Book suggestions for 10 yr old

[mustbetimeforacreamtea]

Dd's teacher has recommended that dd reads some more complex fiction, exploring more complicated emotions and situations. She is a voracious reader and loves authors such as Peter Bunzl, Pamela Butchart, Andy Griffiths and Helena Duggan. She has read "The secret garden", "Anne of Green Gables", "Wind in the willows", "Black Beauty" and "Oliver Twist" but hasn't been particularly engaged by the classics.

Can anyone suggest some more contemporary titles that meet the brief?

Eva ibotson?

Sky Song Abi Elphinstone
A Far Away Magic Amy Wilson
Letters from the lighthouse Emma Carroll
The explorer Katherine Runndell
The Last Wild Piers Torday
The girl of ink and stars Kiran Millwood Hargrave

The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman

Sounds like DS1; here are some he has enjoyed recently:

Chrestomanci
A Series of Unfortunate Events
The Seeing Stone
Wonder
The Wizard of Once

DS2 just finished sky song by Abi elphinstone. He really loved it.

He also really enjoyed The Last Wild (and the rest of the trilogy). And The Wizards of Once too.

He’s currently reading Nevermoor by Jessica Townsend, and he really likes it.

He also really liked The Alchemyst series by Michael Scott.
And Michelle Paver’s Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series.

And the How to Train your Dragon books are excellent. Lots of complex themes and emotions, as well as humour.

Angie Sage’s Magyk series is also good.

Lots of posts (sorry) but she might also enjoy Jamie Thomson’s The Dark Lord books.

Someone wrote an updated version of What Katy Did - I think it was Jacqueline Wilson - that is supposed to be good.
I would second the Chrestomanci books, especially Witch Week.
Terry Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching books
Marianne Dreams, Charlotte Sometimes, When Marnie Was There, are books I read at that age, they are not written so long ago as the classics you mention.
What about Nina Bawden - Carries War, The Peppermint Pig, A Dog So Small.

wish I could help but I am just grateful I can get my 10 year old to find a book she is interested in. Not sure they would meet the brief as not fiction but if they want her to read books with more complex emotional situations then there are some autobiographies of children/young people which whilst I would have said were more teenage aimed would probably be ok. Things like The Diary of Anne Frank, The Endless Steppe by Esther Hauzig (I read this when I was 11ish and still have my copy, it stuck in my mind for many years). I can't personally see why these would be less beneficial than fiction. I think schools often forget about autobiographies. I did have some others but I can't remember them at the moment. will have a look online and see if I can think of any others if you think it might help.

I do think though that whilst teachers can say things like that as it can help inform the child's writing etc it can be a shame to try and prescribe to children what they have to read. Reading should be for fun and they should be able to choose what they want to read.

The Percy Jackson series?
Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising series
Has she read Holes?
Anthony Horowitz Alex Rider series?
As opposed to Anne, Montgomery’s Emily of New Moon trio or Jane of Lantern Hill
Antonia Forest, both the school ones and the historic ones

I know you’ve said not the classics but..older ones, available from charity shops, Abebooks v cheaply, some possibly too young for her,

Start on Agatha Christie
I read Hardy, prob starting with The Woodlanders and short stories at that age
Younger but great quick reads, the Greene Knowe books by LMBoston
Swallows and Amazons.. I think We didn’t mean to go to sea is the best
The Dolphin Crossing
The Silver Sword, Serailler, a bit young but ok
Alan Garner’s The Owl Service, then the Weirdstone if Brisingamen series
Rosemary Sutcliff’s Roman books, starting with The Eagle of the Ninth
Kipling, Captain’s Courageous, The Jungle Books,
A bit young for her but try her on The Good Master, The Singing Tree, The Open Gate
Not Jane Eyre yet, but in about a year’s time, ditto Pride and Prejudice
John Meade Faulkner, Moonfleet, The Nebuly Coat
A girl of the Limberlost, Stratton
The Phantom Tollbooth
The Lyndsey Davis Falco series
DKBroster, TheJacobite trilogy, the flight of the heron, the gleam in the north, the dark mile , esp if you visit Scotland
Mary Renault
Animal Farm
William Golding
The Norse sagas, obv in translation. Roger Lancelyn Green’s would be easy.
Greek and Roman myths, Hawthorne’s Tanglewood Tales remain excellent
Shakespeare stories, Charles and Mary Lamb’s Tales From are still classics
Dickens: A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, David Copperfield,

Get her reading poetry. Ballads, Tennyson, Goblin Market.

Terry pratchet books are good. Philippa Gregory does some children's fiction too.

Ronald Dahl’s autobiography, Boy.

Elizabeth Goodge, Linnets and Valerians/The Runaways ( new title, film), The Little White Horse
Noel Streatfeild, some will be too easy like Ballet Shoes ( but which is really about abandonment and poverty) and White Boots, but she might enjoy, and the Gemma series, but also The Painted Garden, The Growing Summer, Apple Bough all of which have complex emotions and lots of growing up.

My ten year old, a voracious reader, has Just read Wildwood, and loved it. Also My Side of the Mountain.

Jaqueline Wilson may be a bit young, but they have more complex emotions.
Has she read Philip Pullman?

Not modern, but The Children who lived in a barn. Yes to My Side of the Mountain.

The Polar Bear Explorers Club

The Graveyard Book
The Nowhere Emporium
Tin
Ned's Circus of Marvels
Knights of the Borrowed Dark
A boy called hope
Lockwood and co

The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd, really good.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime.

Does she like animals? Two that my DS have recently loved were My Family and Other Animals (he's never laughed so much reading a book!) and David Attenborough's Adventures of a Young Naturalist - basically autiobiographical stuff from his younger days.

Thank you so much for all these ideas. Ballet Shoes, Pride & Prejudice, the London Eye Mystery, Jacqueline Wilson, and the Diary of Anne Frank are ones she has read and enjoyed. I've put together a list from your suggestions and we'll look at the blurbs together and see what grabs her most for the first batch.

Oh, and The Longest Journey, dog and cat cross Canada.

It would be interesting to know what she likes.

The island at the end of everything

Pick your Mary Renault and Lynsey Davis carefully, there is sex in them. Maybe save those for a couple of years?

Leon Garfield
Cynthia Hartnett
Joan Aiken

Sherlock Holmes

Street Child by Berlie Doherty.
Goodnight Mr Tom by Michelle Magorian.
Roman Mystery series by Caroline Lawrence.