Classic to read to 8 year old

[sunshine75]

I still love reading to dd before bed, but I'm bloody sick of Harry Potter/kids books. Thinking of reading one of the classics to her when we finally finish the Goblet of Fire.

Suggestions please for one of the classics that would appeal to an 8 year old girl and her mum.

Secret garden
Ballet shoes
Stig of the dump
Anne of green gables
Alice in wonderland
Narnia (mine read lion, witch, wardrobe before the 1st one - then went back)
Black beauty

Also try Michael morpurgo(although not sure he'd class as a classic yet!)

I read Heidi to my daughter aged 8 and we both thoroughly enjoyed it.

My 8yo is enjoying Little Women, Alice in Wonderland, all the Noel Streatfeilds at the moment.

I read her Swallows and Amazons about 8.

Do not be duped into reading The Water Babies or Tarka the fuckingOtter.

DD1 had some birthday money, so went to buy books with DH. He saw these on a "children's classics" shelf and suggested she buy them. He had never read them, himself. He just thought that as they were "classics" that was A Good Thing.

She is now 17 (and applying to Eng Lit courses at university, so is someone who loves to read) and still bemoans the waste of her precious money on that dross!

I loved the Laura Ingalls Wilder books at that age. Also, Noel Streatfeild books. E Nesbit books would be good.

More modern books she might like are the Percy Jackson series. They're not brilliantly written, they are fun, and an introduction to Greek and Roman mythology.

We have enjoyed Heidi, Swallows and Amazons, Ballet Shoes, Nicobobinus, Polly and the wolf..

A Little Princess.

What Katy did
The little princess
Secret garden
Heidi
Sherlock Holmes for children version

Dd found railway children bit boring

Personally agree with pp Re water babies but I would add swallows and Amazons to the dross pile unless you like pages of sailing terminology

Carries war

Worst Witch series
Narnia series
The Secret Garden

The Hobbit
The hounds of the Morrigan

I've been reading the Moomin books to DD recently. They're extremely well written and have real depth to them, despite on the surface looking like simple stories about cute creatures. I'd avoid the very last one though, it doesn't actually have the Moonins in, it's all about other characters waiting for them to turn up, but they don't and it all gets a bit dark and sad.

Most of these (also got bored with Swallows & Amazons) plus Tom's Midnight Garden

Depends on your 8yo (mine loved S&A so much she then asked for the unabridged audio CDs), but I'd add Frances Hodgson Burnett, CS Lewis (if you haven't already, as they're shorter and easier reads), E Nesbitt, and (a bit more recent) The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper.

Treasure Island, Children of the New Forest, another vote for Swallows and Amazons.
The Dark is Rising, for several years we started to read this just before Christmas on the days which tallied with the story, a much loved tradition.

Five Children & It
Wizard of Oz
The Ghost of Thomas Kempe

The Borrowers

Black beauty
The secret garden
The little princess

Goodnight Mister Tom, The Railway Children, Ballet Shoes, The Borrowers were all hits. We've just read Little Women which DD enjoyed but me not so much... Black Beauty is next on the list and also Swallows and Amazon's. So many books, so little time!

Sorry about the apostrophe in Amazons, predictive text on my Kindle!

Me and my boys have enjoyed
The little House on the Prairie books
Narnia books
The Hobbit

My 8 year old just enjoyed Animals of Farthing Wood. Probably a bit more modern than the classic classics, but hey.

Anybody said "Anne of Green Gables" yet?
Just the first book.
DD (a young 9 at the time) loved it and It was one of the girly Classics I missed out on in my childhood.