g1234 Posted March 25, 2015 Share Posted March 25, 2015 My daughter asked me today for more books like those two. When I pressed her for what it was that she liked about them, she had trouble answering, but said there was a lot to think about in them; they weren't simplistic; they were richly beautiful. I think what she was trying to say is that they are high-quality literature! Also, I think she was especially intrigued by the moral ambiguities in both. The problem, if there is one, is that she is an extremely sensitive reader, and also young (7th grade). I am posting on the high school boards both because my 9th grader overhead and said "me, too!" and because these books are high-school-and-above-level books. She read both of these books sort of by accident: TKAM she picked up last year when her sister was reading it, and she couldn't put it down. SL she picked up because I had just bought a copy at the thrift store and she had heard me talk about it. With each book, I quickly warned her of the parts that I knew might bother her, and she wanted me to tell her all about them in detail before she got to them. In TKAM, the worrisome part was Tom Robinson's death; in SL, it was Dimmesdale's. The general societal racism depicted in TKAM was okay, and the sex-outside-marriage angle in SL was also okay. So my challenge is to find books for her that are rich and deep and resonant, but ultimately uplifting and not too dark along the way. They can have some sadness as long as I warn her ahead of time and as long as things come out generally okay for the people we really care about. (No 1984 or Tale of Two Cities for quite a while around here!) After reading SL, she keeps asking me for more Hawthorne, and I keep trying to tell her I don't think there's much more Hawthorne that she would care to read right now! Also, because she's young, I think it helps if the themes aren't too mature or complex. We do not censor anything our kids read at their ages (13 and 15), but she is so sensitive that she self-censors a lot. So....can anyone help us out, here? I am thinking of putting Silas Marner in her hands. The first half is a bit bleak and complicated, which isn't ideal. I think if I warn her ahead of time about the death of Eppie's mother and Dunsey, those will be okay. And of course it ends up so story-book-perfect, so that's good, and I think she could weather the first half if I tell her that it will get better. I considered David Copperfield, but it gets so dark in places....I think the dark scenes are so prolonged and overwrought that they might poison the rest for her. You can see I'm struggling here, though I feel like I ought to be able to come up with lots of good ideas. Please, can anyone help?! :unsure: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
creekland Posted March 25, 2015 Share Posted March 25, 2015 She might be ready for Black Like Me. From my school days I also loved The Count of Monte Cristo. You could consider The Giver too. All quick thoughts... I'm sure there are oodles more. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom22ns Posted March 25, 2015 Share Posted March 25, 2015 I was thinking the Giver too if she hasn't read it yet. What about The Scarlet Pimpernel? Tuck Everlasting is a little younger, but has some deep thoughts to chew on. You might look at this list. There are plenty of good books that are not really high school level yet. In fact To Kill a Mockingbird is included in a lot of Jr High curriculums. Take a look at the books in Lightning Lit 7 & 8. My dd is a sensitive reader and enjoyed those books (TKAM is in LL8). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faithr Posted March 25, 2015 Share Posted March 25, 2015 Maybe some Willa Cather. I was a sensitive and precocious reader too and my mom suggested Cather to me. Shadows on the Rock is really lovely My Antonia is very poignant but absorbing. Also, has she read Tanglewood Tales and The Wonder Book by Hawthorne? I just read House of Seven Gables a few months agi and that a great story, a little bit spooky, but a really intelligent exploration of regular people struggling with the many little evils in life. I also loved A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and another favorite was Mrs. Mike, I must have read that 12 times at least! She might also love George MacDonald books like At the Back of the North Wind or The Princess and Curdie. Another wonderful story in that same genre is Water Babies. I can't remember the author to that one. You might also try some Elizabeth Goudge like The Little White Horse. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
purplelily Posted March 25, 2015 Share Posted March 25, 2015 The Giver is a lot to think about. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanaqui Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 Plenty of books by Ursula K. LeGuin will fit the bill - Left Hand of Darkness, Lathe of Heaven, The Telling, The Dispossessed. Maybe Don Quixote in translation? In the list of books actually written for her age range, there's a new one came out that she might enjoy if she can get past the child abuse in the first and last chapters (no beating, but a lot of emotional abuse and neglect) - The War That Saved My Life. Of course, there's also a backdrop of the Blitz, so maybe not. If that one doesn't get an award this year, I'll be astonished - but then Elizabeth Bird's blogpost reminded me of Cuckoo Song, and that's equally great. (Actually, anything by Hardinge is a good quality book, and so is anything by Shannon Hale - if you can ignore the stupid title, Princess Academy is a great book.) And, as I've said before and will say again, you can do worse than Zahrah the Windseeker, and other YA titles by that author. I'm not personally a fan of The Giver. Lois Lowry's math skills are abysmal, and it bugs me. If I'm going to read Lowry, it's more likely to be Gathering Blue. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlsdMama Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 Scarlet Letter was one of my favorite books so perhaps she'll like one of my other favorites - Silas Marner? 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 I was going to suggest My Antonia by Willa Cather. It does have a death- Antonia's father commits suicide - but that's all I can think of that might be hard for a sensitive reader. It's a beautiful story. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bugs Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 Watership Down? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
