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

[sara]

Yep, I was going to say, "Sounds like a job for remedial Tamora Pierce!"

Hmm, good girl-centric YA...maybe Garth Nix's series that starts with Sabriel (some colonialism, yes, and the usual round of "oh look we're all sekritly royalty," but still holding up for me on reread), or...if she likes comics, Runaways is pretty good (stick to the stuff that's not Joss Whedon, and realize that there is a certain amount of lesbianism involved, but as I recall it's off-camera)...oh, a lot of Patricia McKillip should be approachable for someone who can get through Twilight, and none of that has any on-screen screwing.

I don't know; I prune Herself's reading for violence, not sex, which I don't think is the parental norm, and she's still not reading many chapter books, so I feel like my recs are kind of out-of-date. I really should do a long recs post about comics for early grade readers, though, because boy howdy, I have been through most of what's on the market in the last year....

[resonant]

I'm not concerned about sex so much (and actually my impression is that there's very little sex in most of the Twilight books, though lots of sexual tension); it's more the "stalking is romantic!!1!" message. Also maybe it would be nice to have a book that was about something other than (or in addition to) romance.

[sara]

Yeah, I don't know what I'm going to do about Twilight -- it doesn't seem terribly healthy. Probably the same thing I did about the very heteronormative volume of Babymouse that she brought home the other day: let her read it but say a lot of things like, "Don't you think it's silly that she bases her happiness on what boys think? I think it would be a better story if she went to college, rather than becoming a mother when she's so young," and so on.

ETA: There's a fair bit of Ursula K. LeGuin that should be accessible to an eleven-year-old, too.

[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.