21:00

Ifigoup, your list is almost exactly what I was about to suggest, apart from Antonia Forest and Ruth Rendell - it’s spooky! I would add When Marnie Was There, Playing Beattie Bow, Keeper of the Isis Light, ( sounds dodgy now but nothing to do with terrorism!), Charlotte Sometimes, Howls Moving Castle, Witch Week, Anne McCaffrey’s Pern books, all of which aI enjoyed at that age.

ifigoup · 29/06/2020 20:56

Agatha Christie
Isaac Asimov robots stuff
Other vintage sci-fi: Chocky, The Lotus Caves, The Tripods, Day of the Triffids, The Midwich Cuckoos
Alan Garner, e.g. The Owl Service
Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising series
Antonia Forest, starting with Autumn Term
I got into Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine at that age, but perhaps a bit dark for right now

gracepoolesrum · 29/06/2020 20:54

Cider With Rosie - my top suggestion if she's not read it, it's lovely
Dorothy L Sayers
The Shipping News
Miss Smillas Feeling For Snow
The Curious Incident
Lorna Doone

Gazelda · 29/06/2020 20:44

This thread is a treasure trove that my DD will love!
She's reading Percy Jackson at the moment. She loved HP and the unladylike murders series.
She also adores Miss Peregrine's School for Peculiar Children. There's now 5 books in the series.

RomaineCalm · 29/06/2020 20:34

A couple more to add to the list...

The 'What Katy Did' series might appeal if she's enjoyed Little Women.

Agatha Christie - DC has just finished 'Death on the Nile' and is working through some others.

I enjoyed 'Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less' at that age.

Does she have any hobbies/interests - are there any autobiographies that she might enjoy?

Zilla1 · 29/06/2020 20:26

From the adult to children's spectrum you've mentioned, OP, has she read Jane Eyre and Robin Steves' Unladylike Murders?

BlueChampagne · 18/06/2020 12:09

Daphne du Maurier?

TheBobbinIsWoundUp · 12/06/2020 21:13

Show I know there is a school librarian, but I don’t know whether dd is confident enough to email her (she’s in a funny position, Y7 but only had just under two terms there, so she still feels quite new and unsure of herself) or whether that’s the sort of thing that the librarian does. The teachers do talk about relevant books, and she’s just done an English project which involved all the class doing a presentation on their favourite books - that’s actually what prompted this thread as she’s rejected a lot of what they recommended as not being her sort of thing (they’re getting into YA and teen angst, which is not what she likes to read).

OP posts:
ShowOfHands · 12/06/2020 17:55

Lots and lots of really good suggestions on here.

DD is in daily contact with her very supportive school librarian who has been invaluable because she has suggested books that will feed into the curriculum, expand her knowledge of key topics across subjects and has provided useful talking points for her to consider after each book. She also sends lots of ideas just for fun and pleasure but she is a brilliant, dynamic librarian who is instrumental in nurturing dd's abilities in a way I (an avid reader myself and ex academic librarian) simply couldn't do. For example, dd is reading quite a lot of philosophy and factual research alongside certain historical texts and trying to tease out quite complex ideas about why and how we read. Don't forget other forms of reading too. Poetry in myriad forms, prose, discursive essays, epistolary novels, modern forms (dd has just read a book written in the form of multimedia and electronic communication), plays and so on.

Does your dd have a similar librarian at her school?

JellySlice · 12/06/2020 17:10

If you have a kindle, introduce her to Project Gutenberg and let her roam freely through the out-of-copyright classics.

BlueChampagne · 12/06/2020 15:36

Second Edge Chronicles.

DS1 (August Y8) has just finished Orlando.

CMOTDibbler · 12/06/2020 15:31

How about Neil Gaimans Norse mythology book? Ds really enjoyed that, also Mythos as previously mentioned.
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy went down well, as have the Robin Hobbs books.
Has she read all the Ann of Green Gables books? Usually very cheap on Kindle
DS enjoyed Jasper Ffordde at 12 - depends on your DDs sense of humour

Mirrorsin · 12/06/2020 14:57

What about the Wolf Brother series, or The Edge Chronicles?
I have 4 children and all of them enjoyed those at a similar age.

BarkandCheese · 12/06/2020 14:54

My y7 DD has been into Agatha Christie recently.

TheBobbinIsWoundUp · 12/06/2020 14:52

Thanks again! She’s not keen on Durrell (animals aren’t her thing) and she’s read some of the Sherlock Holmes and all of the Terry Pratchett, but some of the others look brilliant - especially the Tim Peak one as she’s really in to space stuff.

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JellySlice · 11/06/2020 19:09

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1783446730/ref=cmswwrwaaapiii_NkN4EbFVC5QVP Things A Bright Girl Can Do

I haven't actually read it, but it came highly recommended here on MN. I gave it to dd when she was about 14 IIRC, and she has loved it so much ever since, that she is now using it as her English Lit A-level free choice text.

PhilODox · 11/06/2020 18:57

Quite random, I know, but Tim Peake's book about being an astronaut is v accessible and very interesting.

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 11/06/2020 18:57

Patrick Ness, John Green, Rainbow Rowell?

PhilODox · 11/06/2020 18:55

Yy- my DD loved My Family And Other Animals at that age.
My children love Sherlock Holmes too, and Hitchhiker's Guide.
My youngest is a huge Pratchett fan- start with the Tiffany Aching books, the Wee Free Men is first.

PhilODox · 11/06/2020 18:52

The Book Thief
The Shadow of the Wind
The Lie Tree
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
This Thing of Darkness
Pride and Prejudice

Ricekrispie22 · 11/06/2020 18:47

Tarka the Otter
Born Free series by Joy Adamson
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Diary of Adrian Mole
The Da Vinci Code
Agatha Raisin
Catcher in the Rye
To Kill A Mockingbird

userabcname · 11/06/2020 17:21

Maybe some Charles Dickens- A Christmas Carol or Oliver Twist. Wilkie Collins - The Woman in White had me gripped at about that age! Some Sherlock Holmes is always a good choice imo. Then things like Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman, Harry Potter (if she's not read already), Jacqueline Wilson, My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell.