Book recommendations please

[SkankingWombat]

DD1 has requested more books for her upcoming birthday, and I'm stumped. She has exhausted my ideas list. She'll be 11, although her reading age is much higher. She particularly likes historical fiction, murder mysteries, non-fiction if the topic hits an interest (chemistry mostly!) and some fantasy, but is incredibly picky over the latter.

Books she's loved (that I can remember!):
Little House series
Little Women
The Moonstone
Harry Potter
When Hitler stole pink rabbit
Roll of thunder, hear my cry
Boy in the striped pajamas
Curious incident of the dog in the nighttime
Goodnight Mr Tom
Can you see me series
Lottie Brooks series
The Hobbit
Murder most unladylike series
Sherlock Holmes series
Bromeliad trilogy
Terry Pratchet short stories (various collections)
Being Miss Nobody
Jemima Small
Windrush child
Greek myths and legends
The secret garden
The boy at the back of the class
DK science encyclopedias
Animals of Farthing Wood
Stig of the dump
Various Michael Rosen poetry books

Books she's not enjoyed:
Narnia series
3 Children and It
His dark materials
Anything by Michael Morpurgo (no idea why, it's irrational, she just see's the name and gives a hard no)
A wrinkle in time
Swallows and Amazons
First ladies detective agency
Podkin series
Horrible histories & science

Books left on her shelf to read (which will be finished before her birthday):
Little Prince
Where the red fern grows
Heidi

Books I already own and will lend her, so no point buying as a gift:
Earthsea quartet
LOTR (currently reading these to her as our bedtime book)

As you can see, we have ticked off a good number of go-tos... I have a large collection of classics, but am holding out on passing most of them over for as long as possible so she can get the most out of them with an older head on her shoulders. However, we've had some success with classics/older texts generally as the phrasing and vocab in them often slows her pace to a more purse-friendly speed.
Any ideas? Bonus points if it is something that will last her more than a week and has been in print long enough to find a second hand copy!

My 11 year old voracious reader has recently enjoyed Katherine Rundell’s books - she loves a murder mystery though and has now got hooked on Agatha Christie. She also enjoyed the James Herriott books. I’m an English teacher and would also recommend Eva Ibbotson - Journey to the River Sea and Tim Bowler if she’s ok with a bit of high tension (kidnapping, manslaughter) and language - Storm Catchers is great.
If she likes Pratchett’s short stories, what about the Discworld books?
I’ve recently enjoyed Things a Bright Girl Can Do - quite mature themes with violence and mild sex.
Also The Skylarks’ War - about children growing up against the backdrop of WW1.
Hope this helps!

Agatha Christie murder mysteries have chemistry in them.

I have a 10yo DD who is a voracious reader too. Some suggestions:

Enola Holmes books
The Hunger Games series
Redwall series
Loki: A Bad Gods Guide books
The Roman Mysteries
Harriet the Spy
The School for Good & Evil

Percy Jackson series is the current hit for our eleven-year-old. If she’s already into the Greek myths it should be catnip to her.

I loved Gerald Durrell's books around that age. Susan Cooper's series The Dark is Rising.
Also Penelope Lively's books eg Astercote, the Ghost of Thomas Kemp, there were a whole lot of them.

Thank you! There are a good number worth exploring there, including a few I'm not familiar with, which is great. Yes, she's fine with harder/potentially upsetting themes.

Agatha Christie - I wondered if they could be an option. It isn't an author I have read myself and I had been worried there might be inappropriate sex/relationship parts within them.
Pratchett - I've held off Discworld as I don't think she's had enough 'life' to get the full enjoyment from them yet and pick up on all the jokes and subtleties.
Percy Jackson - tried and didn't like (sorry, forgot about those!)
Roman Mysteries - "boring" apparently 🙄
Loki - read and liked, but these were 24hr books (thankfully she borrowed them from her younger sister's shelf!)
Penelope Lively - she's read a few from this author but that's a good call. I have others in my childhood collection I can dig out for her.
Susan Cooper - DH tried, unsuccessfully, to get her into this a while back with the R4 dramatisation, but perhaps it is worth trying again with the actual books. We have these on our bookshelf too, so that's an easy series try.

The others I will read up on and hopefully get some matches 😊

Not quite what you were asking but at her age would she enjoy going to a bookshop for a browse and choosing her own books with a certain budget? I loved visiting our local bookshop as a child.

Not sure what children read these days but was a great fan of Diana Wynne Jones at that age.

Hi @SkankingWombat if her reading ability is high and she loves historical fiction, maybe try Bernard Cornwell, he wrote the Sharpe books and Shardlake plus loads of others.

I remember reading the Sharpe books when I was a teenager, so they could be a bit too old for your DD at the moment, but maybe have a flip through a couple at the library and see what you think?

I liked Back Home at her age, which is also by Michelle Magorian (same author as Goodnight Mr Tom).

If she likes those evacuee/wartime stories she may also like Carrie's War and Bread and Sugar.

I second Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals and also Tim Bowler's books. Also try David Almond books, especially Skellig.

At her age I also really enjoyed Witch Child and Sorceress by Celia Rees, which was about witch accusations in the 17th century, set out in diary form, but from the best of my recollection they may fall into the category of books you want to read yourself first.

So it seems she has not just Agatha Christie but all the Golden Age crime fiction novelists to look forward to? I’d suggest:

Josephine Tey

after she’s tried some Agatha Christie. And then she can explore the others - particularly

Dorothy L Sayers

under her own steam.

BTW, I appreciate your desire to protect her, but it’s a bit off to withhold classic novels from an enthusiastic reader. The whole point of childhood reading is the exploration. She’s perfectly capable of setting aside anything that doesn’t appeal. (Speaking as one who started reading Dickens, and Austen long before I reached double digits.) Are your books not on open shelves, freely accessible to all the household?

If she likes Terry Pratchett she could start the Tiffany Aching series. That's meant for a younger audience than the standard Disc world.

The Frost Heart series is very nice.

Thinking about classics:
Watership Down, Black Beauty, The wizard of Ozz, Ann of Green Gables, The famous five?

As well as Tiffany Aching, there are other Pratchett books she might like. The Johnny books are good: Only You Can Save Mankind, Johnny and The Dead, Johnny and The Bomb.

Stone Heart series by Charlie Fletcher, especially if you can visit London at some point to see the statues who are the characters in the books.

Michelle Paver is another writer she might like, with the Wolf Brother series.

Jeeves and Wooster appealed to my kids when they were about 12, I think. We started them as bedtime stories to get used to the language of Wodehouse, and the ridiculousness of Bertie’s various plots and schemes really tickled them.

She does this too when the budget allows, as well as using her school library to make her own choices, but she likes surprises for her birthday where possible.

Bernard Cornwall - ooo, I never read these but loved the TV series. This could be a good call. The TV show wasn't too racy from memory, just the odd banter-y joke about getting girlfriends pregnant and some very well-tailored uniform (😬)? But I will do a quick check of the books in case they differ/my memory has failed me.

Catopia (nice nickname!) she's read Carrie's War and enjoyed that too. The others sound very promising, thank you!

The Dark is Rising
Maze Runner
Hunger Games
Percy Jackson
Skullduggery Pleasant
Wolves of Willoughby Chase series
Kalle Blomquist (detective stories by Astrid Lindgren)
The Eagle of the Ninth

Bailiwitch it isn't about limiting books to protect her, it is about matching to her social development age so she gets the best out of each one and also to ensure she isn't exposed to something with unsuitable themes.
An 'open bookshelf' policy has the opportunity to go very wrong! There are a number of books on our shelves that would be wholly inappropriate for her, and even more so for 8yo DD2, who is also a very keen and able reader. The Handmaid's Tale immediately springs to mind, but there will be plenty of others.
A lot of the classics need a greater understanding of social and political history than she currently has, and it takes time to grow this knowledge. Books in this category we often read together at bedtime so we can discuss it and I can fill in gaps in understanding. Take Animal Farm as an example: she could read it fluently, she would enjoy it as a great story about farm animals, and she would totally miss the brilliance of how it refects the Russian revolution and Stalinist era. She needs an older head and deeper general knowledge first. There is no rush to give her these books when plenty of others are currently more suited.
I will check out your Crime Fiction recommendations, thank you. Dickens she could read too. We don't have any of his as I'm not a fan, but that doesn't mean she won't be.

