Light/humorous reading for advanced reader - DD12

[itsmylife]

I have been looking through DD's reading choices and I am feeling weighed down by what she is reading.  I would like some suggestions for light reading for her.  She is a pretty advanced reader.

Thanks

Mom to DD12

[Tanaqui]

Does she enjoy the books she's reading? Maybe it's better to figure out what she enjoys about those books first.

[Lori D.]

Can you share her reading list? That might help us better help you find lighter or humorous titles to compliment.

It's also okay to include books that fit her *age* (for emotional/interest fit), and not have *every* book be at her advanced reading level "age". ? Also, not every book has to be a heavyweight classic -- it's okay to have some "popcorn reads" in there, too, to keep things lighter. Some ideas:

fantasy with humor
Half Magic, Magic By the Lake, Knight's Castle, The Time Garden, Seven Day Magic (Eager)
The Ordinary Princess (Kaye)
Farmer Giles of Ham (Tolkien) -- once you get over the hump of the older language in the first few pages, it's a lot of fun
Book of Dragons (Nesbit) -- 7 short stories
The Reluctant Dragon (Grahame)
Bromeliad trilogy: Truckers; Diggers; Wings (Pratchett)

realistic with humor
The Great Wheel (Lawson)
Two Are Better Than One (Brink)
Summer of the Monkeys (Rawls)
A Long Way from Chicago; A Year Down Yonder (Peck)
Hoot; Chomp (Hiaasen)

tall tale with humor
Holes (Sachar)
The Fake Moustache (Angleberger)
11 Birthdays (Mass)
Pi in the Sky (Mass)

higher reading level books with some humor
The 13 Clocks (Thurber)
The Phantom Tollbooth (Juster)
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Twain)
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Carroll)
The Reluctant Dragon (Grahame)
Anne of Green Gables (Montgomery)
some of the Just So stories (Kipling)
Cheaper By the Dozen (Gilbreth)
All Creatures Great and Small (Herriot)
Crocodile on the Sandbank (Peterson)
William Shakespeare's Star Wars (Doescher)

lighter short stories
The Lady or the Tiger (Stockton) -- the famous first "you decide" story ending
The Open Window (Saki) -- humorous
A Story Without An End (Twain) -- humorous
Rikki Tikki Tavi -- plot line; an epic in miniature
Lamb to the Slaughter (Dahl) -- "black humor"
The Red-Headed League or A Scandal in Bohemia (Doyle) -- a Sherlock Holmes mystery
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (Thurber) -- humorous
The Ransom of Red Chief (Henry) -- humorous
Wooster and Jeeves short story (Wodehouse)-- humorous

Edited November 5, 2018 by Lori D.

[Tanaqui]

2 hours ago, HeighHo said:

No More Dead Dogs by Gordon Korman

 

I like Korman as much as the next person, but I have to say I'm curious - why that one instead of all the other books he's written?

[Tanaqui]

Sure, but so are all his other books! That's why I asked why this one instead of, say, Swindle or I Want to Go Home! or Gifted.

I'm not criticizing, I was just wondering if this book had a particularly special appeal to you.

[vonfirmath]

4 hours ago, texasmom33 said:

You'll want to glance to see if these are too "young" for her, but when my dd was 11/12, she really enjoyed all of the Carl Hiasson books for YA- Scat, Hoot, Chomp, and I think there might be a couple of others. It kind of cycled her out of the dystopian landscape for a short bit. 

I feel you on the weighed down. I felt like all of YA at the library was either dystopian or vampires or zombies when she hit 12. You might get Honey for a Teens Heart too for you for further recommendations to pull from. The book recs will be a little older, but they're really good. 

 

THank you. I didn't know about the Honey for a Teen's Heart book!

My son is age 11 and we're trying to recommend books for him so it isn't a steady diet of fantasty (He's utterly uninterested in dystopian.  He tried the third child books earlier and got depressed and so now that whole genre is "Nope")

 

[alisoncooks]

The Fourteenth Goldfish  by Jennifer Holm. Very lighthearted and funny, but still thought provoking. My 12 year old daughter loved it. 

Edited November 5, 2018 by alisoncooks

[Bluegoat]

What about some of Alexander McCall-Smith.  Either the books for adults or kids could work.

[JenneinCA]

Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer by Kelley Jones

It is silly and funny.  My youngest read it when we needed a break from the doom and gloom of the more typical fare at that age.  It is not great classical literature.  It is just a fun and funny light read.