Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Big Books for a Little Girl - Suggestions?

girl-reading

Well, my friends, I have another question for you.

But first, let me tell you why I'm asking it:

As I'm sure you probably have figured out by now, I have a 6-year-old (almost 7) daughter.  She's doing well with her reading, though she's still limited to fairly simple stuff or she gets frustrated fairly fast.  I do, however, want to try to cultivate a love for reading reading in her. As a child, I read incessantly (the ladies at the library all knew us well), and I feel like it was a great learning tool for me, and I want her to be able to experience that. (On the other hand, my husband and his siblings did not read as much, and as a result, only one of them really loves to read.) 
As of this fall, she now attending another Charter school (this one run by the same board of directors as the one she attended in Lake Charles), and, unlike this past spring when we walked to school, we now have a 20 minute drive to school every morning. (It's only 6.5 miles, but through town, so it takes 20-25 minutes) Because of this, I've been checking out audiobooks from the library (using their online checkout program - I highly recommend it! You can download audiobooks and ebooks to the device of your choosing, and they return themselves at the end of the lending period - no overdue fees when you forget to take them back! Not that I have any experience in that matter, of course... *cough, cough*)  and we've been listening to them on the way to school. 
So far, we've done the Ralph S. Mouse books, Pippi Longstocking,  and we're almost done with Anne of Green Gables. I wondered at first if Anne might not be a little to advanced for her still, but she's really gotten into it! Since we're almost finished with that one, I'm thinking of what to get next. 
Here are some I've thought about getting:

  • The Wizard of Oz  series, by L. Frank Baum
  • The Little House series, by Laura Ingalls Wilder
  • The rest of the Anne series, by L.M. Montgomery, etc. (however, since the rest of the series is more about her grown-up years, I'm not sure they'd hold her attention as of yet. This also being the problem with the rest of L.M. Montgomery's books - while I loved them when I was young, I was in my teens, I think, when I read them all, the Anne books, as well as the Emily books, that I don't know if they're really going to be interesting for a 7 year old.)

Do you have any suggestions for me? 

I know there are are the Amelia Bedelia books, Fancy Nancy, etc. and she likes those, but she can read them herself with a little help. I'd rather something a little more advanced, chapter books that are still too much for her to handle on her own, but that the story will hold her attention and make her want to read  more.
Make sense? 

Leave any suggestions you might have in the comments...I'd appreciate it greatly! :) 

3 comments:

Charity said...

Books!!! **rubbing hands together excitedly...** Yes, I love books and one of my favorite parts of working at a library is suggesting books to people! :) I have (of course...) written a few blog posts on the subject. Here are a few suggestions from a post I did last December:

The Railway Children – E. Nesbit

Caddie Woodlawn – Carol Ryrie Brink (Magical Melons or Caddie Woodlawn's Family - two titles, same book- is the sequel)

Betsy-Tacy books by Maud Hart Lovelace.

The Bronze Bow – Elizabeth George Spear

Strawberry Girl - Lois Lenski (She wrote many books about girls from different regions, unfortunately, they have become hard to find. This one is fairly common.)

The Pollyanna books – Eleanor Porter

What Katy Did – Susan Coolidge

How's that for a start? :P

Unknown said...

Thank you, Chari. I must admit, I thought of you when I wrote the post! :)
My problem is that it's been too long since I read some of these books (and I've read a lot of other books between then and now), and I can't remember what they were about! One such is Caddie Woodlawn - I know I read it, I can vividly remember the cover, but I can't for the life of me remember what the story was about, so it apparently didn't make a huge impression on me, unlike the Anne books, the Little House books, Little women, etc. that I read over and over!
I'll see what of those I can hunt up in audio format.

Unknown said...

I always had my nose buried in a book when I was a kiddo.

I loved anything about horses.

The Boxcar Children..

I loved The Littles...

I loved anything American Girl..

Junie B Jones

The Babysitting Club.. lol