Other recommendations given here that she's already read:
Watership Down - loved
Black Beauty - disliked
Famous Five - hated

Other 'winners' I've remembered:
Asterix (we have a lot of these!)
Lord of the flies
Various Anne Fine
The demon headmaster

Other 'fails':
Treasure Island
Through the looking glass

Sounds like she has great taste! Has she read Alan Garner's The Owl Service? I loved it at her age and enjoyed it just as much when I re-read it a few years ago.

Tom's Midnight Garden is another I enjoyed around that age, and various David Almond books, although they're a little dark (but brilliantly written)

Hmm … I’m afraid, after six decades of reading, I have to disagree with you! Children who enjoy reading have an innate ability to set aside anything that doesn’t suit them. And when they’re young, much of what adults might find disturbing or disruptive goes right over their heads. Reading isn’t just about plot (whether there’s kissing, or stabbing, or cruel uncles) it’s about the joy and adventure of language and different ways of expressing thought.

Of course if you found her reaching for a novel full of graphic sex or torture on your shelves you would simply tell her that - and suggest she chooses something else for now. That isn’t hard to do.

Frankly, one of the most disturbing books I’ve ever read, as an adult, was ‘Goodnight Mister Tom’ - and that’s given to eight year olds in school.

And surely one absorbs social and political understanding from fiction - long before, or alongside, formal study? Isn’t that its role?

(But I’m not expecting to change your mind, obviously!)

I read the Handmaid's Tale when I was 11 and it didn't stop me appreciating it more and differently later.

However, I can confirm that most of the Golden Age murder mystery writers don't include inappropriate sexual themes - if anything, this will be hinted at but never explicit. Agatha Christie is very innocent and - helpfully - wrote loads of books. Ngaio Marsh would also be good, as she wrote loads too. I also remember reading all my mum's Mary Stewart books around that age - these are romance thrillers rather than whodunits but also very clean. If she likes them she might also enjoy Stewart's Merlin trilogy, which is fantasy but more emphasis on historical atmosphere than magic.

You could try the following:

Astrid Lindgren: Ronja
Pullman: Sally Lockhart Mysteries (some adult themes in later books, but mostly alluded to)
Beth Lincoln: The Swifts
Kathrine Woodfine: Taylor and Rose and their prequels (imo a great and underrated series)
Holly Jackson: Good girls guide to murder
Ally Carter: Gallagher Girl series
Sarah Sky: Model Spy
Kathrine Rundell books

My DD also likes Jacqueline Wilson and Cathy Cassidy but they are more family drama/social stories so might not appeal. She did also like Enid Blyton but we read them much earlier than 11, more like 8.

😄 I was utterly traumatised (in my 20s!) by something horrifying Ngaio Marsh did with a needle or nail or some such in one of her books! Was very wary of her for a long time after that.

But it’s a good point that I forgot to make - beyond Golden Age fiction I’d highly recommend 19th century classics for young readers. They’re full of beautifully expressed, thrilling emotion - but the Victorians were so prudish there’s absolutely nothing X rated in terms of sex, no matter how many throats are torn out or bodies snatched from graves …

(One of my happiest childhood reading memories is of being given ‘Silas Marner’ as a school text at around 12 / 13 - and seeing the joy on my mother’s face as she recalled reading and loving it at the same age at school, an ocean away on another continent.)

Was thinking earlier, Geraldine McCaughrean as well. I liked The Stones are Hatching.

Elle mcnicoll is wonderful.
Anne of Green Gables
Katherine Russell
Saffiyah's War

Definitely Handmaidens tale. Also how about non fiction?

Have you tried any of the old classics?
Illiad Odyssey and Aeneid or Edda and Nibelungenlied?
I Started to read them as prose at around that age.

Other books of interest could be on the Spanish inquisition and which hunting- sorry I don't have any particular titles aimed at teenagers/ young adults.

Oh I just thought of 2 books she might enjoy:
Kindered by Octavia Butler- it's a bit of fantasy mixed with historical fiction.

Divabad Trilogy by S.A Chakraborty, it's fantasy but based on Middle Eastern mythology.
In both books the main character is female, in case that is of importance!