Recommend a book?

[resonant]

The kidlet is looking for books to buy a friend. What we know about the friend's reading habits: She's turning eleven, and she's all into the Twilight series.

So. Rec us meaty-yet-fifth-grade-appropriate books that are better than Twilight?

Comments

[ecaterin]

That's L'Engle of course. Why is code messing with me today? :D

[via_ostiense]

Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching books (Discworld YA): Wee Free Men, Hat Full of Sky, and Wintersmith.

[via_ostiense]

Also, Malinda Lo's Ash, which is a retelling of Cinderella, and Cindy Pon's Silver Phoenix. Both books feature female protagonists and are by women of color.

[marinarusalka]

I second the rec for the Evernight series. They're well-written, snd should definitely appeal to somebody who liked Twilight.

[farwing]

The Folk Keeper by Franny Billingsly

Piratica by Tanith Lee

Ash by Malinda Lo

The Witches of Karres by James H. Schmitz

A College of Magics by Caroline Stevermer

The Perilous Guard by Elizabeth Marie Pope

[myalexandria]

I absolutely second both. (With the caveat that 'The Egypt Game' scared the hell out of me, although I also loved it.)

Most of my recs for that age are for classic British children's literature, which it sounds like this girl might not be in the mood for (just going on the fact that she's reading twilight and not harry potter--I have reams of stuff to give people who are into harry potter). Snyder and Konigsberg are now historical (eep!) with stuff set in the 70s and maybe early 80s, but they are American and I think would still feel pretty contemporary.

[sara]

Oooh, YES. I still love The Changeover (though there's definitely some sexual content in there, at least conceptually).

[sanj]

I was all about Frances Hodgson Burnett at that age. I wore out A Little Princess and The Secret Garden. Oh, and My Side of the Mountain, by Patricia Craighead George - but that's got a boy protagonist, so maybe not.

Like Fox, I was also all over LM Montgomery and Laura Ingalls Wilder, but there are some problematic bits in those. Still, I think kids should learn to read stuff from other time periods and recognize problematic customs when they see them -- but that's just my $.02.

Speaking of problematic, I was also reading the original Grimm's Fairy Tales at about that age.

And oh! The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, by Avi, is one I bought in a YA frenzy a few years ago. Plucky American girl solves mystery aboard merchant vessel in the early 1800s. Fun stuff. Looks like they're making a movie of it?

[sanj]

JEAN Craighead George. Not Patricia. Whatever. Maybe I meant Patricia Wrede's Enchanted Forest series.

God, to get to read all this stuff over again for the first time. Lucky kid.

[pi]

It seems most of this has been covered well but I'll throw in my two cents:

The Alanna Series by Tamora Pierce as well as the Circle of Magic series.

Sabriel by Garth Nix (would be my highest recommendation for that age/reading interest)

Mercedes Lackey's Heralds of Valdemar, more middle school level books, depending which ones you read there is violence and sex, I haven't read Breaking Dawn but I've heard rumor, so maybe this doesn't matter all that much. My suggestions would be Brightly Burning (as a standalone, it's a bit of a downer, as the main character is permanently in love with his past sweetheart who's reincarnated a as a horse). I loved The Last Herald Mage trilogy (starts with Magic's Pawn) at the age of 12, so that might be appropriate, but again, it's up to parental type discretion.

Aria of the Sea by Dia Calhoun was a fun YA girl novel about a girl with the power of healing who wanted to be a ballet dancer, it's a bit magical and I remember enjoying it.

So You Want to be A Wizard by Diane Duane and the subsequent Young Wizards series was a lot of fun. I particularly enjoyed listening to them on tape. I think High Wizardry was always my favorite, though that is the 3rd book in the series.

At the age of 11 I was introduced to the Vorkosigan Saga. I started with Cordelia's Honor, which is still my favorite even if it is a bit of a prologue to the rest of the series. Cordelia's Honor definitely deals with complex and mature material, there's a near rape, a fair amount of violence, and political intrigue. I probably didn't get all of it at the time, but I loved this book to death and Cordelia is still one of my favorite main characters. So while I'm not sure I would recommend it to an 11 year old, my 11 year old self loved it to pieces. Of course, this is probably *very* unlike Twilight what with being sci fi and perhaps more on the space-opera end of things.

Romeo and Juliet Together (And Alive) At Last, by Avi is a hilarious book. I remember it had me in stiches. It's much better read aloud (I read it with parents, and then later listened to it on tape), but I'm a very auditory person. This is certainly age appropriate, but perhaps a bit on the young end for someone reading Twilight?

And on the Twilight vein I second all the Holly Black, Cassandra Clare, and Sarah Rees Brennan suggestions.

[fullygoldy]

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. Ness was one of the Tiptree Award Winners last year (for 2008) for this amazing YA story. Book 2 came out last Sept (The Ask and the Answer - the trilogy is called Chaos Walking).