creekland Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 By 9th grade I enjoyed reading Oliver Twist and The Grapes of Wrath, so those can be suggestions also. We might have read Flowers for Algernon that year - one of my very favorites that I read in school. We read both the short story and the novel. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysalis Academy Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 By 9th grade I enjoyed reading Oliver Twist and The Grapes of Wrath, so those can be suggestions also. We might have read Flowers for Algernon that year - one of my very favorites that I read in school. We read both the short story and the novel. Oh, but Grapes of Wrath for a sensitive kid? It makes me cry like a little girl every time. It's one of my favorite books, but I wouldn't give it to my 12 year old. Fifteen is different, for sure. It's certainly a thought provoking and deeply moving book. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
creekland Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 Oh, but Grapes of Wrath for a sensitive kid? It makes me cry like a little girl every time. It's one of my favorite books, but I wouldn't give it to my 12 year old. Fifteen is different, for sure. It's certainly a thought provoking and deeply moving book. Good point. I was never a sensitive kid and didn't have any either, so it's likely difficult for me to gauge things properly for that aspect. I will say it was a very moving book that opened up my eyes to a portion of life - as did Black Like Me that I suggested earlier. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Diviya Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 My 12 year old read Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice right after To Kill a Mockingbird and really loved them. She is also currently working her way through the Wizard of Earthsea series. I will say that she has always self censored, and while she used to be a very sensitive reader, she is not now! She has recently read and enjoyed The Book Thief, The Fault in Our Stars, the Hunger Games, the Maze Runner series to give you an idea of how not sensitive she is now :) I'm reading the suggestions in this thread with interest also. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SparklyUnicorn Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 It's been awhile and I don't know if this is really like those, but I enjoyed The Grapes of Wrath. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faithr Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 The Grapes of Wrath has some kinda adult stuff going on there. The preacher who can't stop lusting after women? How the sister nurses the starving man because her baby died and she's got milk and he's dying. I think I am remembering that right. I mean it has some raw stuff in it as I recall. I love the Grapes of Wrath but for older high schoolers. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SparklyUnicorn Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 The Grapes of Wrath has some kinda adult stuff going on there. The preacher who can't stop lusting after women? How the sister nurses the starving man because her baby died and she's got milk and he's dying. I think I am remembering that right. I mean it has some raw stuff in it as I recall. I love the Grapes of Wrath but for older high schoolers. Yeah it's been forever since I read it. I was in high school. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yvonne Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 Scarlet Letter was one of my favorite books so perhaps she'll like one of my other favorites - Silas Marner? My 12 yod just read Silas Marner & liked it. (I could never get into it.) Most of her other favorites are fantasy... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lauracolumbus Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 My kids couldn't get into Silas Marner. The language was too archaic. They liked Animal Farm, Grapes of Wrath, Frankenstein and Huckleberry Finn. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris in VA Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 What about some short stories? I like the ones in Ray Bradbury's Illustrated Man. I would pre-read and pick a out a few, as some are pretty disturbing, but some are really beautiful and thought-provoking. There are a couple of O. Henry stories I would recommend--The Ransom of Red Chief, and The Gift of the Magi. Children's books that are a little more involved might be good--has she read Over Sea, Under Stone? How about the F.H. Burnett books (A Little Princess, Secret Garden, esp)? The Tale of Desperaux is actually not an elementary book--These are lovely books with deep themes. At the Sign of The Sugared Plum and its sequel are also good. Some kids have missed these; IDK if she's one of them. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farmgirl70 Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 My daughter loved Pride and Prejudice (and all the other Austen), as well as Jane Eyre at that age. I also second The Scarlet Pimpernel. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanaqui Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 The Tale of Desperaux is actually not an elementary book Yeah, but it had some - quite a bit of - child abuse in it. I'm sensitive to that topic since the girls were born and as an adult I couldn't get past it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KathyBC Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 Yeah, but it had some - quite a bit of - child abuse in it. I'm sensitive to that topic since the girls were born and as an adult I couldn't get past it. We listened to the audio book on the way back and forth to soccer several years ago. I honestly can't remember anything, at least that stood out from other literature. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KathyBC Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 My daughter loved Pride and Prejudice (and all the other Austen), as well as Jane Eyre at that age. I also second The Scarlet Pimpernel. :iagree: along with Emma (Austen). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3in9th Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 I highly recommend The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck who won both a Pulitzer and a Nobel. This is one of my favorite all time books (and I have an English degree) and all three of my kids read it this year for homeschool and they all enjoyed it. It has a lot to discuss. Some moral ambiguties. A ton of information about the culture of China before communism. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faithr Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 True confession - we just finished reading The Scarlet Pimpernel and we hated it! The kids (13 year old girl and 16 year old guy) jeered at it the whole way through and we are thoroughly flummoxed as to how it got put up there with the 'classics.' The writing is atrocious! At least that is our opinion. We seem to be at odds with everybody else's opinion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
