What are your 9 year old DD's reading? My DD is still choosing books that are too easy and unchallenging!

[sandyballs]

I need some ideas to get her interested in reading something with a bit more to it then Rainbow Faries or Roald Dahl.

Nothing wrong with those of course but she's nearly 10 and very capable.

She's only just reluctantly let me throw out 'Room on the Broom' .

Any ideas.

Try some Eva Ibbotson, there are funny ghost stories such as The Secret of Platform 13 but also beautiful longer novels (e.g. Journey to teh River Sea). My 9 year old loves the Twilight books which are Not Really Suitable but as "everyone in her class had read them" and they're in the school library not really possible to ban.

Angie Sage is also good, the Araminta Spook books might make a good bridge to her longer books like Magyk.

Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah

The Pony Whisperer series

Lady Grace Mysteries are fun.

Ottoline books?

Series of Unfortunate Events

My dd has recently read the Clarice Bean books, The Secret Garden, some of the Enid Blytons, a lovely book by Jill Murphy called Dear Hound.

A second for Clarice Bean. We have a chapter from one every night, and DDs 10,8,6 are all wrapped, and frequently in stitches. Also Horrid Henry, and Dear Hound have gone down well recently.

DD (8) is reading the Roman Mysteries series. She loves them.

Humphrey the Hamster books

Jeremy Strong

Anne Fine

How about pseudonymous bosch? the first one is called The name of this book is secret (isbn :9780746090923) which a detective story with a difference (lots of twists and turns and it's really clever, but i can't give too much away...)

or A most improper magick by Stephanie Burgis?
"Kat's father may be a respectable vicar, but her mother was a notorious witch, her brother gambled the whole family into debt , abd Kat herself is in the newet taget of an ancient and secretive magical order..."
ISBN 9781848770072

Thanks for all these suggestions, will look into all of them and try to get her more interested!

DD has just read a couple of the 'Poppy Fields' mysteries by Tanya Landman and is pestering me to get the rest of the series....

Helen Dunmore's Ingo series might also be good, and I always recommend Eva Ibbotson to everyone with children this sort of age.

Dd loves Cathy Cassidy books.

My DD is currently reading the Miley Cyrus autobiography

But normally likes Cathy Cassidy and Jacqueline Wilson.

First of all, I would never throw out any good books for smaller children. A book that is good literature is good literature. Full stop. Your dd wants to expand her reading, not narrow it down. Even an adult can learn about good writing from the best picture books.

But for additional reading, I would recommend:

Noel Streatfield, Ballet Shoes.

Cathy Cassidy.

The Lady Grace mysteries.

Rosemary Sutcliff: Warrior Scarlet, The Eagle of the Ninth (and there are plenty more).

The Laura Ingalls books.

Harry Potter. (Not perhaps great literature, but they have been well proven to encourage children to read)

E. Nesbit: Five Children and It, The Amulet, The Enchanted Castle, The House of Arden.

Mary Norton: Bedknobs and Broomsticks (this is imho is a seriously good book!) and The Borrowers.

Norton is one of the best authors (adult or children) I have ever read, for humour, for language and characterisation, for descriptive detail that actually means something. But the Borrowers is quite hard work, because of the sheer amount of descriptive detail.

Hear Hear Cory We all like to read different types of books, magazines etc. at different times don't we? Why should DCs be any different from us in that repect. If you're too controlling she may rebel.

Apart from agreeing with cory (of course), I would also say that loving to read is the most important thing - do you pick "challenging" books for yourself? Or ones you fancy? Let her choose what she wants to read, and leave other books lying around that she can pick up when she wants to. If she loves reading, she'll look at them in due course. I did this with my dd, just made v casual suggestions and left books around, if I went on about them too much, she developed prejudices and wouldn't consider them.

DS is obsessed with Darren Shan books!

Sorry!!! Just realised you said DD's

I'll second (or is it third or fourth by now) the Lady Grace mysteries - my DD (nearly 11) loves them.

Try all the classics - Alice in Wonderland, E Nesbit, as mentioned.