It's got talking animals! Zen buffalo! And! The Best. Dog. Evar. (All 4 of my family love Manchee) It explores/expands gender roles. It's got a creepy preacher, a cross-country chase, adults-who-can't-be-trusted, adults who are amazing allies, and the scariest, most empowering coming-of-age premise I've ever seen. LOVE IT! Way more interesting, well-written, and useful for RL application than Twi.

[vass]

I second everyone else's recs for Tamora Pierce, Terry Pratchett, Robin McKinley, and Diane Duane. (Tamora Pierce seems particularly appropriate for a Twilight reader, with her emphasis on sexual freedom with responsibility, reproductive choice, and careers for women other than motherhood.)

Nnedi Okorafor Mbachu's Zahrah the Windseeker is awesome, has a strong female character, and she probably hasn't read it before.

Catherine Jinks's Pagan quintet is wonderful. The main character's male, but there are good female characters. Pagan Kidrouk is a Christian Arab, born in Bethlehem ("Don't worry, sir, it wasn't in a stable.") and he's assigned as a squire to a Templar knight during the second crusade. The fifth book, Pagan's Daughter, has a female main character, but it won't make sense if you haven't read the rest. These are Australian novels, but I think they've been published in the US too. I should mention that they're nothing at all like Twilight, but they're so good.

And while I'm recommending books for eleven-year-olds, that was when I first read Brian Caswell's A Cage of Butterflies. It was published by Queensland University Press a long time ago, so it might be difficult to find, but I absolutely recommend it to anyone who likes science fiction. It's about a think-tank of genius teenagers who make contact with a group of 'autistic' younger children living in the same compound, who turn out to be not so autistic after all, and the teenagers' battle to save the younger kids.

[mllesays]

Seconding Uglies and throwing in Westerfeld's Midnighters trilogy as well. Those are terrific books.

[blushingflower]

I've been reading the Percy Jackson books as well, and I'm really enjoying them. (Of course, I'm 27 and was huge into Greek Mythology when I was about 12, so ymmv).

Also, if she hasn't read them yet, Harry Potter is an obvious one.

And someone else also rec'd Madeline L'Engle, which I also second.

The Chronicles of Narnia (C.S. Lewis), The Chronicles of Prydian (by Lloyd Alexander)

Some may be below her reading level, but can still be fun and engaging reads.

I'm sure there must be tons of non SF/Fantasy that I read when I was that age, but a) I was an advanced reader and b) I don't remember what I read around that point.

[rian_aphasia]

I second the Francesca Lia Block rec.

[rian_aphasia]

I was going to rec Annette Curtis Klause's books as well; I remember loving Blood and Chocolate and The Silver Kiss, and while it's been awhile since I read either I can still say that they're far more appropriate (issues-wise) for a kid her age than Twilight.

[rian_aphasia]

I liked Amelia Atwater-Rhodes' books when I was in my mid-teens; I remember there was a lot of buzz about her at the time, because she was 14 or 15 when her first book was published.

[amalthia]

Psion by Joan D. Vinge (the Snow Queen was also very good) When I was 11 I was reading Dean Koontz and Stephen King...

[miarr]

I second all the Neil Gaiman, C.S. Lewis, Madeline L'Engle, Diana Wynne Jones, and J.K. Rowling mentioned above. However, I doubly second all the Pratchett recommendations. Start her off with either the Tiffany Aching books (awesome witches!) or the Johnny Maxwell series (awesome aliens!).

P.S. Might not appeal to a young Twilight fan very much, but just for the record (maybe a few years down the line) Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card. \o/

[wintercreek]

Enthusiastic seconds (/thirds/whatever) for Diane Duane's Young Wizards series (start with So You Want to Be a Wizard) and for Patricia C Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles (start with Dealing with Dragons).

Also, Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians series is super popular among 10-13-year-olds, at least at my bookstore.

[perfica]

The Tomorrow series by John Marsden. Completed series, seven novels and I found them brilliant even though they're marketed as YA fiction. Told from the diary entries of 16-year-old female protagonist Ellie Linton and deals with quite heavy themes (invasion, violence, sex) so maybe it's one you want to put aside for a few years.

[maire]

Not Deerskin I can understand, but why not Sunshine?

[maire]

It's not even the stalking that really bugs me about Twilight. It's the 'go out with me or I'll harm myself' thing that the girl seems to be into. Ick.

[maire]

Margaret Mahy
Robin McKinley
Andre Norton
Meredith Anne Pierce (romantic vampire novels that don't make my skin crawl with their sexual politics!)
Diana Wynne Jones
James Thurber (The Thirteen Clocks and The Wonderful O)
Patricia McKillip (The Riddlemaster of Hed is a good place to start)

There's a very good book called 'The Stones Are Hatching' by an author I can't recall.