What to do with this girl..........

[Remudamom]

Not yet 16 and she's read everything from Harry Potter to Shakespeare.

 

Any suggestions for her? She's got to have a book going all the time, and we're running out of them.

[Tina]

Has she read everything on the Ambleside.com lists? :)

[Remudamom]

Has she read everything on the Ambleside.com lists? :)

 

 

Off to see, thank you, thank you!

[Nicole M]

Terry Pratchett? Has she read those yet? Hilarious. We loved the Tiffany Aching books, and my son's just read a few others. They're quick reads, though.

 

Those are the only gender-neutral books that I can think of. My son, who is that age, is really into the British Naval books, Napoleonic wars and that boring boy stuff.

 

Oh! Did I say boring? What's wrong with me?

[Parrothead]

Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, Ian Flemming.

[Brigitte]

Wilkie Collins?

[Remudamom]

Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, Ian Flemming.

 

 

We've exhausted the first two, but not Flemming. Thanks.

[MeanestMomInMidwest]

Sounds like me as a child....I would pick up books other people were reading and start "over reading" and was always in the middle of 2 or 3 books. So, this is based on my experience, not parenting advice (which I would never presume to give you, Remudamom - seems like you always get it right:))

My mom did 3 things for me:

(1)She made me befriend the librarian, who would make suggestions for me

(2)She never said "You can't read that"

(3)She kept books piled around the house. She bought paperbacks and old books at yard sales and then recycled them at "paperback exchange stores"

The only thing I would do differently for the young me, was to be a little more discriminating in what I brought into the house. My mom did have some "adult" books of her own that I found and read. After the first one, she figured, "What the heck, the kid already read one" and stopped hiding them. I wasn't mature enough for the sexual content (thought I was) and I think it kinda gave me a skewed idea of "romance". Not Harlequin Romance books, but trashy, explicit novels...bad news.

What she did right is not pay attention to what genre the book was. Even though I had my favorite, she knew I would read anything, so she didn't just buy what I liked. History, mystery, whatever. Mind you, when I was living with my mom, we were very poor. Sometimes we didn't have TV, a car, or food that we didn't have to stand in line to get; we always had books.

When I was in highschool, I had a wonderful English teacher who taught me the difference between good writing that would stand the test of time and trash. He did this by introducing me to some classic authors and then contrasting them with some trash. Kinda like "read this" now "read this" what's the difference? (I went to a tiny public school & was the only one in that particular class). By the time I got into college (English Lit, of course) I had already read every book that was assigned to me. Rereading them was a pleasure. SO, I guess what I'm saying is you're obviously doing a great job of giving her great writing (the classics) don't be afraid to let her read what may be considered "not so great writing." For example, maybe let her read "Gone with the Wind" and then have her read the modern sequel "Scarlett". Compare the two. One is great writing, one is absolute trash. Why is one better than the other? What was the author going for & why, why, why, was "Scarlett" ever published.....Poor Margaret Mitchell...rolling over in her grave.

Sorry for the extreme length of this post....I am passionate about books almost above all else!

[Kanga]

A few suggestions:

 

Oscar Wilde's plays: The Importance of Being Earnest and An Ideal Husband (Lots of humor in both)

 

A Room with a View by Forester (Great Chapter titles)

 

The Brother Cadfael Mystery Series by Ellis Peters

 

I'll keep thinking...

[Jennifer3141]

Tolkein? His use of language might slow her down. :001_smile:

 

Have you gone through the classics book lists on the'net for adults? We do a couple of lists through one of my book clubs and I cannot believe how much I've missed!

 

Jen

[Tammyla]

My list will be divided into two parts due to too many characters and the original link isn't available. It's a good list though.

 

Titles from Free Response Questions*

Adapted from an original list by Norma J. Wilkerson.

Works referred to on the AP Literature exams since 1971 (specific years in parentheses).