g1234 Posted March 27, 2015 Author Share Posted March 27, 2015 Oh, wow. So many wonderful replies! Many thanks to everyone! This will give us a lot of great ideas. Now I'm off to the library, I think... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyingiguana Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 At that age, my daughter also liked The Moonstone, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre. She could not stand The Giver. It was way too juvenile for her. And has a pretty upsetting message to boot. (No, you cannot make a book deep just by killing someone) She also didn't like Emma (and I was giving it another try and still couldn't stand it). We couldn't get through The Scarlet Pimpernel. Dickens seemed way too wordy, although we got through Great Expectations -- which was mostly good, just so long as you didn't get hung up in the middle section where virtually nothing happens. How about My Family and Other Animals? It's not deep themes at all, but it can be hilariously funny. She also like Kidnapped and Treasure Island although a lot of the appeal of that may have been that she was reading them aloud to us and got to use her Scottish accent. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
creekland Posted March 29, 2015 Share Posted March 29, 2015 I'm curious to know if any of you had young lads who liked Pride and Prejudice. My voracious reader (middle son) to this day considers it the most boring and worst book he ever had to read, yet so many females like it. I'll confess I never read it and don't really intend to at this stage in my life. If curious about what some of his "classic" favorites were, they include Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky) & Les Miserables (unabridged, Hugo), but he didn't read those in middle school. ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yvonne Posted March 30, 2015 Share Posted March 30, 2015 After reading SL, she keeps asking me for more Hawthorne, and I keep trying to tell her I don't think there's much more Hawthorne that she would care to read right now! When I was in 9th grade, I loved Hawthorne. His short stories "Rappaccini's Daughter" and "The Birthmark" may have been my favorites and I think would fall into the "richly beautiful" and "lots to think about" categories. There was also "The Minister's Black Veil." My boys liked Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 in 8th grade. That one really kick started their interest in how the author's style reinforced his message. There are a lot of other quality short stories that she might get into.... Start with Bradbury's "Sound of Thunder"! Others that might be of interest..... Maupassant's "The Necklace," Jacobs' "The Monkey's Paw," Chekhov's "The Bet." This thread has lots of suggestions. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faithr Posted March 30, 2015 Share Posted March 30, 2015 My son, who loves to read, hated Pride and Prejudice with a passion. It is one of my favorite all time books. De gustibus non est disputandum! As for Water Babies - it really is an allegory about death, told in this fairy tale way. It is a strange book but I found it captivating. A lot of that old literature is definitely not PC when it comes to ethnicity and such. Sometimes I can ignore that and other times it is too irritating and ruins the book for me. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KathyBC Posted March 30, 2015 Share Posted March 30, 2015 My boys liked Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 in 8th grade. That one really kick started their interest in how the author's style reinforced his message. My oldest loved that one, too. But that robotic dog might be too scary for the op's dd? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yvonne Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 My oldest loved that one, too. But that robotic dog might be too scary for the op's dd? Ooo. I'd forgotten about that thing. It was definitely creepy. (But it was such a great take on corruption of nature in the name of scientific progress. Now that I think of it, it reminds me of Hawthorne's The Birthmark and its science/nature theme.) Maybe for the op's 9th grader.... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanaqui Posted March 31, 2015 Share Posted March 31, 2015 Thought of one I think nobody remembered - how about My Side of the Mountain? 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
g1234 Posted April 1, 2015 Author Share Posted April 1, 2015 This thread has given us so many wonderful ideas! I collected them all in one list for myself, so I thought I'd share in case anyone else finds it useful. Thanks again to everyone. Black Like Me Count of Monte Cristo The Giver and Gathering Blue Scarlet Pimpernel Tuck Everlasting Willa Cather: Shadows on the Rock; My Antonia Tanglewood Tales and Wonder Book House of Seven Gables A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Mrs. Mike George MacDonald: At the Back of the North Wind; The Princess and Curdie Water Babies (but not pc) Elizabeth Goudge: The Little White HOrse Ursula LeGuin: Left Hand of Darkness; Lathe of Heaven, The Telling, The Dispossessed Don Quixote in translation The War That Saved My Life, but background of abuse and the Blitz Cuckoo Song Princess Academy Zahrah the Windseeker Silas Marner Watership Down Oliver Twist The Grapes of Wrath (but maybe not for a sensitive kid) Flowers for Algernon Jane Eyre Pride and Prejudice Wizard of Earthsea Animal Farm Frankenstein Huckleberry Finn Short Stories: --Ray Bradbury's Illulstrated Man (but preread for disturbing stories); Sound of Thunder --O. Henry--The Ransom of Red Chief, and The Gift of the Magi. --Maupassant's The Necklace --Jacobs' The Monkey's Paw --Chekhov's The Bet Over Sea, Under Stone F.H. Burnett books (A Little Princess, Secret Garden, esp) The Tale of Desperaux (but beware of abuse) At the Sign of The Sugared Plum Jane Eyre Emma The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck My Side of the Mountain The Moonstone My Family and Other Animals Kidnapped Treasure Island Hawthorne short stories: "Rappaccini's Daughter" and "The Birthmark Fahrenheit 451 (but maybe not for sensitive kid) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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