My DD loved "The Witch's Daughter" by Nina Bawden, and "Midnight is a Place" by Joan Aiken (from my own childhood collection!); I'm still trying to get her into Laura Ingalls (my favourites!).

Catherine Storr - "Marianne Dreams" and "The Mirror Image Ghost"; and, surprisingly, she loves "The Iron Man" by Ted Hughes (which I'd thought of as a boy's book, but there you go!).

I've had terrible trouble persuading her to move on from Rainbow Magic & Tiara Club, and she still gets them out of the library from time to time, but she is getting there!

Does she need to read books that are difficult and challenging?

I don't!

too true - you're likely to put her off readinf if you make it look like it's something that needs to be "learned" or "expanded" and something "challenging".
Good children's books are those that hook the reader - that make them want to read on and find out what happens.
and what makesthem like/relate to/hate the characters.

I agree that you should leave stuff lyingaround, and not discourage reading that is below her reading level - often layers of comprehension come out of reading books that are written for younger readers (how many times have you laughed at picture books that have a joke for the parents in it?)

and if you want o encourage her further - buy her some book tokens and make a trip to your local bookshop so that she can choose her own. (i've noticed my child customers will listen to my recommendations over their parents', because they know i love the books and other children have told me what they enjoyed)

I was keen for DD to move on from Rainbow Fairies, not because I thought she needed a challenge, but just because they are crap rather formulaic and even she was getting bored with the same old plot again and again. I knew she would actually enjoy real books with more absorbing plots and better writing once she got over the fact that they weren't quite so easy to read. Fine to go back to them sometimes, but not good if that's all you ever get used to reading when you are capable of reading real, non-mass-produced literature. It's like the junk food/real food thing - junk OK occasionally, but not if that's all you eat. (I read trashy crime novels sometimes as a break from the more serious stuff.)

I am also trying to encourage my reluctant ds (10) by reading aloud out of books that might be a little difficult for him to read himself but that I think he would enjoy. Treasure Island was a great success, The Three Musketeers is next on the list. But of course I am not telling him my evil agenda; ostensibly, this is just to give him a treat.

I need to read books that are difficult and challenging, but also books that are reassuring and familiar, and some fluffy mindless ones, and a range in between.

Just noticed she's only 9!

The trouble with a lot of the classics is that you really need to be older to understand and appreciate them, otherwise they are spoilt.

Try Malory Towers and St Clares - big big hit in this house at that age.

I found at that age that the problem was that dd devoured books, but those that she liked only lasted five minutes, it was hard to find anything that had the content she enjoyed, but that took longer than 10 minutes, so it was hard to keep her supplied.

And Roald Dahl is fantastic!

let her read what she wants, she'll probably get enough of what she should be doing at school

There is plenty of time to read hard and challenging books

Depends on the child, doesn't it, Hully?

I roamed fairly freely in my parents' library and also listened to them reading aloud to my older brother, but I didn't really feel things were spoiled for me, more that I could come back later and discover new things in books I had heard when younger.

And for a 9yo, I don't really think classics like Ballet Shoes and Five Children and It are too old content wise (though they may not be used to reading that many words). A lot of classics are less "adult" in their content material than the books written for the same audience nowadays. True, there are fewer words in your average Jacqueline Wilson than in Ballet Shoes, but the stories are far "older".

Thanks for more replies.

Interesting Cory, I agree reading anything is good and better than nothing. I don't read particularly challenging books but surely that is because I am now an adult and could read a challenging book if I wanted to, just choose not to. I feel it's making DD a bit lazy to cop out with an easy read when she could be extending her vocabulary and knowledge with harder stuff.

I don't mean that so sound pushy, I'm really not a pushy sort of mum, honest . She's a bright kid who has had a shitty teacher for year 4 and coasted through that year unchallenged with unmarked work and I want her to do better this year with her lovely new teacher. I can already see a difference in DD's attitude just a couple of weeks into term, she's regaining her thirst for knowledge that she lost with her year 4 teacher completely. So I'm just trying to help her in the right direction.

Sorry, that went off on a tangent away from books, but you now have a bit of background!