how to choose books to challenge, with, erm, suitable content?

[siiiiiiiiigh]

Bookworm 10 year old girl - reading at 14 year old level, comprehension matches.

Anyone have resource which "screens" books for content? I really don't need her having any more information about sex, drugs or rock'n'roll than she already has.

She's 2 years behind in maths, so, she's a funny mix.

And, besides, I'm not prescribing her reading material - I wanted a list of options for her, and, thanks to the power of MN, that's what I've got.

So, thanks, folks, the list of suggestions is a resource to allow me to spend time with her choosing stuff that she'll get excited about, and that's a precious thing.

Thank you.

applauds

And has anyone mentioned The Phantom Tollbooth yet? It's a novel. About maths and words. And it was my favourite book when I was 9.

Yes, I think I did.

I've read lots of books other people thought I would enjoy, not least a few decades of books-as-presents from my late mother who was always correct.

Other people are entirely free to let their 10yo children make random selections from too much choice, stick pins in other people's book lists, swallow publisher's marketing claims, do what the computer s/w says or rely on recommendations from peers who are reading books that their parents helped choose.

Meanwhile for mine it's all about my judgement of her 'appetites and aptitudes' and while she continues to respect my suggestions I will continue guiding her towards books I have good reason to think she will enjoy and benefit from via exposure to new concepts i.e. the actual challenge in many of these books.

Good on you OP.

Thanks to others I've ordered Phantom Tollbooth for DS

My dd is 11 but is a very very advanced reader, so I am often struggling with making sure that the content is appropriate for her. Her English class is reading Gracelings (set in medival times with a splash of fantasy) which she is absolutely loving. I agree with the OP, "challenging" isn't necessarily about making your child work to read a book. I think it's more about keeping them interested which is often the difficulty with children, particularly very bright ones.

By the way, I've recently met a few YA authors and it seems that the goal is to write "up" for kids. The authors/publishers are expecting YA books (ie with characters age 14-18) to be read by middle school kids (age 11-13). And Middle School books to be read by 4th and 5th graders.

Thanks for all the suggestions, folks. She's ticking along on them all, happily filling up her much-coveted kindle.

School now saying her reading stage is 16. Which probably explains why she struggles with maths, it's not that she finds it hard, just that she actually has to try!

Of course there's nothing wrong with a 9 year old reading Philip Pulman- but why?

Well, why not? My dd is 9. She found the first book in the northern lights trilogy in the school library, and loved it, then started begging me to buy the others. She clearly understands and had insights into what she is reading. I have no idea whether the books are stretching her or not.

I have no interest in "challenging" my dd in her reading. I know she reads well, so as far as I'm concerned, reading should be a pleasure and not a chore. She chooses her own reading material, and I would only intervene if I felt something was going to be really inappropriate. As far as I'm concerned, she can read what she likes!

Thank you for the link ThreeLannisters

I was an advanced reader and at her age I devoured Charles Dickens, Bronte Sisters, swallows and Amazons, little house on the prairie, little women and Frances Hogson Burnett.

I was a precocious reader - as is my 7yo DS1 so I sympathise with the difficulty finding appropriate content when their reading age outstrips their chronological age.

I don't think it is so much about "challenging" as "broadening horizons", introducing books about subjects or time periods they aren't so familiar with. I'd suggest going with classic 20th century children's fiction - good quality writing but less edgy/teenagery content. I'd recommend the following as a good selection of different genres, all great well-written stories without much in the way of sex/drugs/gore (some may be easier to find second hand):

-Rosemary Sutcliff - Eagle of the Ninth, etc. (historical fiction set in Roman Britain)
-Arthur Ransome - Swallows & Amazons series
-Laura Ingalls Wilder - Little House on the Prairie series
-Ronald Welch - Knight Crusader
-Robert Westall - The Machine Gunners, Fathom Five (about British children in WWII), The Scarecrows (a ghost story, very scary but I loved it), The Watch House (ditto).
-Rumer Godden - Thursday's Children, Listen to the Nightingale, The River (she wrote many more but the content gets a bit adult after these)
-Ian Serraillier - The Silver Sword (about refugee children during WWII)
-Esther Hautzig - The Endless Steppe (another WWII story)
-Susan Cooper - The Dark is Rising series (fab magical fiction - JK Rowling eat your heart out)
-Mildred D Taylor - Roll of Thunder Hear my Cry (about a black family living in the southern US in the 1930s)
-Nicholas Fisk - Space Hostages, Trillions (science fiction, a bit dated now but a great writer)
-John Wyndham - Chocky (gentle story about an alien intelligence befriending a young boy)
-Susan Coolidge - What Katy Did, etc.
-Gene Kemp - The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tyler (great school story - don't peek at the ending!)
-Jean Ure - not the bubblegum stuff she seems to have sold her soul for more recently, but older books like Hi There Supermouse, Nicola Mimosa, A Proper Little Nooryeff (all about ballet, there are boyfriends but no sex)
-Robin Klein - Half Way Across the Galaxy and Turn Left, Hating Alison Ashley (an Australian author so not sure if available in the UK but very funny)
-Lucy M Boston - Children of Green Knowe
-Philippa Pearce - Tom's Midnight Garden
-Mary Norton - The Borrowers, Bedknobs and Broomsticks
-E.B. White - Charlotte's Web
-Anna Sewell - Black Beauty
-Judith Kerr - When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (another WWII refugee story)
-Norton Juster - The Phantom Tollbooth
-C.S. Lewis - Narnia series
-J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit
-P.L. Travers - Mary Poppins
-Elizabeth Beresford - The Wombles
-Lynne Reid Banks - The Indian in the Cupboard
-Michael Ende - The Never-Ending Story
-Simon French - All We Know (lovely understated story about growing up/leaving childhood, another Australian author)
-Bette Green - Summer of My German Soldier (about a young American Jewish girl who befriends a German prisoner-of-war)
-Louise Fitzhugh - Harriet the Spy
-Jan Mark - Hairs in the Palm of the Hand (2 wickedly funny short stories set in schools), Thunder and Lightnings

-Last but not least, the incomparable Antonia Forest - she wrote a series of stories about one family set at school and during the holidays, the "school" ones are hard to find but the "holiday" ones have been reprinted. She also wrote 2 historical novels (The Player's Boy, The Players and the Rebels) set in the Elizabethan theatre world, which are a fantastic introduction to Shakespeare.