My 2E second grader (just turned 8) has the opportunity to listen to high level audio books twice a day as part of her IEP. She recently had an assistive technology evaluation and I understand she is supposed to be getting an iPad but we haven't actually received the official report yet. In the meantime the school is using an old fashioned tape recorder and books on tape. Yes tape - not even cd. Apparently the school library still owns a collection of books on tape but we have never been offered the opportunity to see what they own so we can consult about which books she has already listened to or what we think may be appropriate. I send in long books, i.e. last week she finished Great Expectations and started The Little Princess. When the school has provided the books she gets short (i.e. one tape) Disney stories. Those may be fine to fill in between the longer, more advanced books but the neuropsych who suggested these breaks was clear that advanced vocabulary, complex plots and rich language were important for her.

I am looking for suggestions for high level (roughly 8th-9th grade level) that would be appropriate for her to listen to. When we listen together in the car we are able to skip over or explain certain inappropriate parts. For example we went for "classics" and listened to the original Dr. Dolittle and I was frankly shocked at the racist language and content. We were already well into the book and DD really wanted to listen to the rest of it. I was able to explain that the book was written a long time ago and we could only listen to the book if she understood that some of the ideas are just wrong and she is *never* to repeat some of the language she was hearing. (And she hasn't.) In school, though, she just sits and listens with headphones on her own so no one is there to have these types of discussions. This means I want to be very careful about selecting books that do not have content that would be inappropriately advanced (or just inappropriate as in the above example) but still have the high level text we are looking for.

Any suggestions? As examples she has already listened to

All 7 Harry Potter books
All 4 Mysterious Benedict Society books
Sherlock Holmes
A Wrinkle in Time
Most of The Sisters Grimm series
All of The Penderwicks
The Indian in the Cupboard
About half of the Anne of Green Gables series
As much Raoul Dahl as we have been able to find

She enjoyed Great Expectations so I am wondering about continuing with Dickens. I think I was in 7th and 8th grade when I read Jane Eyre, The House of 7 Gables and Lord of the Flies. I can't for the life of me remember the details, though, to know if these are appropriate. I also wonder if there are some more present day texts that would work. It is sad that no one at school is helping with this but as with so much about DD's situation they just don't get what she needs and expect that her square edges should be filed down to fit their round holes. Thus the short Disney stories...

Anyway I am eager to hear suggestions. For now our options may be limited to what we can still track down on cassette but hopefully soon we will have wider access to ebooks to download to her iPad. Thanks.