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Any good books with a 7th grade content level, but high school/college reading level? DD13 says she wants some harder books, but a good amount of the adult section books have bad themes and inappropriate language/situations. Shes really into classics, but also wants some nonfiction books and just normal novels. She just read the Hunchback of Notre Dame with minimal difficulty and really enjoyed it. (I believe her lexile was 1492, but that was at the beginning of the school year, so it might have improved) We are just trying to get a start on a summer reading list.

Has she read Jane Austen yet? Or -- this may be off the wall, but she might like dabbling in something like the Norton Anthology of English Lit. Little snippets from lots of authors, and she could go further with any of them that appealed to her. With anything pre-1960 or so, you shouldn't have to worry about language, though a lot of it might not be all that interesting to her yet.

NCMom had some great ideas! Mine are less classy, I'm afraid...

Hmmm--I wonder if she'd like the Jan Karon or Maeve Binchy books? Not great literature, but not bad either--they're adult books, but not adult books, if you see what I mean! (It has been years since I read any of them, but one of my dear friends is a very conservative pastor's wife, and she likes them, so I think my memory that they are quite innocent must be accurate.)

These are just silly, but fun: any of the PG Wodehouse books, any of the EF Benson "Lucia" books, Laurie King's Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series, John Mortimer's Rumpole books, the Josephine Tey mysteries--maybe something there? I was vacuuming up those sorts of books at that age (well, the Laurie King ones are too recent for that, but I read lots of British humour and hundreds and hundreds of mysteries in junior high)--but perhaps she'd rather have something a bit more serious.

Biographies, maybe? Have to be a bit careful with the subject, I suppose, but there ought to be some safe ones!

You might try looking at Judith Wynn Halsted's book "Some of My Best Friends are Books." It has a heavily annotated bibliography of books suited for gifted readers at various age levels, and you might be able to tell from the descriptions whether something is apt to suit her or not.

peace
minnie

How abt young adults books like :-

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The Percy Jackson and the Olympians series by Rick Riordan
The Giver by Lois Lowry

If she likes biography, try
Angela's Ashes: A Memoir + Teacher Man by Frank McCourt

Also HIGHLY recommend James Herriot, if she hasn't discovered his books already. The first is All Creatures Great and Small.

Oh, and from the Norton Anthology -- Jerome K. Jerome (Three Men in a Boat) and P.G. Wodehouse spring to mind. (Well, I'm not sure Wodehouse rates the Norton Anthology, but he is funny. lol)

And I second Agatha Christie!

Had a couple of other ideas overnight:

Stella Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm
Flora Thompson, Lark Rise to Candleford

A Euro-based English reading list for 13 year olds?


Take a look at Madeleine L'Engle. Her "A Wrinkle in Time" is very good. Most of her other books are also good.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Wrinkle_in_Time

"The Scarlet Pimpernel" is another good book in the same milieu as Hugo's books.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarlet_Pimpernel

I really liked Josephine Tey's "A Daughter of Time."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daughter_of_Time

And this might be also good to finish the summer with. You might be able to find it running in a local stock production.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Man_for_All_Seasons

To Kill a Mockingbird
Jane Austen
Wuthering Heights
The Time Machine
I Robot
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Gulliver's Travels

Thanks, she has already read "The Percy Jackson and the Olympians", "The Giver", "I Robot" (it might have had a different name, but it was by Asimov), "Journey to the.....", a few of the Agatha Christie books, so she already enjoys those, and will next year read "The Scarlet Pimpernel" for school. I might have missed a few, but we'll add those to the list./

On the science fiction side, I would recommend looking at Connie Willis, CJ Cherryh's Cyteen series (three books, read them in order), Lois McMaster Bujold (in particular the Miles Vorkosigan series), and the Robert Heinlein juveniles (the adult-oriented ones are pretty racy, but he did write a number of books for younger readers).

Definitely the Madeleine L'Engle books recommended earlier! Also Scott O'Dell wrote quite a few in that line.

If she would be interested in any fantasy, Piers Anthony has a number of fantastic series. The Apprentice Adept series (7 books) is terrific, as is the Incarnations of Immortality (also 7 books). There is a very interesting and completely different type of series called Geodyssey (I think it's 5 books now) that I find fascinating and impossible to explain. And of course, for the punny at heart, there is always his Xanth series (too many to count). Along those lines, Robert Asprin has a punny light fantasy series called the Myth books--Mythconceptions, Mything Link, etc.

Hope that helps!