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My daughter is 6 and starting first grade, though she reads like a 3rd grader. Any suggestions on fantasy/sci-fi books for such a young reader? Strong female lead characters would be a plus.
Thanks!
I hear that the Spiderwick Chronicles are great. I think there is a female character in them - it's about two brothers and their sister who go to live in some creepy house. I'm not sure how much of a role the sister plays though, I've never read the series. But, they find a field guide to faeries, and realize the house is infested with them.
There will be a movie coming out in 2008, kinda like the Harry Potter series. My girlfriend loves the Harry Potter series, and has been yammering on and on about the Spiderwick Chronicles, FWIW.
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My daughter is seven and a good reader. She loves the "Rainbow Magic" Fairies series. There's the rainbow fairies, the weather fairies, the jewel fairies, the pet fairies...
Basically these two girls constantly have to help the fairies stop whatever scheme Jack Frost and his goblins are up to, and it always seems to involve rescuing/helping a sequence of thematically connected fairies.
These are easy for my daughter, she can read one in a half an hour or so, but she reads them over and over.
She also likes Franny K Stein, Mad Scientist, which are a bit more advanced (and actually pretty funny).
Moving up even further are the Jane Blonde series, which are pretty close to the top end of my daughter's reading level. Technospy stuff, with a lot of linguistic puzzles worked into the story. There's a bit of a culture gap for my daughter reading them, as they are written by a brit living in New Zealand, and some of the idioms are unfamiliar.
And the top of the ladder are The Sisters Grimm, very clever books wherein two sisters who are descendants of Wilhelm and Jakob must solve various mysteries involving characters from fairy tales who all live in one town. These stories are pretty complex and very well thought out, but a word of warning: they have cliffhanger endings, and I don't think the whole series is out.
There are also a ton of other fairy/mermaid/princess series out there that my daughter devours at an alarming rate, although I can't comment on the literary quality of them. She's burned through the magic treehouse books (which are also good).
My daughter is big on books that are series.
I've also started reading Lloyd Alexander's Prydain novels to her, and she likes them a lot, and although the main character is male, there is a strong female character as well. And of course there's Narnia, which my wife has read to her 3 times, and she's reread them on her own as well.
She's also interested in reading Redwall, but we haven't tried it out yet (she saw the cartoon of it).
I keep thinking of more, but maybe I'll leave it there for now.
Farmer Giles of Ham is my favourite kids' fantasy novel, but my daughter doesn't like it much.
Craig Shackleton,
The Rambling Scribe.
John Bellairs, The House with a Clock in its Walls. I had no interest in fantasy at all until I read this; afterwards, I was hooked for life. It was the "Harry Potter" of my generation, but grittier, better-crafted, and far less popular for some reason. Be careful, though; it gets VERY scary in places.
The male lead is sort of wimpy, but when his friend Rose Rita gets introduced (I think in the sequel, The Figure in the Shadows), she's as strong a female character as you could possibly hope for.
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If she truly does read at a third grade level, then I reccommend the Animorphs series. I started reading it in third grade, and it's the series that got me interested in science fiction. That's my best suggestion. It has enough in it for both children and adults, and is a good primer for ethics I find. See if your local library has them in stock...they are a little old unfortunately, so there may be difficulty in finding them.
Written by K. A. Applegate, it alternates between male and female leads, providing a nice change in perspective every book. And the book uses small words and is very light reading. I can usually get through one an hour or so. It is a tad violent, but I'm pretty sure you won't find Sci-fi that isn't.
For more of a fantasy feel, there's the Deltora series by Emily Rodda. these books are very simple to read, and have puzzles and riddles included that are actually quite fun for children. it ususally takes me about half an hour to read one, but they are meant more for children anyhow, and don't bother to appeal to adults.
She's gone through the Magic Treehouse series? Not strickly fantasy, but fantasty-ish. Might be below her level.
Deltora Quest series, Forest of Silence is the first one
The Lightning Thief
Dragonslayer's Academy series
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Spiderwick and Magic Treehouse were good suggestions also I would suggest the Chronicles of Narnia. And while not fantasy at all the Junie B Jones books by Barbara Park are especially popular.
As she gets you older you might read His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman. The last book gets into some heavy material and checking it out first is advisable. I've had several parents tell me the same thing about the Redwall books as they can get pretty violent.
The books I'd recommend are in the young adult section of book stores. The author is Tamora Pierce and she has quite a few quartets in two separate fantasy worlds.
Set in Tortall (in this order):
The Song of the Lioness Quartet
The Immortals Quartet
The Protector of the Small Quartet
Set in Emelan (in this order):
The Circle of Magic Quartet
The Circle Opens Quartet (this one has slightly mature themes in that a crime is a major part of each book)
The Will of the Empress (a single book, and again has some mature themes)
"Dealing with Dragons" by Patricia C. Wrede. Excellent female lead character, though I'm not a huge fan of the later series.
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Wow, thanks for all the suggestions.
I checked out all the various suggestions. Eyebite, I think the Spiderwick Chronicles look great, but are just a bit beyond her fluency yet. I will keep these in mind for when she is ready.
Rambling Scribe, the Rainbow Magic series looks perfect. They might be a touch on the easy side, but that isn't an issue. She already loves faeries and princesses, so these will go over very well. I checked my my library, and it has a host of these, so even better! The Franny K. Stein books also look perfect. Lloyd Alexander's Prydain novels are outside her ability, but I've been looking for a bit more advanced books to read to her every night, and these look like they might entertain me as well.
kessukoofah, checking my library, they have a large number of Animorph books available, but little information about them. I'll have to take a walk down there and check them out, thanks for the suggestion.
