Please help me encourage this! DD loved Charlotte's Web - recommendations for similar books needed!

[castille]

She's normally a very reluctant reader but she found a copy of Charlotte's web in the house we were staying in on hols and devoured it in days - I was staggered

So I want to find her other books she would like. She loved CW because it's about animals (her passion) and it was a really gripping story. Anyone know of anything similar?

how old?

I loved Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals but I think she'd probably need to be 8+ to read them

Sorry, she's 9.

The Cricket in Times Square
The little House on the Prarie Books

EB White also wrote Stewart Little

we recently got The Black Queen by michael morpurgo, not about animals but v well written

Black Beauty.

Black Beauty
Narnia books (i find the politics and attitudes to women offensive but they are really really good stories)

-she may also like things like anne of green gables or pollyanna

i adored What Katy Did

oh yes, try the Gerald Durrell then.

He went to live in Corfu with his family when he was 10 and it's the story of his time on the island and all the animals.

I think I was around 10/11/12 when I read it so you might have to check out the text first to make sure it's not too hard!

Stig of the Dump is good - although not about animals.

Does she like fantasy? MY dd is 8 and she loves Enid Blyton. I know lots of people hate her stuff but dd likes it Her favourite is The Faraway Tree.

I'm glad Dick King Smith has been mentioned.

I bought dd a set of 10 of his books in a charidee shop yesterday for £2. Bargain!

I'll keep an eye on this thread for ideas - dd (8) is going through shelves of books faster than we can get them atm.

I love it when it suddenly 'clicks' with children that reading is fantastic fun and worth all those difficult earlier years learning it.

oooh oooh and the Flambards series by KM Peyton

yes tiny it was mine too but endless repition has dimmed its charms recently

Fab, some great ideas, thanks. Some I've never heard of but will investigate.

Gerald Durrell - good idea, maybe for next year though. She's not the most fluent reader (we live in France and English is her weaker language now) so I don't want to put her off by giving her something that's too hard, but she proved that given the right story she's fine

Dustystar - She's not into fantasy really, but we might get there if she can be persuaded that reading is A Good Thing. The Faraway Tree seems to be a universal favourite

Black Beauty - great idea.

Dick King Smith - she read (and loved) the Sophie books last year, and The Invisible Dog. Will look into other titles.

Need to be v careful as she has many great books on her shelf that she's barely opened because they just don't interest her

Some that spring to mind that I loved are:
The Almost All-white Rabbity Cat by Meindert DeJong
The Snow Kitten by Nina Warner Hooke
Watership Down by Richard Adams
101 Dalmatians by Dodie Smith

There was also a book about a fish who I think was really a person and he was chased by a pike which was great but I'm blowed if I can remember the name of the book or the author.

Albus, there was a chapter in the sword and the stone where this happened but the book was mainly about king authur as a boy

No it wasn't that. The book was all about this fish. Had a picture of the river with fishes in on the front. Tried searching on Amazon but there were 76k matches.

has anyone mentioned the Animal Ark books?

they are the ones with silly names like Shetland in the Shed, Bunnies in the Bathroom, Kittens in the Kitchen...

they are good for her age group and reading level I would have thought

Know quite a few children who love captain underpants.

DD i sreading The Secret Garden at the moment she loves it.

Is 7 and has reading age of 10.6 so should be ok for your daughter!

oh Black Beauty definitely.

And I had a book called the Animal Family by Randall Jarrell which I adored. It's about a man and a mermaid who live together with some baby animals that they adopt.

It's more of a fairy story than Charlotte's Web but I loved them both.