 

A

Absalom, Absalom by William Faulkner (76, 00)

Adam Bede by George Eliot (06)

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (80, 82, 85, 91, 92, 94, 95, 96, 99, 05, 06, 07)

The Aeneid by Virgil (06)

Agnes of God by John Pielmeier (00)

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton (97, 02, 03)

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood (00, 04)

All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren (00, 02, 04, 07)

All My Sons by Arthur Miller (85, 90)

All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy (95, 96, 06, 07)

America is in the Heart by Carlos Bulosan (95)

An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser (81, 82, 95, 03)

The American by Henry James (05, 07)

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (80, 91, 99, 03, 04, 06)

Another Country by James Baldwin (95)

Antigone by Sophocles (79, 80, 90, 94, 99, 03, 05)

Anthony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare (80, 91)

Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler (94)

Armies of the Night by Norman Mailer (76)

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner (78, 89, 90, 94, 01, 04, 06, 07)

As You Like It by William Shakespeare (92 05. 06)

Atonement by Ian McEwan (07)

Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man by James Weldon Johnson (02, 05)

The Awakening by Kate Chopin (87, 88, 91, 92, 95, 97, 99, 02, 04, 07)

 

B

"The Bear" by William Faulkner (94, 06)

Beloved by Toni Morrison (90, 99, 01, 03, 05, 07)

A Bend in the River by V. S. Naipaul (03)

Benito Cereno by Herman Melville (89)

Billy Budd by Herman Melville (79, 81, 82, 83, 85, 99, 02, 04, 05, 07)

The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter (89, 97)

Black Boy by Richard Wright (06)

Bleak House by Charles Dickens (94, 00, 04)

Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya (94, 96, 97, 99, 04, 05, 06)

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (07)

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (95)

Bone: A Novel by Fae M. Ng (03)

The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan (06, 07)

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (89, 05)

Brighton Rock by Graham Greene (79)

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevski (90)

 

C

Candida by George Bernard Shaw (80)

Candide by Voltaire (80, 86, 87, 91, 95, 96, 04, 06)

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (06)

The Caretaker by Harold Pinter (85)

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (82, 85, 87, 89, 94, 01, 03, 04, 05, 07)

The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger (01)

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams (00)

Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood (94)

The Centaur by John Updike (81)

Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko (94, 96, 97, 99, 01, 03, 05, 06, 07)

The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov (71, 77, 06, 07)

"Civil Disobedience" by Henry David Thoreau (76)

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier (06)

The Color Purple by Alice Walker (92, 94, 95, 96, 97, 05)

Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje (01)

Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton (85, 87, 91, 95, 96, 07)

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevski (76, 79, 80, 82, 88, 96, 99, 00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05)

"The Crisis" by Thomas Paine (76)

The Crucible by Arthur Miller (71, 83, 86, 89, 04, 05)

 

D

Daisy Miller by Henry James (97, 03)

Dancing at Lughnasa by Brian Friel (01)

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (78, 83, 06)

"The Dead" by James Joyce (97)

The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy (86)

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller (86, 88, 94, 03, 04, 05, 07)

Delta Wedding by Eudora Welty (97)

Desire under the Elms by Eugene O'Neill (81)

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler (97)

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (06)

The Diviners by Margaret Laurence (95)

Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe (79, 86, 99, 04)

A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen (71, 83, 87, 88, 95, 05)

The Dollmaker by Harriet Arnot (91)

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (01, 04, 06)

Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina Garcia (03)

Dutchman by Amiri Baraka/Leroi Jones (03, 06)

 

E

East of Eden by John Steinbeck (06)

Emma by Jane Austen (96)

An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen (76, 80, 87, 99, 01, 07)

Equus by Peter Shaffer (92, 99, 00, 01)

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton (80, 85, 03, 05, 06, 07)

The Eumenides by Aeschylus (in The Orestia) (96)

 

F

The Fall by Albert Camus (81)

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (99, 04)

The Father by August Strindberg (01)

Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev (90)

Faust by Johann Goethe (02, 03)

The Federalist by Alexander Hamilton (76)

Fences by August Wilson (02, 03, 05)

A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry (03)

Fifth Business by Robertson Davis (00, 07)

