Good chapter books for girls?

[christyg]

Hi ladies! I need some advice. My daughter will be finishing up in Beyond in May. She is 7, but will turn 8 in September. We will be doing Bigger with her for 2nd grade starting in July. She is near the end of the Emerging Readers and has become a great reader! She loves to read now, and wants to do it all of the time. She now feels like a big girl, having her own reading time before bed when her brother has to have lights out.

She has really liked the Little House Chapter books in Emerging Readers. We read Ramona and Beezus together before we watched the movie, and she thought that it was really cute. She asked me to buy her another Ramona book and she has read it to herself. I think that it is a little above her reading level, but she is reading it with very few mistakes. I have also started reading the American Girl book, Felicity to her.

Anyway, I want to get her some chapter books at her level to read for FUN over summer break. Since it has been a long time since I read chapter books at her age (and don't know about all the newer ones) I need help picking some for her. I got some recommendations from a couple of friends in our homeschool group. I just wanted to run them by you and see if they were ok, content-wise. And, if you have any other suggestions please let me know.

Here is the list that we got from friends:
Magic Tree House books
Nate the Great
Classic Start books
Hank the Cow Dog
Cam Jansen
Rainbow Magic Fairies series

Are these ok? Do you have any other suggestions?

I just want her to have some fun books that don't feel like school work, even though she loves our school books.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions that you can give me.

Christy

[Heather4Him]

Magic Tree House books get more and more into the "mystical" as they go on, and I know our dd was scared by one of them (Egypt), so we've steered clear of them since then (a few years ago). I'm not sure about the Rainbow Magic Fairies, but that could go into that more, too. It seems so many of the tween/teen books nowadays are SO filled with mystical and supernatural themes (not related to God).

[Heather4Him]

Sorry, I hit "submit" too early!

I think the Ramona books (and other Beverly Cleary) are good. Our dd has enjoyed several of those. There are also the Little House series, American Girls, and the Elsie Dinsmore series that come to mind.

Our dd LOVES dogs, so she will read anything with dogs/puppies as the theme. One of her favorite authors of "puppy stories" when she was a few years younger, was Jenny Dale. If you search for her on amazon or something, you will come up with tons of titles! She also enjoyed "Barkley's School for Dogs" series a lot. I know these are probably more "fluff" books, but they definitely are in her veterinary/animal interest.

[holyhart]

I ditto the LIttle House books. We love them.

The Circle C Beginnings 1

Some of the other Thornton Burgess books...there are so many and they are really quite lovable.

Bobbsey Twins

The Boxcar Children

The Milly-Molly-Mandy Storybook

The Moffats

On Yonder Mountain

The Moody family series. I haven't read this series but I've a friend who says her daughter really likes them. They are about a Christian homeschooling family, and there are 4 books in the series. (they are on our list ). http://www.amazon.com/Summer-Moodys-Sar ... 907&sr=8-1

[blessedmomof4]

The Betsy-Tacy books (google Betsy-Tacy) and other children's books written by Maud Hart Lovelace

[pjdobro]

I would recommend some care with the Magic Treehouse books as well. The earlier ones are better in my opinion. They can be fun but can get into the magical/mystical especially in the later one. There is a new series out by Adventures in Odyssey called Imagination Station. There are two books I believe so far. I haven't read them yet, but I read that they are meant to be along the lines of the Magic Treehouse series but Christian. I'm looking forward to checking them out. My dd has read the Rainbow Magic Fairy books and enjoyed them. I'll have to ask her how much magic, etc. they had. It seems they were more on the fairytale side than on the mystical side. We've read some of the Nate the Great books and Cam Jansen as well, and they were good.

ETA: I just happened to think too of the mystery series by Peggy Parish. My dd has loved these. We read the first one as a read aloud in Beyond, Key to the Treasure, and then she took off reading all the others.

[Tabitha]

My middle dd will be 9 in just a few weeks. She is behind in her writing, reading, spelling, etc. due to a slow start from a medical condition. Just in the past 6 months she has really taken off in wanting to read. At Christmas, I couldn't get her past wanting Step 2 books. She wouldn't look at anything beyond that. I bought her some fun Step 3 books that were right up her alley topic-wise.

She loved them...and is now happily reading some hefty chapter books. I am amazed at her, really. All she wants is more and more books now.

I just bought this set of Kathleen books for her from Vision Forum, and am waiting for it to come in.
http://www.visionforum.com/browse/produ ... n&sortby=0

We have some BoxCar Children, Magic Treehouse - which I will now need to scan through, and some others. My mom is a book nut and gets nice books from a thrift store near her. My oldest came home with over 150 paperbacks when we were down there last summer!

What about Encyclopedia Brown? Getting more into classic lit in the smaller chapter books?

[blessedmama]

Christy,
My daughter is 9 and loves to read as well. Here are some of her favorite series...

Boxcar Children (that could keep her busy all summer)
Trixie Beldon (I am having fun reading those again!)
Babysitter's Club
Cul-de-sac Kids (we have it at our church- I cannot remember who wrote them?)
Little House (but you said your dd already read those)

So that is what she has been reading this year. She also read the Narnia series.

Hope that is helpful!

[rockhouse]

My dd is almost the exact age of yours (about two months younger) and is reading the exact same books We have recently discovered Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew. They are written by the author of the original Nancy Drew series, Carolyn Keene. Nancy Drew is only eight years old and solves mysteries. My dd loves it! Just wanted to throw that out there.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_ ... +clue+crew

We like Ramona books at our house, the Rainbow Fairy books, the Tinkerbell chapter books, and the Mercy Watson pig books.

A great website that I use A LOT to find books for my dd is this one:

http://bookwizard.scholastic.com/tbw/qu ... %20Keyword

You can search for books by topic and reading level to find a book about something that is at the right age for your dd to read.

[christyg]

Hey ladies! Thanks so much for all of your help and your great suggestions!

We went the bookstore and got some things on sale. Here is what we came back with:

Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew
Cam Jansen
Nate the Great
The Puppy Place
Mrs Piggle Wiggle
Hank the Cowdog
Candy Fairies
Strawberry Shortcake chapter books (Friendship Club)
Classic Starts books
Little House chapter books
and we loved reading If you Traveled West in a Covered Wagon, so, we got the ones about the Colonial Times, the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Days of the Knights as well.

So, we'll go from here and see what she likes. I made sure to get to some that her little brother (who will be learning to read soon) would enjoy one day as well.

Thanks again and I hope that you have a blessed day!

Christy