Books for a 9 year old girl with female lead characters that aren’t about fairies or cute animals..

@MargaretThursday - I am a numpty - I had forgotten about the ‘female led’ part of the brief when I suggested The Box of Delights. And I should have checked the book order for the Lone Pine books.

I agree that the Lone Pine books aren’t completely female led, but I do think the girls in them are strong characters - I read all of them as a teenage girl, and didn’t feel that they were boy-centred - but it is a while since I read them, so my perception could be wrong - I suggested them because they fitted in - in my mind, at least - with the Swallows and Amazons suggestion.

A Mighty Girl website has a section of books with strong girl characters www.amightygirl.com/books

Another award winning book series of three that I thought was quite special if you want to try something a bit different and diverse would be Where The Mountain Meets The Moon by Grace Li and it's two sequels - Starry River Sky and When the Sea Turned to Silver. These books are beautiful gentle adventures that fit together like a lovely puzzle.

Adventurers - www.jemmahatt.com/

We loved the boy who grew dragons and more were enjoying “the adventurers” series - they’re like a modern up to date famous five with a main girl character.

Well. Now that I've read the OP more carefully.....Secret Garden - the parents do die at the beginning but the messaging is one of perseverance and love/light after tragedy.

What about the Secret Garden by Francis Hodgson Burnett? I love the lead character Mary. You can get Illustrated versions and the 1993 movie is lovely as a follow up after.

I highly recommend the book Nim's Island and the sequels by Wendy Orr - marvellous adventures- strong, intelligent, independent female lead.

Also the Little House on the Prairie Books are fascinating - there's some racism at times which is an opportunity to discuss, but they are really interesting especially - The Little House on the Prairie, On the Banks of Plum Creek and The Long Winter.

I have sons but they both, at your daughters age, enjoyed the books above.

Emily Lime books

"Mystery At Witchend" is the first Malcolm Saville Lone Pine book. "Lone Pine Five" is the fifth. (there are 20, last being "Home to Witchend") It's not really girl lead though. At best it's mixed, but in most of the pairings except the twins the boys are more the leaders. (my ds played Dickie in a performance just before lockdown).

Ditto, "Swish of the Curtain". The girl lead one is "Maddy Alone" which is (to me) the weakest of the series. Maddy behaves as a brat and gets away with it (I suspect it was heavily Mary Sue-ed by the author).

"The Box of Delights" has a lovely BBC version. It's perhaps a little dated (at the time I remember loving the special effects, but they look unimpressive now) but still fantastic with real snow! My dc loved it even if they did see through all the special effects that had us spellbound. But although there are feisty girls, (cousin Maria?) they're not lead characters (that's Kay Harper) and I seem to remember they spend most of the story "Scrobbled" so out of it.

Lightening girl

There are so many children's classics with female lead characters or a group of siblings where the girls are as important as the boys.

Traditional school stories have almost entirely female casts. I see someone has mentioned the Chalet School. There are a lot of deceased parents, and quite a bit of peril, which mostly ends happily. Some of them take in real historical events, too. But I'd definitely try her on the first two in the series and see how she gets on.

There are some quite adult themes in Dragonflight, I think, @Yddraigoldragon - specifically the mating flights. They are amazing books, though, and if @PurpleCloak doesn’t think they are suitable right now, she should definitely bear them in mind for later on. I read the whole series in my teens, and I still have them all.

It might be worth checking some of the old fantasy series. I read LOTR at that age, also Anne McCaffery starting with Dragonflight.
David Eddings also, they both start with a ‘young’ character with little in the way of adult themes.

The Chalet School stories by Elinor M Brent-Dyer are good - a bit old fashioned, but nice stories. I think The School at the Chalet is No 1 - and if your dd likes them, @PurpleCloak, there are 61 more, plus fan-fic fill-ins, so that would keep her going for a while.

Has anyone suggested the Gerald Durrell books? They are autobiography, rather than fiction, but are so funny - My Family and Other Animals is the first.

Another slightly old fashioned series, is the Lone Pine mysteries by Malcolm Saville - a group of friends who solve mysteries. Lone Pine Five is the first one.

The Swish of the Curtain, by Pamela Brown is about a group of children who find an abandoned theatre, get inside, fix it up and stage a play.

The Box of Delights, by John Masefield is a Christmassy book, but it is lovely - and there is a TV version (BBC, I think).

And if you fancy a total laugh, The Practical Princess and other stories

The first few books of Laura Ingalls Wilder? up to about Plum Creek at that age? The later books dealing with her teenage years and the long winter are great, but deal with her growing up and perhaps a bit of a darker experience

A Little Princess
The Secret Garden
The Weirdstone of Brisingamen
Thursday's Child
Anything by Noel Streatfield
Masha by Mara Kaye
The Railway Children
The Phoenix and the Carpet
Swallows and Amazons

How about the Silver Brumby stories by Elyne Mitchell about wild horses in Australia?

I re read Malory Towers recently. As a grown up, I was appalled at how bitchy and snobbish and judgemental even the "good" characters and the teachers are. Quite unpleasant.
Clearly they were the same when I read them as a child though, and they didn't turn me into a racist, snobbish bigot! But I not sure I could recommend them.

Yes! I think I loved them BECAUSE they were so different to my life. I loved her determination.

Would probably avoid McKay's most recent two for now though - Starlings' War and Swallows' Flight. They are great books, almost Cazalet saga for children, set in WW1 and WW2. Some deaths in conflict. Binny in Secret is a prequel so maybe not that one either.

My nine year old girls loved Percy Jackson books x

I was thinking Eva Ibbotson and Hilary McKay too, but when you think about it they are nearly all about being orphaned and the way families heal or children find new families. It's practically a genre. Exceptions would be the Exiles / Secret of Platform 13. I think the Howl Series is the only set of Diana Wynne Jones's books that meets your criteria too.

But if you wanted safe and loving stories about how orphans thrive and are loved, couldn't do better than McKay (Binny / Cassons) or Ibbotson (Star of Kazan, Journey to River Sea).