Books for a precocious 11 year old

[MissDollyMix]

DD (11/yr6) is an absolute voracious reader, which as a fellow reader I am very pleased about! The only problem is that she gets through books so quickly! She’s started working through my bookshelves because she’s totally bored of everything she owns and everything at the local library (I wish DH had listened to me and let me call her Matilda when she was born 😂). Anyway, she’s currently working through Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes so I don’t think she just wants to read children or YA fiction but I’m sure there are plenty of well-written, age-suitable books that are out there- I’m not necessarily wanting to push her, I just want to encourage her love of reading and her imagination! Anyone have any suggestions?

If she likes sherlock Holmes what about Agatha christie?!

Anne of Green Gables
Jane Eyre
Ruby Redfort
Daphne Du Maurier
Elizabeth Gouge
Lemony Snicket
Tolkein
Jean Plaidy
Lady Grace Mysteries
Murder Most Unladylike
Northern Lights
Dickens

I’d get her started on the classics. Dickens, Jane Austin, Trollope and the like. That should keep her going for a while.

I second Agatha Christie! I started reading hers at 9 or 10 years old.

Also, if she likes mysteries, has she read the Murder Most Unladylike series?

Dickens, Brontë and the like will require an advanced vocabulary and a high level of comprehension skills and emotional intelligence in order for her to truly access and enjoy them. I’d be a little wary or jumping into these too soon. Same goes for Tolkien.
I find it hard to believe she’s truly exhausted the local library. Is there a larger one nearby to try?
My 11 year old adores the warrior cats series. There is millions of them. Not high brow literature but pretty good.
The elder one is massively into Percy Jackson!
Phillip Pullman?
Does she come to you with vocab she doesn’t recognise or things she doesn’t understand?
Books written before 1900 will be full of references and dated vocabulary and turns of phrase that will be unknown.

To kill a mockingbird, goodnight mister Tom, the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime?

Philip Pullman is a good call. Also, look at books for 11 year olds from the past (earlier than the 80s). They tend to be written in a more literary style but obviously the content is age appropriate. This is what worked for us when DD needed more complex stuff but couldn't actually manage adult books on an emotional level.

Off the top of my head these come to mind -

KM Peyton (Flambards, Pennington)
Susan Cooper (Dark is Rising series)
Barbara Willard (Mantlemas series)
Arthur Ransome (Swallows and Amazons series)
Hilary McKay (Saffy's Angel series)

This, absolutely.
All the classics are children friendly: even when the themes are advanced it's never inappropriate. You take in what you are ready to take in and the rest goes way above your head. They are the best studies on human nature and the stories are gripping.

Earthfasts
Wizard of
The Owl Service
and (obvs)
Antonia Forest

Let her read what she likes within reason. Great series out there.

There are so many new books/ authors writing for children so really worth exploring some of these authors as well as introducing some classics but more archaic children’s literature will still have more complex sentence structure and unfamiliar vocab etc so you don’t necessarily need to go for adult classics - some you should probably avoid just so they aren’t completely put off. This website has many great suggestions.
https://www.booksfortopics.com/booklists/recommended-reads/year-6/

A lot of Michelle Magorian books are fantastic and long

This sounds like my daughter, same age. She reads multiple times a day on a kindle.

She was costing me a fortune going through the likes of David Walliams etc. A book would last a day, sometimes just a couple of hours.

Warrier cats are great as I find She is always happy to re read them.

Murder most unladylike she loved, and when she started reading Agatha Christie she realised some of the Murder most unladylike books are based on Christie stories.

Classics are great as pence on kindle. She loved Wind in the Willows, the Katy books, Blqck Beauty, Charlottes web, Little Women and Anne of Green Gables series.

She is currently reading lots of Jaqueline Wilson and just getting into the Lottie Brooks series.

My reading obsessed daughter, also 11, absolutely loves Agatha Christie's Poirot books and Dominic Sandbrook's Adventures in Time series. She loves everything old fashioned / history focussed.

Oh she sounds just like me when I was a child and I still love reading now. A bit old fashioned but what about classics such as little women or the secret garden?

Flambards series, its been 50 years, still remember with affection!

At that age, books I read included:
My Family and Other Animals, and other Gerald Durrell books
Autumn Term, Antonia Forest
Noel Streatfeild books
Tom’s Midnight Garden
Over Sea, Under Stone, The Dark is Rising etc
The Secret Garden
E Nesbit, e.g. Five Children and It
Swallows and Amazons
Kim
James Herriot
PG Wodehouse Jeeves short stories
Just William books (I think I started reading them when I was younger than 11 but they are written in a way that is quite adult and very funny.)
Also, what about Terry Pratchett? Wyrd Sisters might be a good one to start on the witches series.

Ds, newly 11 is the same. We went to the library this week and got a bag of books recommended by the librarian. They included Skander and the Unicorn Thief, a few from the Magnus Chase series (Percy Jackson universe), Maximum Ride, The Angel Experiment and a trio of Irish mythology fiction books: The Legend of Valentine Sorrow, The Ghosts of Magnificent Children and The Spectacular Library of Magical Things.
I could also recommend Lemony Snickett, Artemis Fowl, Skulduggery Pleasant, Murder Most Unladylike and other Robin Stevens books.

The Darkest Minds series.
Watership Down

I was a precocious reader and really enjoyed Wodehouse’s Jeeves novels at that age. Great fun, and there are the Fry & Laurie TV adaptations too, which are very good.

My 12 year old devours books. A kindle has saved us (we live abroad and getting English books is hard).

Recent hits include:
The Cherub series
Terry Pratchett
Slated series
Hunger games
Divergent series
Poirot
The Young Samurai series
Trouble twisters
The Wind Singers trilogy
Spirit Walker series by Michelle Paver

He read the warrior cats when he was 9/10 and adored it (we have them ALL!)

Oh and I forgot all the Garth Nix books, but particularly the Sabriel books

I capture the castle
z for zachariah
brother in the land

Depends on how emotionally mature your kid is but I read all the amy tan and isobel allende books at 11/12