Strong girl character books for dd

[Picklesandbeans]

Looking for book recommendations for dd 8. Shes a great readed and like famous five etc but the more she reads of Anne preparing the meals and washing the dishes whilst julian bravely leads the way the more stereotypical gender roles are being in her head. I need to counterbalance please! A strong girl character needed!

[surreygirl1987]

The Babysitters' Club. The Chalet School series is good too in many ways but does massively confirm to gender stereotypes at times too. The Naughtiest Girl in the School? In a few years The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants and The Hunger Games would be good. Some Jacqueline Wilson books (like Bad Girls). Nancy Drew?

[surreygirl1987]

Oh and His Dark Materials when she's a little older... the character Lyra is amazing.

[Talipesmum]

Definitely agree with the Swallows and Amazons votes. There’s a realistically full range of “girl” personalities- oddly, as varied as actual human personalities
Re-reading swallowdale, for instance, recently, I noticed that 4/6 of them are girls. And it’s a book about people, children, adventure, with girls and boys just getting on with it. And all aspects of life are valued and all come in useful.
It might be that it’s better to read it with her to start with, as it could potentially be a bit harder to grasp as it’s written a long time ago. But it really is very straightforward and she might just need to “tune in” a little.

[TeenPlusCat]

@Talipesmum I'm glad someone else likes Swallows & Amazons series. My favourite was Pigeon Post, mining for gold, the mysterious Squashy Hat, and a missing armadillo...

[PaperMonster]

Definitely Anne of Green Gables - in the unabridged version, the vocab and sentence structure will challenge her as well. There’s a whole series of them.

[dynamitegirl]

Another vote for Arthur Ransome. Dick & Dot annoy me now as they are quite gender stereotyped (although perhaps it played into their personalities) but Nancy & Peggy and Port & Starboard do everything.
I also agree, though, about how the lead female is portrayed in some of the classics ... Jo in Little Women, Katy in the Katy Books, Jo, Mary Lou & others in Chalet School. All outspoken, spontaneous, quirky & larger than life. The PP's comment really resonated as I only realised the other day how many of my characteristics are perhaps because I wanted to be like them. It occurred to me that some of those characteristics work better in a novel than in real life!