The Fixer by Bernard Malamud (07)

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway (03, 06)

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (89, 00, 03, 06)

 

G

A Gathering of Old Men by Ernest Gaines (00)

A Gesture Life by Chang-Rae Lee (04, 05)

Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen (00, 04)

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams (71, 90, 94, 97, 99, 02)

Going After Cacciato by Tim O'Brien (01, 06)

The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford (00)

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (95, 03, 06)

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (79, 80, 88, 89, 92, 95, 96, 00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 07)

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (82, 83, 88, 91, 92, 97, 00, 02, 04, 05, 07)

Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin (83, 88, 90, 05)

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift (87, 89, 01, 04, 06)

 

H

The Hairy Ape by Eugene O'Neill (89)

Hamlet by William Shakespeare (88, 94, 97, 99, 00)

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (03)

Hard Times by Charles Dickens (87, 90)

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (71, 76, 91, 94, 96, 99, 00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 06)

The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene (71)

Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen (79, 92, 00, 02, 03, 05)

Henry IV, Parts I and II by William Shakespeare (80, 90)

Henry V by William Shakespeare (02)

The Homecoming by Harold Pinter (78, 90)

House Made of Dawn by N Scott Momaday (95, 06)

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (04, 07)

The House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne (89)

 

I

The Iliad by Homer (80)

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde (06)

In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O'Brien (00)

In the Time of Butterflies by Julia Alvarez (05)

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (76, 77, 78, 82, 83, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 91, 94, 95, 96, 97, 01, 03, 04, 05, 07)

 

J

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (78, 79, 80, 88, 91, 94, 95, 96, 97, 99, 00, 05, 07)

Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee (99)

J.B. by Archibald MacLeish (81, 94)

Joe Turner's Come and Gone by August Wilson (00, 04)

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan (97, 03)

Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding (99)

Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy (71, 76, 80, 85, 87, 95, 04)

Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare (82, 97, 05, 07)

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair (77, 78, 82, 88, 89, 90, 96)

 

K

King Lear by William Shakespeare (77, 78, 82, 88, 89, 90, 96, 01, 03, 04, 05, 06)

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseinii (07)

 

L

A Lesson before Dying by Ernest Gaines (99)

Letters from an American Farmer by de Crevecoeur (76)

Light in August by William Faulkner (71, 79, 81, 82, 83, 85, 95, 99, 03, 06)

The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman (85, 90)

Long Day's Journey into Night by Eugene O'Neill (90, 03, 07)

Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad (77, 78, 82, 86, 00, 03, 07)

Lord of the Flies by William Golding (85)

The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh (89)

Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich (95)

"Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T. S. Eliot (85)

Lysistrata by Aristophanes (87)

[dangermom]

Mysteries: Dorothy Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham

 

Fantasy: Connie Willis, Diana Wynne Jones (I presume she's read Susan Cooper?), Alan Garner

 

Random: Eleanor Farjeon, Gerald Durrell (My family and other animals), Allison Uttely, Angela Thirkell (the ones written before 1945), Daniel Pinkwater (fx Alan Mendelsohn, boy from Mars)

 

Classics: might try Fanny Burney, Charles Dickens, Isak Dinesen, everything Louisa May Alcott wrote, Jerome K. Jerome, Mrs. Gaskell

 

Does she like non-fiction? Memoirs? There's tons of good history, and things like books about growing up in Ireland in the 1940's etc. (I don't mean Angela's Ashes either). Fx Flora Thompson's Lark Rise and Candleford are lovely books, about growing up in an English village in Victorian times. Beverly Cleary wrote 2 wonderful memoirs, so did Roald Dahl (Going Solo is one of my all-time favorite books).

 

There is an endless supply of good books, I promise.