Thoth-Amon, Tunnels looks good, but again I think just a touch advanced. I'll keep this one for the future as well.
DMFTodd, my daughter chews through Magic Treehouse like candy. The Deltora Quest books look excellent, we will have to get one from the library to see if she can handle it. Where were all these great children's fantasy books when I was a lad?
Locke1520, she loves Junie B. Jones, and avidly reads every one she can get.
Jian Le, The Circle of Magic Quartet is likely beyond her yet, but I'll keep these in mind, same with Lilith's suggestion Dealing with Dragons series.
Thanks all for the suggestions! My daughter already has an insatiable love of reading, and I'd love to see that include fantasy and sci-fi. It looks likes there is so much more available these days. Thanks again all...
"Dealing with Dragons" by Patricia C. Wrede. Excellent female lead character, though I'm not a huge fan of the later series.
I'd say this (and other in the series) works better for a bit older readers, especially ones who already have read some fantasy to recognize the reinterpretation of cliches.
For a 6-year old...pretty hard to say...when I was that age (and I was also rather advanced reader) what did I read?
Fairy tale collections (besides classics like Andersen, Grimm and Perrault, I also delved into more ethnic fare like native American stories...) are good basis for all things fantasy.
Bible stories for children. Hey, I loved those.
Fact books, mostly about nature. Especially the ones with nice colour pictures about critters living in depth of 3000 metres in Pacific Ocean and stuff like that (mammals and birds are boring, give me weird starfish any day). Surprisingly useful to later build basis for fantasy and scifi thinking :)
Bunch of classic and not so classic children's books. Narnia has been mentioned, I also loved Susan Cooper's Dark Is Rising -series (but that came a bit afterwards), also Astrid Lindgren (who besides such characters like Pippi Longstockings also wrote some great fantasy books like Brothers Lionheart, Ronja Robber's Daughter and Mio, My Mio...).
Oh, and loads of comics. Mostly Disney, European ones (Asterix, Lucky Luke, Yoko Tsuno, Smurfs (the good comics, not the crap tv series), Tintin...) with some Peanuts and such things on the side. Superheroes came later.
While few of those fit into pure fantasy/scifi genre many of them have very close sensibility...Enthusiasm for book series came later, with those lovely juvenile detective books (Nancy Drew, Enid Blyton etc)
Edit: Oh dear, I uttered the word "Smurfs".
The Gods of Marketing (reads Disney) are doing a whole bucnh of stuff Tinker Bell and the there rest of the Fairies. While normally thye seems to crank out some pretty sub par crap. Lots of these are pretty well done.
I think they came out under the big CEO's radar since they didn't think it would make them lots of money (like the Lilo and Stitch movie).
When I was a kid, I really enjoyed (actually, still do) the John Carter of Mars books by Edgar Rice Burroughs. 6 may be a little young, but I read them when I was 8 and instantly became a sci fi/fantasy nutcase!
Yeah, those are awesome! But VERY male-dominated until you get to Thuvia.
You should try the Inkheart series, very enjoyable, my seven year old daughter loves them. The main character is a young girl who discovers she has her father's talent for "reading" things in and out to books. The third one should be out this year and I'm looking forward to it. There is a rumor that they will be making a movie out of it with Brenden Frasier playing the lead.
I would suggest Lloyd Alexander's The Chronicles of Prydain. A great series of books for a young'un. I remember reading them myself when I was a kid.
"Munchings and crunchings!"
I would suggest Lloyd Alexander's The Chronicles of Prydain. A great series of books for a young'un. I remember reading them myself when I was a kid.
"Munchings and crunchings!"
Seconded!
Another good series in a similar vein are The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath, both by Alan Garner. Immense fun and rich in Saxon and Celtic Myth, they feature great characterisation and I always felt the influence of these books on the first edition of the Fiend Folio. The local English dialect spoken by one of the heroes could be a tad tough until one gets used to its phonetics, but that quibble is pretty minor.The Hounds of the Morrigan, by Pat O'Shea is another underrated classic of children's Fantasy. One part treasure hunt caper, one part mythic quest, the story runs at over 500 pages, which is a tad long for the age group, but more then makes up for it with a rollicking story that hares along breathlessly.
Eddie Lenihan is a well known Irish seanachai (storyteller) and authority on Irish Folk Tales and Fairy Lore, so it's with great pleasure that I can recommend a new edition of his Irish Tales of Mystery And Magic. This collects a number of his previous books for younger readers into a beautiful hardback that has the feel of a future heirloom. The stories within aren't always strictly traditional, but they crackle with energy and sparkle with humor. This one really shines when read aloud, but it would behoove a non-native to give the stories a once over first, since Irish syntax can be a bit bewildering to a new reader. All that said, I can scarcely think of a better book for any childs library.
Sorry if these seem a tad Celtic-centric, but there's a lot of pseudo celtic stuff floating out there and these books help by going straight back to the wellspring for inspiration. For the slightly older, I'd also like to recommend Michael Scotts Irish Folk and Fairy Tales, Irish Myths and Legends and Irish Ghosts and Hauntings which succiently and evocatively retells the core of Irish Celtic Mythology through short stories.
Hope it helps.
I've tried the "Warlord of Mars" with my seven year old (boy)but after reviewing it, Burroughs uses some archaic and advanced words. I began to wonder how I read it as a youth..might I suggest "The Hobbit" treating each chapter as a book or Tolkien's Roverandom. I have also had success playing D+D minis with him it's heavy on math so you must be patient (in other words the games take a long time) but that's a good thing.