Recommendations please for an 8 year old girl - good reader but stuck in a rut

[changer22]

My DD is a good reader but seems to play it safe with her reading choices - rereading Horrid Henry and Michael Morpurgo books which she first read over a year ago. Obviously I'm pleased she is reading and enjoying them but I'd like her to branch out more and push herself a bit. When she picks books at school she chooses what seem to be younger, easier to read books, e.g. one by Anne Fine of about 25 pages that she can read in one go - sort of comfort reading.

I don't want to be pushy about it, I'd just like her discover new authors and enjoy the challenge of reading a 'good book'.

Black Beauty?
Joan Aiken?

It's a long time since I was 8 ...

If she likes animals - Dick King Smith

If she likes humour -
Rover Adventures
Mr Gum books?
A series of Unfortunate Events

If you want to "challenge" her pick some books to read to her, a couples of chapters each night, it is lovely to get into the habit and if you choose books you enjoy reading she will love listening to you.

mine has just read some of the Ottoline books (Chris Riddell) and really enjoyed them. Otherwise she is also reading the lemony snicket ones. (she also picks out the easy books - I'm sure she'd love Harry Potter but she is too intimidated).

dd liked the Magic Faraway tree books and has read a few of the books by David Walliams e.g Mr Stink, Billionaire Boy

Thank you for your suggestions.

She's read Dick King Smith, the Ottoline books and David Walliams. A Series of Unfortunuate Events might be good though and I like the fact they're a series for her to get stuck into.

Yes, I'd thought about Joan Aiken, but thought I was a bit older when I read that. Maybe one for us to share.

I keep coming back to my own love of Noel Streatfeild but I imagine they would seem very dated now.

Lynne Reid Banks Indian in the Cupboard.

all the Enid Blytons
Spiderwick Chronicals
Narnia collection
Judy Blume's Pain and the Great One
the Laura Marlin mysteries
the Humphry books
Judy Moody
Tum Tum & Nutmeg
Diary of a Wimpey Kid
Ivy and Bean
Worst Witch
Madam Pamplemousse

Diary of a Wimpy King
Malory Towers
Mr Gum
The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark series
Big Nate (similar to Wimpy Kid)
Mr Stink (and others by David Walliams)
Worst Witch
My Naughty Little Sister
Naughty Amelia Jane

I don't think Noel Streatfeild comes across as dated, or no more so than it did to us when we were reading it - the emotions (e.g. jealousy) and enthusiasms are still the same. Maybe more for age 9-10, though?

Eleanor Estes seems to have written a lot of things that would be good for 8-year-olds - some of them are series. Also Elizabeth Enright.

The Toymaker's Daughter etc. (series of 3) by Ursula Moray Williams (available on Abebooks)

Lost in Time - Ali Sparkes
The London Eye Mystery - Siobhan Dowd
Al Capone Does My Shirts - Gennifer Choldenko
There's A Boy in the Girls Bathrom - Louis Sachar

Plus Malory Towers, St Clares, Adventure Series and Famous Five books by Enid Blyton

My DD (Y5) also loved The Indian in the Cupboard and she's read loads of Jeremy Strong, Michael Morpurgo, David Walliams and of course Jacqueline Wilson & Cathy Cassidy.

Hi there changer - I wrote this for a friend with a seven-year old daughter - hope there are some ideas in here that might work for your daughter.

The book I remember most clearly from being 7/8 years old is Muriel Denison?s Susannah of the Mounties. I found a copy in the rented house we lived in when we first moved to London and I loved it and read it over and over again.

Elizabeth Goudge: The LIttle White Horse and Henrietta's House

Laura Ingalls Wilder: Little House in the Big Woods (and all the others)

Joan Aiken: The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, Black Hearts in Battersea, Night Birds on Nantucket; there are several more of these books which are a linked series and are now collectively known as the Wolves Chronicles
Arabel's Raven and the sequels
Collections of short stories - A Necklace of Raindrops etc

Diana Wynne Jones: The Ogre Downstairs was my favourite ? she was prolific!

Eve Garnett: The Family from One End Street and sequels

Monica Dickens: The House at World's End and sequels. Your daughter might also like MD's autobiographies - One Pair of Hands is the first - very lighthearted and easy to read.

John Masefield: The Midnight Folk and The Box of Delights. These might be rather hard going to read to herself but could be good for reading aloud.

Edward Eager: Half Magic and Magic by the Lake

E Nesbitt: Five Children and It, The Phoenix and The Carpet, The Treasureseekers, The Would-Be-Goods, The Railway Children

Mary Rodgers: Freaky Friday, A Billion for Boris

Rumer Godden: Miss Happiness and Miss Flower, The Dolls' House, Little Plum - there are several more but these were the ones that I liked.

Dodie Smith: The Hundred and One Dalmations, The Starlight Barking

Rosemary Sutchiffe: Warrior Scarlet

Roger Lancelyn Green: great retellings of the Greek and Roman legends, Viking sagas, Egyptian myths

Rudyard Kipling: Just So Stories

Catherine Storr: Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf and sequels

Ursula Moray Williams: Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse (this is terribly sad but has a happy ending ? I used to cry and cry over it ? be warned!)

I also loved (and still love) autobiographies about authors? childhoods ? here are some I particularly liked at that age:
Diana Holman-Hunt: My Grandmothers and I
Eleanor Farjeon: A Nursery in the Nineties

Alison Uttley: The Country Child ? she also wrote the Little Grey Rabbit books which are delightful but might be a bit young for your daughter now.

Thanks for the extra replies. I've ordered 'The Indian in the Cupboard' trilogy, an Elizabeth Enright quartet, 'The Children from One End Street' (I loved this one but had forgotten all about it), 'The London Eye Mystery' and 'The Wolves of Willoughby Chase'.

That's given her enough to read for the moment but I shall come back to this when she's worked her way through them.

THE DUMPY PRINCESS by Karin Fernald
childhood of Queen Victoria, very entertaining