[Tammyla]

M

Macbeth by William Shakespeare (83, 99, 03, 05)

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (80, 85, 04, 05, 06)

Main Street by Sinclair Lewis (87)

Major Barbara by George Bernard Shaw (79, 96, 04, 07)

Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw (81)

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (03, 06)

Master Harold...and the Boys by Athol Fugard (03)

The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy (94, 99, 00, 02, 07)

M. Butterfly by David Henry Wang (95)

Medea by Euripides (82, 92, 95, 01, 03)

The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers (97)

The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare (85, 91, 95, 02, 03)

Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (78, 89)

Middlemarch by George Eliot (95, 04, 05, 07)

Middle Passage by V. S. Naipaul (06)

A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare (06)

The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot (90, 92, 04)

Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathanael West (89)

Moby Dick by Herman Melville (76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 89, 94, 96, 01, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07)

Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe (76, 77, 86, 87, 95)

Monkey Bridge by Lan Cao (00, 03)

The Moor's Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie (07)

Mother Courage and Her Children by Berthold Brecht (85, 87, 06)

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (94, 97, 04, 05, 07)

Mrs. Warren's Profession by George Bernard Shaw (87, 90, 95, 02)

Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare (97)

Murder in the Cathedral by T. S. Eliot (76, 80, 85, 95, 07)

"My Last Duchess" by Robert Browning (85)

My Antonia by Willa Cather (03)

My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok (03)

 

N

Native Son by Richard Wright (79, 82, 85, 87, 95, 01, 04)

Native Speaker by Chang-Rae Lee (99, 03, 05, 07)

1984 by George Orwell (87, 94, 05)

No Exit by John Paul Sartre (86)

No-No Boy by John Okada (95)

Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevski (89)

 

O

Obasan by Joy Kogawa (94, 95, 04, 05, 06, 07)

The Odyssey by Homer (86, 06)

Oedipus Rex by Sophocles (77, 85, 88, 00, 03, 04)

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (01)

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn (05)

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (89, 04)

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey (01)

O Pioneers! by Willa Cather (06)

The Optimist's Daughter by D. H. Lawrence (94)

The Orestia by Aeschylus (90)

Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf (04)

Othello by William Shakespeare (79, 85, 88, 92, 95, 03. 04, 07)

Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens (90)

Our Town by Thornton Wilder (86, 97)

Out of Africa by Isaak Dinesen (06)

 

P

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov (01)

Pamela by Samuel Richardson (86)

A Passage to India by E. M. Forster (71, 77, 78, 88, 91, 92, 07)

Paradise Lost by John Milton (85, 86)

Peer Gynt by Henrik Ibsen (06)

Père Goriot by Honore de Balzac (02)

Persuasion by Jane Austen (90, 05, 07)

Phaedre by Jean Racine (92, 03)

The Piano Lesson by August Wilson (96, 99, 07)

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (02)

The Plague by Albert Camus (02)

Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov (97)

Pocho by Jose Antonio Villarreal (02)

Portrait of a Lady by Henry James ( 88, 92, 96, 03, 05, 07)

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce (76, 77, 80, 86, 88, 96, 99, 04, 05)

The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene (95)

Praisesong for the Widow by Paule Marshall (96)

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (83, 88, 92, 97)

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark (90)

Push by Sapphire (07)

Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw (03, 05)

 

R

Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow (03, 07)

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry (87, 90, 94, 96, 99, 07)

The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope (81)

Redburn by Herman Melville (87)

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (00, 03)

The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy (07)

Richard III by William Shakespeare (79)

A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf (76)

A Room with a View by E. M. Forster (03)

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (90, 92, 97)

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard (81, 94, 00, 04, 05, 06)

 

S

Saint Joan by George Bernard Shaw (95)

The Sandbox by Edward Albee (1971)

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (71, 77, 78, 83, 88, 91, 99, 02, 04, 05, 06)

Sent for You Yesterday by John Edgar Wideman (03)

A Separate Peace by John Knowles (82, 07)

The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx (97)

Silas Marner by George Eliot (02)

Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser (87, 02, 04)

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut (91, 04)

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson (00)

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison (81, 88, 96, 00, 04, 05, 06, 07)

Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence (77, 90)

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (77, 86, 97, 01, 07)

The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence (96, 04)

