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.

I think it's the style that makes the difference. I agree re content re J Wilson and Noel Streatfield, but it can be a challenge to get used to a much more "wordy" style. DD read the whole Anne of Green Gables series a year or so ago and can do a marvellous impression of the page long whimsical heavily adjectival nature rhapsodising that Anne goes in for, especially in the later books. (Which I read for the first time and found unbearable.)

If they can hold on long enough to get used to the different style, it's fine.

my parents weren't big readers, so i always chose my own books.
I spent a lot of time in the library, and we always picked up piles of books from the jumble sale when we went.

for most of the time i was at home, you couldn't pull me away from a book (and i was deaf when i was reading!).

I had the freedom to choose and to read what i wanted, but there was always something around for me to choose from.

DD also 9, has just devoured Percy Jackson. I read the first one and thought it was a Harry Potter ripoff/similar to story. She can make her own choices and is a voracious reader. I am not keen on J Wilson due to the inevitable issues in the book. Each one is to do with divorce/violence/drugs/something horrible. I am aware that these things happen but some upset DD. She isn't a tender blossom by any means but she read (I think) dustbin baby and was very emotional.

Dustbing baby was very sad. I have read all of them as dd makes me read them after her.

If she liks Dahl then I bet she would love anything by E Nesbitt....often a bit dark her stories are fabulous, not only The Railway Children but ...well....all of them!

dd has read recently Eva Ibbotson, Roman Mysteries, Enid Blyton Mystery series and Naughtiest Girl (again!)and Jacqueline Wilson. Just started the Great Rabbit Rescue.

My 9 yo dd has just given up on Humphrey books (which she read repeatedly). She had the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books and read them all quite quickly. She is currently reading Grim Gruesome Viking Villain books and I'm ordering a couple of Darren Shan books, after we watched the Cirque de Freak movie together.

I despaired of my girl reading fairy books and really simple books, despite being really advanced in terms of her writing abilities. I couldn't understand why here reading wasn't more aspirational.

Then I remembered...she was 7/8/9.

I took her in bookshops often and steered her towards the kind of books I thought she might like and she put me right by choosing just the kind of books she liked. Now I leave here alone on the whole, though I will occasionally buy her a book that I know I'll enjoy. She can then read it or not, as she chooses.

I also love the R Dragon books by Rosemary Manning - Green SMoke is available in Jane Nissen books
there are loads that they have brought back into print, such as Bogwoppit, The house in norham Gardens, The Country Child, more of the Noel Streatfeild books (theatre shoes and circus shoes), Clever Polly, Christmas with the Savages etc.

Gregor the overlander series
The lightning thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians series)
Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos (series)
The name of this book is secret (series)
Falling In by Frances O'Roark Dowley
100 Cupboards (series)
The Red Pyramid
Harry Potter Series
Varjak Paw (series)
Sideways Stories from Wayside School

Anything by Michael Morpurgo- My favourite is The Butterfly Lion.

Great stories, beautifully written and not that hard to read.

She might still like the cosier content of younger books? - if she still likes Room on the Broom ... or it might be extended narrative (which you do need to develop stamina for) that she isn't ready for?

Tove Jansson's Moomintroll books haven't been mentioned and are a lovely light but inspiring read. Gobbolino, Carbonel and Rumer Godden's books (eg Miss Happiness and Miss Flower) are similarly quite cosy, quite accessible, but not at all dumbed-down.

If you think it might be something to do with not yet having the stamina for longer books, there are lots of collections of short stories around. And E Nesbit (as already mentioned) writes in an episodic way, so chapters work as self-contained stories.

Poetry is good for brief reads that give you lots to think about. (Funny poetry best for children, I think.)

Dd's current favourite is Diana Wynne Jones, which is great as she's so prolific we aren't going to run out any time soon.

(Hello Earlybird!!)

Could also try Pollyanna and the Little Women books.

I think you need to work out what exactly is putting her off and move from there.

Is she scared by small print or too many words? Something with illustrations or even comic-strip style might suit eg the excellent Marcia Williams series of books which are witty and informative. A bit longer, but Phillip Reeve's Larklight trilogy, though it uses difficult vocabulary, has lots of line drawings breaking up the text; The Edge Chronicles, by Stewart and Riddell, do as well, though they are quite lengthy.

Is it the length of the book? Is she put off by doorsteps? If that's it, you could try Michael Morpurgo's books - lots of them are quite short but challenging and interesting in content.

I agree about poetry and short stories; Spike Milligan very good for both of these and actually the A A Milne poetry books are beautiful. Rumer Godden is lovely and quite short/not offputting at all.

My DD (now 11) was averse to reading 'challenging' books even though she was perfectly capable. So the bedtime story became chapters of the 'classics' - Nesbitt, Little Women series, Anne of Green Gables, the Borrowers, Arthur Ransome etc plus new ones she found too scary like Alex Rider. We're currently on 'The Rainbow Valley', one of the later Anne books.

She does read more for herself now too (currently a Horowitz book having decided he was a good writer) but some of these classic books do, I think, benefit from being read expressively and with bits of explanation. Some of them are quite impossible to read aloud without dissolving into tears, mind!

I feel really strongly about this as one of my clearest memories at primary school was being told I wasn't 'allowed' to read a certain book because it was 'too young' for me, so I had to drop the book in which I was interested, and read something dull which I disliked and gained no pleasure from.

What is important is that a child READS not what they read. If they don't get to experience reading as a pleasure, they will drop it as soon as they can. I still remember being forced to read Jane Austen at 13 (which I think is much too young) and it very nearly ruined her for me for life. I still can't touch Shakespeare or George Eliot after having it forced down us at school - this is literature! you will love it!

Bollocks. If you love reading, you will get to the more 'challenging' stuff in your own time. Or not. And so what. Reading fiction should always be for pleasure, to take you away to another world, not to 'challenge', not to 'stimulate'. The real risk in trying to 'persuade' a child to read something he or she is not keen on is that you put them off literature for a very long time.

My parents despaired of me ever stopping with Enid Blyton. I went on to get a very good degree, a good job and I read what I like, when I like and it is one of the greatest pleasures of my life.

Sandyballs my dd is exactly the same and I thought I needed to gently encourage her to more challenging books,
the reason she love the rainbow fairies is because she can finish those in the same day

She read Mr Stink last week and loved it (David Walliams)

At the minute she is loving Dork Dairies/Dairy of a Wimpy Kid

but I do agree with Cory and have relaxed and I am trying not force to much upon her, as someone else said don't want to sicken her

I read a Cathy Cassidy book and tbh thought they were abit too real for my dd, domestic violence, drugs, and no santa are things I don't really want her reading about atm, and she didn't seem to get into them (although I loved the 2 I read)

My DD has just raced thru Harry Potter having rejected the first one a year or so ago.

I have had to hastily buy books 3-7 since June when she turned 9.

She also likes Diary of a Wimpy Kid, any Enid Blyton, Jeremy Strong, Enid Blyton, Jacqueline Wilson etc. Did I mention Enid Blyton?

She seems to have grown out of Rainbow Magic which is a relief mainly because she insisted I buy them all. We have more than 50 on the shelf!

YY must get bedknobs and broomsticks. DD has Ballet Shoes but not sure she's read it yet. Might be a bit hard.

Agree re keeping well loved books, would never throw out room on the broom.