Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Picking the right books

Well, I have boys (3,5, and 7--very advanced readers and/or listeners for their ages, but pretty sensitive to violence/scariness/injustice), but I have a couple of ideas that might work for your daughter:

-Esther Averill's "Cat Club" series are terrific--very genteel! The heroine is a female cat named Jenny; she has two brothers and a large cohort of feline friends, one of whom is a very princess-y Persian.

-James Thurber's kids' books are brilliant, and much-loved here (and most feature princesses!): Many Moons, The White Deer, The Wonderful O, and best of all, The Thirteen Clocks, which in my opinion is the best children's book ever written!!

-the lads like WM Thackeray's Xmas pantos, especially The Rose and the Ring (make sure you find a copy with the author's own illustrations and the rhyming couplets as the running header--accept no substitutes!)--princesses, fairies, princes, magic charms, battles, puns, it's got it all!

-George MacDonald's children's books are wonderful--The Princess and the Goblin, The Princess and Curdie, At the Back of the North Wind

-Can't go wrong with The Wind in the Willows (Kenneth Grahame)

-my nieces like Sydney Taylor's All of a Kind Family series, and also the What Katy Did books (have spaced out on the author's name of those ones)

-there are all the LM Alcott books, of course--I vaguely remember one from my girlhood called Jack and Jill that seems to have been aimed at a slightly younger audience than Little Women and its sequels.

-the Narnia books have queens and things...

-also LM Montgomery--besides the Anne books (Anne of Green Gables, of the Island, of Avonlea, etc), there are the Emily books (Emily of New Moon, ...Climbs, ...'s Quest), also the Blue Castle, Pat of Silver Bush, etc.

-there's always The Secret Garden and The Little Princess (Frances Hodgson Burnett)

-not princessy but very good for either gender, in my estimation, are the Edward Eager books--Half Magic, Knight's Castle, etc. (and there are 7 of them, wahoo!)

-my kids have loved some of the previous suggestions here--all of the EB White books, as well as Encyclopedia Brown (worth mentioning in this context that Encyclopedia has a female sidekick named Sally); the Bruce Coville Shakespeare adaptations (comedies only at our house for now!) have been very popular here

-I always like poetry for kids this age, too--much loved here is the Complete Nonsense of Edward Lear, and various things of WS Gilbert (of G&S fame)--Bab ballads and so on

-the JP Martin "Uncle" books are odd but fun (an elephant king with a wacky castle and strange adventures)

-maybe just a read-aloud now for a 5 year-old, but you must have on your shelves for later! is TH White's the Sword in the Stone--Harpo has read this over and over--and Groucho got White's Mistress Masham's Repose for Xmas, which we love so far.

-very popular here, though possibly difficult to get outside of Canada, are Christie Harris's Mouse Woman books (MW and the Mischief-Makers, MW and the Muddleheads, MW and the Vanished Princesses)--adaptations of Haida myths--Harpo especially loved these at that age.

-Philippa Pearce's Tom's Midnight Garden is perfect! (secrets, magic, friendship, time travel...)

-also popular here, though not very girly at all, is Kipling (Kim, Jungle Book, Just So Stories).

We tend to gravitate toward the Victorians or Edwardians for advanced vocabulary, but age-appropriate in terms of sex/violence/scariness/sassiness.

Sorry to babble--nothing I'd rather talk about than kids' books, though! Hope some of these might suit--

peace
minnie

PS Does she like animals? Groucho loved Farley Mowat's Owls in the Family and The Dog who Wouldn't Be--I gave them to my nieces (who are extremely girly girls), and they liked them, too.