The Stranger by Albert Camus (79, 82, 86, 04)

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams (91, 92, 01, 04, 07)

The Street by Ann Petry (07)

Sula by Toni Morrison (92, 97, 02, 04, 07)

Surfacing by Margaret Atwood (05)

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (85, 91, 95, 96, 04, 05)

 

T

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (82, 91, 04)

Tarftuffe by Moliere (87)

The Tempest by William Shakespeare (71,78, 96, 03, 05, 07)

Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (82, 91, 03, 06, 07)

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zorah Neale Hurston (88, 90, 91, 96, 04, 05, 06, 07)

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (91, 97, 03)

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien (04)

A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley (06)

Tom Jones by Henry Fielding (90, 00, 06)

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (77, 86, 88)

Tracks by Louise Erdrich (05)

The Trial by Franz Kafka (88, 89, 00)

Trifles by Susan Glaspell (00)

Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne (86)

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James (92, 94, 00, 02, 04)

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare (85, 94, 96)

Typical American by Gish Jen (02, 03, 05)

 

U

Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (87)

 

V

The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith (06)

Victory by Joseph Conrad (83)

Volpone by Ben Jonson (83)

 

W

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett (77, 85, 86, 89, 94, 01)

The Warden by Anthony Trollope (96)

Washington Square by Henry James (90)

The Wasteland by T. S. Eliot (81)

Watch on the Rhine by Lillian Hellman (87)

The Way of the World by William Congreve (71)

The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope (06)

We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates (07)

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee (88, 94, 00, 04, 07)

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (89, 92, 05, 07)

The Wild Duck by Henrik Ibsen (78)

Winter in the Blood by James Welch (95)

Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare (82, 89, 95, 06)

Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor (82, 89, 95)

Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston (91)

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (71,77, 78, 79, 83, 86, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 96, 97, 99, 01, 06, 07)

 

Z

The Zoo Story by Edward Albee (82, 01)

Zoot Suit by Luis Valdez (95)

[Kanga]

My dd likes a lot of "boys books" like Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott, The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, The Rise to Rebellion by Jeff Shaara, and Mr. Midshipman Hornblower by C.S. Forester.

 

She has probably already read the James Herriot Books. Has she read the Mitford series by Jan Karon? My dd and I discovered that L.M. Montogmery and Louisa May Alcott had written many more books.

 

I'll keep thinking.

[dcjlkplus3]

Steven Lawhead - good fantasy/history stories (and they are long - I love thick books)(Christian)

Thoene, Brock and Bodie - historical fiction - Christian

 

Wander the stacks at the library and look for wahtever catches her attention, if they are bad they don't need to be finished. If they are only so-so, don't read more by that author. You may find something that surprises you.

[Kanga]

College of Magics and Scholar of Magics by Caroline Stevermer

 

I'm still thinking...

[dawn of ns]

Here's a weird one - The Gormenghast trilogy by Mervyn Peake. Huge books, heavy reading and sort of gothic fantasy written about the same time as Tolkien wrote his trilogy.

 

Another GREAT book that's big enough to keep her busy for awhile is A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. It was an Oprah pick but don't let that turn you off. It's a fantastic read that covers four main characters and has a huge epic feel.

 

Both books are doorstop size and should keep her occupied for a bit.

[Heather in the Kootenays]

Jane Austen??

[ChrisN in NY]

Ted Dekker (Christian)

Francine Rivers --especially the Mark of the Lion series (also Christian)

 

My oldest ds is a voracious reader; he's read many of the titles/authors already suggested. His recent picks are Orson Scott Card, Robert Ludlum, among others.

[dangermom]

Oh, Orson Scott Card is good; there are some that are more girly. Watch out though; some of his books are aimed at adults.

 

I was thinking that she might enjoy reading the stories of King Arthur! She could start with a modern translation of Malory, and there are tons of others-- "The Quest for the Holy Grail" is great (and different from the Malory version IIRC--he synthesized a whole lot of stories into one big whole).

