Books for 11 Year Old Girl...Classics

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To Kill a Mockingbird
Watership Down
Animal Farm
Willa Cather novels, especially My Antonia and O Pioneers
The Giver and its sequels
A Wrinkle in Time, to be followed by When You Reach Me
The Book Thief
The Green Glass Sea
Al Capone Does My Shirts (and its sequels)

How on earth is an 11-year-old girl in the US in 2014 going to make the least bit of sense of Animal Farm?

Did you read the list OP posted of the books her daughter has read? If she's read Fahrenheit 451, she's not going to have a problem with Animal Farm (or 1984 for that matter). My 3 kids read it between ages 11-13 and got a lot out of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To Kill a Mockingbird
Watership Down
Animal Farm
Willa Cather novels, especially My Antonia and O Pioneers
The Giver and its sequels
A Wrinkle in Time, to be followed by When You Reach Me
The Book Thief
The Green Glass Sea
Al Capone Does My Shirts (and its sequels)

How on earth is an 11-year-old girl in the US in 2014 going to make the least bit of sense of Animal Farm?

Did you read the list OP posted of the books her daughter has read? If she's read Fahrenheit 451, she's not going to have a problem with Animal Farm (or 1984 for that matter). My 3 kids read it between ages 11-13 and got a lot out of it.

Fahrenheit 451 is basically about book-burning being bad. Animal Farm is an allegory about Trotsky, Lenin, Stalin, Stalinism, and the Bolshevik Revolution. Which is more accessible to a typical 11-year-old who does not have a comprehensive knowledge of 20th century history?

[Anonymous]

Get some biographies in there! These books are easy, fast, and delicious, even for adults who what an introduction to their lives: "Who was..." biography series. She'll swallow them whole, as my daughter has. Especially the ones about women.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Get some biographies in there! These books are easy, fast, and delicious, even for adults who what an introduction to their lives: "Who was..." biography series. She'll swallow them whole, as my daughter has. Especially the ones about women.

Here are some more non-fiction ideas from the A Might Girl web site:

http://www.amightygirl.com/books/history-biography?age_range_filter=5
http://www.amightygirl.com/books/history-biography?age_range_filter=6

[Anonymous]

PS: My voracious reader loved "Ella Enchanted," "Fatty Legs," "A Stranger at Home" (follow up to Fatty Legs), and now "Sing Down the Moon." Next up: "Rabbit Proof Fence."

She might also like "Endless Steppe" and, if she hasn't read it yet, "Diary of Anne Frank."

[Anonymous]

The E. Nesbit books are the best ever.
At that age I also loved the James Herriot books (All Creatures Great & Small, etc.); Lloyd Alexander Prydain Chronicles; Agatha Christie; the sequels to Little Women (Jo's Boys, and Little Men); the Great Brain series; The Sword in the Stone (don't let the Disney film put you off); The Phantom Tollbooth; LOTR; Wrinkle in Time series (so good!!); Alice in Wonderland; The Witch of Blackbird Pond.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To Kill a Mockingbird
Watership Down
Animal Farm
Willa Cather novels, especially My Antonia and O Pioneers
The Giver and its sequels
A Wrinkle in Time, to be followed by When You Reach Me
The Book Thief
The Green Glass Sea
Al Capone Does My Shirts (and its sequels)

How on earth is an 11-year-old girl in the US in 2014 going to make the least bit of sense of Animal Farm?

Did you read the list OP posted of the books her daughter has read? If she's read Fahrenheit 451, she's not going to have a problem with Animal Farm (or 1984 for that matter). My 3 kids read it between ages 11-13 and got a lot out of it.

NP here. Agreed. I read Animal Farm at 12 and while I'm sure I missed some stuff, I got enough out of it to successfully use it as one of two main supporting points on an SAT essay in 8th grade and get full marks, so I don't think reading it around that age is completely unreasonable.

[Anonymous]

Check out this book in you local public library.

Interpretations of Life: A Survey of Contemporary Literature
by the late philosopher and historian Will Durant, I believe co-written with his wife Ariel Durant

You will find a tremendous resource of overviews and suggestions of the modern classics of literature.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, there is an excellent, though out of print, series by Scholastic called Wicked History. You can still find used and library copies on Amazon. I'd start with the female biographies and if she likes them, move to the men. Try "Catherine the Great: Empress of Russia" and "Mary Tudor: Courageous Queen or Bloody Mary," as well as "I've read the series too and it spurred me to read adult bios of the main characters. The Alexander the Great title is great too. If she liked the "Who Was?" Series she'll love this one. Higher reading level - though not very high - maybe 5th 6th grade - it's the content that is fascinating.

One word of caution: the stories spare few details so they can be gruesome. (my son loves them and rereads them often).

Another thought is the "Royal Diaries" series - easy but fascinating historical fiction about Eleanor of Aquitaine, Victoria; Mary, Queen of Scots; Elizabeth... Great reads. They are not gruesome like the other series and written as autobiographical memories unlike the narrative tone of Wicked History. The MCPS library has these.

Horrible History is a fun series, too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If she liked Little Women, try the rest of Louisa May Alcott's books

Little Men

Jo's Boys

Eight Cousins

Also try:

Wolves of the Beyond series

Warriors (multiple different series)

From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

Peppermints in the Parlor

A Little Princess

The Secret Garden

Love A Little Princess SO MUCH!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Hiding Place and Diary of Anne Frank.

She knows what Anne Frank is about and refuses to read it because it's too sad.

[Anonymous]

I realize I'm straying from the topic since it's not a classic, but Peak by Roland Smith. How about My Daniel by Pam Conrad? I also suggest getting her a subscription to a literary magazine. When I was a kid I really liked Cheaper by the Dozen by Gilbreth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think she could try Dickens, but not Great Expectations or Tale of Two Cities. The only advantages of those are that they are shorter. I would recommend Nicholas Nickleby.

Also, I explicitly don't recommend Jane Austen. She might get the story, but she'll miss everything else.

I'm curious why you recommend Nickleby over GE or ToTC. I read GE at that age and really liked it. I also liked A Christmas Carol at that age.

[Anonymous]

Damn, I loved that Mighty Girl site! I hadn't seen it before. How about I Am Malala? Not a classic but good read anyway. I agree with previous recommendation for To Kill a Mockingbird, then you can watch the movie.

[Anonymous]

For Great Expectations -- partly because Nicholas Nickleby is very funny, and partly because the themes and characters in Nicholas Nickleby are less complex. (And partly because I don't like Great Expectations very much, whereas I like Nicholas Nickleby a lot!)

For A Tale of Two Cities -- because it's tendentious, all of the characters are cardboard, and there are far better books by Dickens (including Great Expectations).