A classic book for my goddaughter

[drspouse]

I want to get her a classic read-aloud (so it doesn't have to be completely readable by her) in a nice edition. She's just about to turn 6.

I was thinking about Pippi Longstocking in the Lauren Child edition but I seem to remember there might be some borderline racist or at least heavily 1950s bits? Anyone read this edition?

What else would you recommend? I think they probably have Winnie the Pooh, Narnia and Roald Dahl.

Also, DD likes this Shakespeare collection She was given one book as an end-of-year gift by a teacher in Yr2 and really enjoyed it. She was subsequently given the whole collection for Xmas and still reads them now, aged 13! Book People nearly always have the set at a reasonable price. Not sure how you would get on reading them aloud though as we never did that but the potential is there to take share "parts" and read together.

My children (son and daughter) LOVED rebel stories for girls

And for the poster who’s daughter got “ragey” perhaps you could buy her the equivalent one for boys....

Why would I buy them the boy one? Especially when the girl one was so offensive to girls ? Shame, as dd2 likes reading about the females who have done amazing things against the odds. At least dd2 noticed immediately that the bar for having done amazing things was set rather lower for the one pink and sparkly boy.

Anyway Op, your God-daughter is at that inbetween age when many picture books are a little bit too young, and many chapter books that will be amazing in a few years are still a little bit too old.
My dds at that age loved My Naughty Little Sister, and the two Winnie the Pooh books.

Why on Earth was it offensive to girls?? It was celebrating some pretty bloody amazing women

And the boys who dare to be different do the same re men

Some of the stories in the rebel girls made my jaw hit the floor. Incredible stuff.

The Lost Prince or The Little Princess by Elizabeth Hodgkins Burnett

The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge which is utterly fantastic.

A really lovely edition with a range of titles is the Everyman children's classics. Very vintage feel - books to keep forever.

The Worst Witch goes down very well with my daughter at that age. Not your traditional classic but has aged well. Not all do...

The Little Princess and The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

What about the "interactive" ones by Harper Collins.

This is a clip of the Secret Garden.

Ds got the Hans Christen Anderson one last year when he was almost 4 and loves looking at the interactive bits/having it read to him.

I wouldn't recommend A Little Princess. I absolutely loved it as a little girl but I read it again last year and was seriously off put by the snobbery and classism in the book. I hadn't noticed them as a child. I was privileged enough to identify with Sara without thinking.

A hundred and one Dalmatians is a beautifully written book. It's more haunting than the film. It deserves to be read aloud more often than it is for the way it's written.

Alternatively there's Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching series for children. The first one is The Wee Free Men. They're all good.

Why on Earth was it offensive to girls??
I imagine because it says that boys who like sparkly things are, in fact, girls.
Won't be buying that anyway.
Front runners are still Pippi, and Heidi and Secret Garden.
Child's Garden of Verses is coming up behind.

* imagine because it says that boys who like sparkly things are, in fact, girls.*

I must have missed that bit! Where does it say that?

See above:
it has all these amazing women, and then one small boy, who has done nothing at all of note, other than have parents bullying enough to force his school to let him use the girls’ facilities, because he likes pink, and sparkles.

The worst witch illustrations are simply stunning. Also what about a box set-naughtiest girl, Malory towers, St. Clair's etc. Six is a difficult age to buy for as others have said here.

Anne of Green Gables; What Katy Did; Little Women probably just a little too "old" for her at the moment. Some of the E. Nesbit stories? They're set in a world that's old enough to be history now...

Rumer Godden’s The Story of Holly and Ivy. It’s quite short and set at Christmas, so perhaps better as a Christmas present. But it’s a beautifully constructed and lovely story. I still re-read it even now.

My DM bought my DCs The Nursery Alice - it’s a shortened and simplified version of Alice in Wonderland written by Lewis Carroll and beautifully illustrated. It’s nice for reading aloud as it’s quite interactive, asks whether the listener (it’s written as if being read aloud to a child) would have preferred to be tiny Alice or enormous Alice.

My favourite illustrated classics when I was smaller were the Wind in the Willows, A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson and a stunnng collection of Hans Christian Anderson stories. I still have them and DC1 (9yo) enjoys looking through the HCA with me

However my somewhat bloodthirsty and macabre DC2 (6yo) much prefers the ‘classic’ The Nightmare Before Christmas by Tim Burton. And I haven’t been able to get Where’s My Cow by Terry Pratchett back from her either. So it’s really just down to personality.

Yes that was why it was offensive to girls, also because for a girl or woman to be included she had to have done something incredible. For a boy to be included IN THE GIRLS BOOK, he merely had to like pink and have stroppy, bullying parents who trampled all over the rights of actual girls. Such a bizarre inclusion.

In a few years she will be old enough for Anne of Green Gables, The Children of Green Knowe series of books, Narnia, Ronya the Robber’s Daughter etc.
I am going to go and look at dds book shelves and see what old favourites are still there.

How could I have forgotten Alex T Smith ? His Claude books are great, for slightly older but would be fine , and How Winston Delivered Christmas is a brilliant alternative to an Advent Calendar. Aimed at 8 and over but perfect for six and up I would say. My dd loved it last Christmas, even though she was eleven, as we read alternate chapters aloud each night through December, and it was a lovely ritual.

I'm afraid I defaced my DDs copy of Rebel Girls. Its very easy to write NOT A GIRL on the relevant pages . I do wonder at their choices but overall a good concept.

My offering is the Ordinary Princess by MM Kaye. Princess 'cursed' by fairy godmother with a gift of being ordinary runs away to live in the forest and work as a kitchen maid. One of my favourite childhood books.