[beansprouts]

Honey for a Teen's Heart or maybe even Honey for a Woman's Heart

[Rosie_0801]

I'll bet she hasn't read some of the Australian classics;

For the Term of his Natural Life, Marcus Clarke

Robbery Under Arms, Rolf Boldrewood

 

While not exactly great literature, if she enjoyed Harry Potter, she'll enjoy the Abhorsen trilogy by Garth Nix, another Australian writer. It's one of my favourite light reads, even now :)

 

:)

Rosie- Waving her little patriotic flag, just for something unusual to do.

[Mommy22alyns]

Moby Dick oughta get her good and bogged down. :D

[Guest Virginia Dawn]

At that age I read every Daphne DuMaurier book I could find.

 

The most well known ones include:

 

Jamaica Inn

Rebecca

My Cousin Rachel

Rule Brittania

 

They do tend to be slightly dark and mysterious with a touch of romance, if that matters.

 

What about:

The Picture of Dorian Grey

The Importance of Being Earnest

Frankenstein's Monster

Dracula

The Scarlet Pimpernel

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

H.G. Well"s Short Stories

Chesterton's Father Brown

[Lizzie in Ma]

Mrs.Mike

Christy

Calico Palace

Jubilee Trail

The Spellsinger series

The Dragonriders of Pern books

The Chronicles of Amber

The Belgariad was a college find and remains a favorite

The Bas Bleu catalog is wonderful for "finds" and this month actually had Mrs. Mike!

I plowed through C.S. Lewis back then for the first time too, Mere Christianity, Screwtape Letters, Surprised By Joy I have read til they are tattered.

How I would love to be her age and read these for the first time again.

[kalanamak]

At that age I read every Daphne DuMaurier book I could find.

 

 

 

Me, too.

 

CAn you get her hooked on the Russians? Plenty of that to go around. Heart of a Dog is short and funny. I loved The Idiot when I was a teen.

How about the Japanese, like The Makioka Sisters or even Unset's Kristen Lavransdattar. If she likes it, Unset has many others not so famous, but just as long. Another thing I started at that age, and this is good for history, was to read every biography in our library.

[Mrs Mungo]

I would second many of the suggestions you've already received, especially as far as heavier fare goes (I loved The Idiot too and Austen and the Brontes). For lighter reading has she read Douglas Adams? Marion Zimmer Bradley? Patricia McKillip? I'm sure I'll think of more...

[H.S. Burrow]

How about the Dragons in Our Midst and Oracles of Fire series by Bryan Davis? They're both have 4 books in the series: Dragons was written first followed by Oracles. They are Christian Fantasy. Another one my kids love is the DragonKeeper Series by Donita K Paul.

 

One series that we've just started is The Lost Years of Merlin by T.A. Barron. DH took book one from me and wants to know when the rest will be here.

 

Can you tell that we like fantasy??:)

[emeraldjoy]

Anything C.S. Lewis!

Mark Twain????

[Lizzie in Ma]

I would second many of the suggestions you've already received, especially as far as heavier fare goes (I loved The Idiot too and Austen and the Brontes). For lighter reading has she read Douglas Adams? Marion Zimmer Bradley? Patricia McKillip? I'm sure I'll think of more...

 

The Darkover novels by marion zimmner bradley I loved too, still on my bookshelf!

Douglas Adams is beloved around here, The Hitchhiker series but not so much Dirk Gently.

[Mrs Mungo]

The Darkover novels by marion zimmner bradley I loved too, still on my bookshelf!

Douglas Adams is beloved around here, The Hitchhiker series but not so much Dirk Gently.

 

The first Dirk Gently is not as funny as HHGTTG but the *second* Dirk Gently, Long, Dark Teatime of the Soul is one of the funniest books I've ever read. It's right up there with Good Omens.

[TrixieB]

Here's a weird one - The Gormenghast trilogy by Mervyn Peake. Huge books, heavy reading and sort of gothic fantasy written about the same time as Tolkien wrote his trilogy.

I second this recommendation! I loved this trilogy (well, the first two books anyway... the third one wasn't quite on par) when I read it in late high school.