Book suggestions please-Roisin??

[marialuisa]

Could anyone suggest some fun books for my DD? She is 4.5y but has reading/comprehension level equivalent to a secondary school child. I know that there are other MNers with similarly able readers and would welcome their suggestions as we are struggling to keep up with her and find appropriate material.
DD is still in full-on sparkly princess-popstar mode so tends to focus on rather grim stuff like Felicity Wishes and the Rainbow Fairies, we would like to broaden her horizons a bit but don't want to scare her off. To be just that little bit more demanding she has sight problems and struggles to distinguish between lines of close-typed text so books with pictures to "break things up" are more appealing.

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I'd recommend Anne Fine too, I think she is fabulous, but you need to look at them first, as she writes for the whole range, from fairly young children right up to some pretty serious teenage and adult stuff. Her young readers stuff is good, because it's full of interesting ideas, for those who like to be stretched by the ideas in their reading (like when is it right to send your Granny to an old people's home, in the Granny Project - although this one is probably a little too old for a four year old!). I really like Margaret Mahy (again she writes for a wide age range, from picture books to teenage fiction), she does some quite fun fantasy. I must admit I would want to pre-read everything for that age, as although your dd may have advanced reading skills, it doesn't mean emotionally she will be ready for books designed for an older audience (which probably shows in her desire for "sparkly princess books"). I read a great many books as a child that I was probably too young for, and I'm not sure it brought me any great benefits!

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Jamie and Angus - the one where he goes to hospital with tummy pains and nicks a girl's strawberry creams - was a big hit with DD2. Had forgotten about this one Cod.

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I'm sorry but why can't she just read the Rainbow Fairies and Felicity Wishes stuff while she's enjoying them - one day she will outgrow them/move on when she's ready I would think?
I remember reading lots of stuff when I was young which wasn't particularly high quality when I was young - but I enjoyed reading those books and I can't see the harm.

please delete one when I was young in your head!

Thanks for all the suggestions. I've bought a pile of books (again!) including Worst Witch, Sophie and Gwyneth Rees.

Cod-Clarice Bean is right up DD's street, she had the picture books first which maybe helped her to "get it". Also bought the new charlie and Lola books but they were not up to the usual standrad and had the "dashed off to tie in with the TV programme feel". I suspect that Lauren Child may not have written them herself....

Emkana-I don't actually like the content of the Felicity wishes/Rainbow Fairies books for a 4 year old. The characters are so vacuous. I guess I'm very old-fashioned and would prefer not to have DD any more "into" make-up, mobiles etc. than necessary. Also as this and the other thread shows there are masses of fantastic books for kids so I feel a sort of duty to broaden DD's horizons! I'm also enjoying rediscovering books that I loved as a child (e.g. Worst Witch)