acurtis75 Posted October 24, 2014 Share Posted October 24, 2014 I'm sure I could search the forum for this but thought I would ask for some quick suggestions from this group. We're driving to Florida and back for the Bible Bee competition and I'm looking for book suggestions for dd9. We'll be in the car 15 - 16 hours each way. She has studied for this competition several hours a day for the last 60 days and I wanted to surprise her with a stack of books when we get in the car next week. She recently finished Lord of the Rings and loved it so she asked to read the Hobbit again on the trip but was disappointed that it is "so short" and won't last as long as Lord of the Rings. She loves to read historical fiction and pretty much anything she gets her hands on. I would prefer no adult romance type content but other than that don't really censor too much. She really likes to finish a series once she starts it so after reading some posts here I decided to hold off on Harry Potter because of some content in the later books. She is very sensitive and I let her read a lot more than she can watch...she would be scared to death of the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings movies but is okay with reading the books. She cried because main character in "The Girl Who Could Fly" had to go live away from home for a while. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
musicianmom Posted October 24, 2014 Share Posted October 24, 2014 The Inkheart Trilogy by Cornelia Funke. Nice fat books. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acurtis75 Posted October 24, 2014 Author Share Posted October 24, 2014 The Inkheart Trilogy by Cornelia Funke. Nice fat books. Thanks. Just looked at the summary and those sound like something she will enjoy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crazyforlatin Posted October 24, 2014 Share Posted October 24, 2014 And, if that's not enough, DD loved Terry Pratchett's Wee Free Men series and Jasper Fforde's Chronicles of Kazam, both series involving witty, sassy, energetic girls. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
candicane Posted October 24, 2014 Share Posted October 24, 2014 Have you tried the Narnia series? There might be enough meat to those stories for you. I've only read the Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe one so I'm not sure if it'll be too much for your child. What about the little house series? There's also the Boxcar Children, but them living in their way might upset her too. Hm. What about the Twilight series? Their books are rather big. It's kind of short, but there's also Ender's Game it's sci-fi related. I don't recall anything bad in it, but it's been a few years. Uhm, The Indian in the Cupboard? Sorry if none of these work lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
musicianmom Posted October 24, 2014 Share Posted October 24, 2014 Thanks. Just looked at the summary and those sound like something she will enjoy. My dd9, who loved The Hobbit and is very sensitive, is reading them now and loves them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanaqui Posted October 24, 2014 Share Posted October 24, 2014 DD loved Terry Pratchett's Wee Free Men series (from second book onward as the first one is about talking cats and rats) These are all part of the Discworld series, however, Amazing Maurice is not part of the Tiffany arc and is, thus, not a Wee Free Men book. We're fans of Kiki Strike here. If she can handle LotR, she can probably deal with Kiki. Let's see.... Good, thick and engrossing books. Well, there's the Dalemark Quartet, that's always good. She might be able to deal with the Monster Blood Tattoo series, but honestly, they're a little tightly woven. The entire last third of the first book is an appendix! It might be a bit of a challenge for her. There's the Wildwood series and the WondLa series, but you may want to read a summary of those. They both involve kids leaving their families (and in Wildwood, a kidnapped brother) and she might find that tough. I'm guessing it's emotional drama that's hard for her? I am, always, a fan of Hardinge, but if she cried over Piper living away from her family she might not enjoy those books too much. I think all of them involve kids having to be separated from their families, sometimes permanently. If she likes historical fiction, she might enjoy some of the books by Richard Peck. They're pretty light-hearted, though not very *long*. You'd have to buy several of them if that's all you got. Or there's the semi-autobiographical books by Grace Lin, Year of the Dog and all. Oooh, how about the Leviathan trilogy by Westerfield? It's exciting, there's some romance in the third book but nothing more than mild angst (because he doesn't know her big secret) and I think two kisses, and they're definitely *long*. Or, another underrated fantasy series, Nine Pound Hammer? Very exciting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black-eyed Suzan Posted October 24, 2014 Share Posted October 24, 2014 The Mysterious Benedict Society series? Easier than Lord of the Rings, but engrossing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
musicianmom Posted October 25, 2014 Share Posted October 25, 2014 The Mysterious Benedict Society series? Easier than Lord of the Rings, but engrossing.m Another of my dd9's recent favorites, also nice thick books. If you do a search on the General Board for topics started by me, there is a great thread of suggestions people gave me for my dd9. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acurtis75 Posted October 25, 2014 Author Share Posted October 25, 2014 Thanks for the suggestions. I'm going to get several of these and will let her choose. It is emotional stuff that is tough for her but she finished The Girl Who Could Fly and loved it once she got over being upset in the early chapters. She read all of the appendix information in Lord of the Ring so she enjoys details. She read all the Narnia books several years ago but I'm going to suggest she read them again. She also loves the Box Car Children and has never mentioned the kids living on their own as an issue. Don't know why it's different than the Girl Who Could Fly but apparently it didn't hit her the same. I haven't read Ender's Game but plan to read it before I give it to her. I have a feeling she would be upset by it or the later books in series. She has only ever read one book that she strongly disliked. It was either the 2nd or 3rd book in the Wizard of Oz series. I haven't read it so I can't remember details but she hated the ending...something about a boy searching for a princess who discovered he was really the princess or something. At the time I started a thread about it to get some feedback to figure out why she was so irritated and I remember someone telling me their husband had read all the books and said that particular one was confusing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dmmetler Posted October 25, 2014 Share Posted October 25, 2014 Has she read Diane Duane yet? Her Young Wizards series is basically all extremely gifted kids (in this case, magically so, but they're also usuallg cognitively GT as well) struggling to find their place in the world. There is an adult series that parallels it where the Wizards are cats (and in one case, a dinosaur). Both can get intense-characters choosing to die or risk death to serve the greater good is a common theme. She revised the first several a few years ago because the technology was so dated. My DD read the cat series recently, and really enjoyed them. I also have a personal anecdote-years ago, I was on a Usenet group for rescuing/fostering cats, and there was a thread on books with cats playing a major role. I recommended Duane's series, only to get a private message from her, thanking me for the positive review, and asking me If I minded if she forwarded it to her publisher. I had been discussing cats with one of my favorite authors, and had never realized it! I also really like Diana Wynne Jones, and most of her books are nice, light fantasy, whether they are considered children's lit or not. Again, she has a lot of young, talented characters across the board. However, there is one (A Sudden Wild Magic) that is decidedly more adult, and kind of was shocking to find in the college library as a teenager. My DD has read a lot of Wynne-Jones's books, but not that one :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThoughtfulMama Posted November 4, 2014 Share Posted November 4, 2014 Has she read Madeleine L'Engle yet? A Wrinkle in Time is the obvious starting point, but oh so many different characters and time periods all woven together. Some of her books are for adults (and some even use the same characters), so be aware of that (A House Like a Lotus is one example). But the Wrinkle books and the Austin family books are good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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