Books with angst for reluctant reader

[Barbarara]

Dd is 9 and struggling with chapter books. I’m finding it difficult to find something to engage her interest. She doesn’t enjoy Horrid Henry/ Wimpy Kid type humor, action/adventure/detective series and has no particular interest in daisy meadows/ gymnastics/ ballet stories. I think those categories pretty much sum up the available emerging reader fiction.

When I was starting to read I loved Bunty and Mandy which (age showing) were proper comics with tear jerkers and angst filled stories about Victorian heiresses and their evil uncles, jealous friends, secret heroines working for the french resistance. And they were obviously a very easy entry point into fiction in terms of their reading level.

I can’t find anything similar and old comics are ££ on eBay. Can anyone recommend some books for young readers with a bit of melodrama, injustice and angst. Even more challenging books would be fine as we read a lot together.

I vaguely remember an Enid Blyton book about a family whose parents disappeared and the older ones had to get jobs, but I can’t remember much about it.

She enjoyed A Little Princess but it’s reading level is still a way off her managing it alone.

I’d really be grateful for any recommendations.

Black Beauty and Pippi Longstocking are the best ones I can think of.

How about a subscription to something like Aquila? Still reading, just a different format.

What about some of the boarding school series, like Mallory Towers or Trebizon?

There's a book called Homecoming by Cynthia Voigt which is about a family of 4 children who are abandoned by their mother and have to make their own way to their nearest relative. That sounds a bit like the Enid Blyton one you remember?

You could also try some of the other classics to read together if she like A Little Princess, like Anne of Green Gables or the Secret Garden.

Just thought of another one: the Scarlet and Ivy series. The first one is all about Ivy, whose twin 'died' at boarding school, and she is asked to go off to the school and pretend to be her twin. Lots of angst and mystery.

Cathy Cassidy has some 9+ books, such as Cherry Crush.
Jacqueline Wilson. Maybe Cookie, Longest Whale Song, Butterfly Club or Hetty Feather.
Little House on the Prairie series.

Or Wonder, by RJ Palaccio. There has recently been a film version of this, which DD may have seen.
Also Goldfish Boy, by Lisa Thompson.

Thanks. These are great.

Was the Enid Blyton you're thinking of The Family at Red-Roofs?

@listsandbudgets that sounds familiar. It might have been.

Have you tried just giving her fact books - Guiness book of records, junior encyclopeidas etc.

My DS although he likes being read to it is rare that he'll pick up a chapter book. However I often find him lying in bed with fact books.

I don't think it matters too much at this stage as long as they're reading.

One book I did get DS to read was Fing by David Walliams. He also likes the Winnie the Witch books - (there are some for slightlly older children) You could also try The Worst Witch - there's quite a few of those if she turns out to like them

I loved the family at red roofs as a child! And Mallory Towers and then the Trebizon series

I also loved the railway children both book and film. Im reading the Famous Five series with my 10yr old - adventure stories i guess but quite gentle!

Noel streatfield - some of them might hit the mark.

My children enjoyed Jacqueline Wilson books.
Horrible histories went down well too.
The Wolf Brother series by Michelle Paver was very good too, even for the more reluctant readers in my family.

These are great suggestions. Thanks.,
@listsandbudgets I’ve tried fact books but no joy so far. She has a nature book that she loves, but I think she just looks at the pictures.

My children were home educated, and so there was no pressure on them to be reading as such. They got into reading at their own pace. If she wants to look at pictures and make up stories around them, that's very educational too. There is time to learn to love reading, along with all they other exciting things out there. You can relax a bit