Calling all voracious readers!

[icewolf]

So, you've got a 12-year-old girl you're trying to talk out of reading Twilight, with its sketchy gender politics and iffy writing.

What do you recommend, oh Friends List?

Comments

[madmoisellestar.livejournal.com]

Mind if I direct my resident librarian to this question? He's all about the young adult lit and making recommendations. Also, I need to intorduce you two because I think you'd get along.

For myself, I'm gonna join the chorus of 'don't talk her out of reading it, just add stuff' though. I read a lot of crap with sketchy gender politics when I was 12 (Oh Ann McCaffery! I miss you!) and I came out mostly okay.

If she's not already torn through the Golden Compass books, those are great, also Philip Pullman's Sally Lockheart series. It's a plucky young woman working as a bookkeeper and solving mysteries in 19th century London - highly underrated, I think.

[icewolf010.livejournal.com]

I read a lot of crap with sketchy gender politics when I was 12 (Oh Ann McCaffery! I miss you!) and I came out mostly okay.

Same here, but the question's for a member of my Friends List who's into deep textual interpretation. She has a lot of people saying to her, "I don't like my daughter reading Twilight, but what alternatives can I offer her?" So, with all the librarians in my acquaintance (I think there are two, maybe three on my List, and then there's your Boy), I thought I'd help her out.

[rosered2318.livejournal.com]

Tamora Pierce, as dr_zrfq said above is completely rockin. Writing is quality (even her first series!), incredibly imaginative, and "OMG!!!OTL!!!" is the OPPOSITE of what happens in the books (thank God).

Does she read Terry Pratchett yet?

[madmoisellestar.livejournal.com]

Kathryn Lasky - Great Young Adult and children's author. I like her historical fiction when I was roundabouts that age. http://www.kathrynlasky.com/Books1.html