Oh, another recomendation for an 11-year-old: The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, or really anything by Avi. A 13-year-old girl, very prim and proper, is the only passenger on a ship from England to America. (It's sometime in the mid 1800s, I think.) It's fabulously creepy and mysterious, and has a murder mystery and a storm and a trial and mutiny, and it's got lots of discussion about proper women's roles without ever getting preachy. (It's also where I first learned the words keelhaul and barnacle.)
Wash: Little River just gets more colorful by the moment. What'll she do next? Zoe: Either blow us all up or rub soup in our hair. It's a toss-up. Wash: I hope she does the soup thing. It's always a hoot, and we don't all die from it.
'Objects In Space'
We're Literary 2: To Read Makes Our Speaking English Good
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
Hil R. - Dec 08, 2003 4:31:09 pm PST #115 of 10002
Sometimes I think I might just move up to Vermont, open a bookstore or a vegan restaurant. Adam Schlesinger, z''l
Kat - Dec 08, 2003 4:32:50 pm PST #116 of 10002
"I keep to a strict diet of ill-advised enthusiasm and heartfelt regret." Leigh Bardugo
Hil, I love that book. Charlotte is such a badass.
Jesse - Dec 08, 2003 4:33:44 pm PST #117 of 10002
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.
Ooh, I was looking at The Mayor of Central Park, by Avi! Because I love to give people NYC presents.
Kat - Dec 08, 2003 4:36:46 pm PST #118 of 10002
"I keep to a strict diet of ill-advised enthusiasm and heartfelt regret." Leigh Bardugo
This might be too old for a 6-year-old, but Beastly Arms by Jennings is a really great New York/urban life story.
Plus, I love the artistic nature of the kid.
Hil R. - Dec 08, 2003 4:38:10 pm PST #119 of 10002
Sometimes I think I might just move up to Vermont, open a bookstore or a vegan restaurant. Adam Schlesinger, z''l
Hil, I love that book. Charlotte is such a badass.
Yes! My fifth grade teacher read it to our class, and I immediately bought a copy and have reread it dozens of times.
I don't know The Mayor of Central Park, but I've loved just about everything I've read by Avi. My other favorite of his is Something Upstairs.
Kat - Dec 08, 2003 4:39:51 pm PST #120 of 10002
"I keep to a strict diet of ill-advised enthusiasm and heartfelt regret." Leigh Bardugo
Is that the one where the kid is staying in a room with a bloodstain? Or something like that?
deborah grabien - Dec 08, 2003 4:43:44 pm PST #121 of 10002
It really doesn't matter. It's just an opinion. Don't worry about it. Not worth the hassle.
Oh, man.
I am an idiot.
For the 10-year-old?
"Harriet the Spy".
Hil R. - Dec 08, 2003 4:45:08 pm PST #122 of 10002
Sometimes I think I might just move up to Vermont, open a bookstore or a vegan restaurant. Adam Schlesinger, z''l
Is that the one where the kid is staying in a room with a bloodstain? Or something like that?
Yeah. And the bloodstain ends up as a sort of time travel thing, and he goes back to the 1700s, where the bloodstain first got there when a slave was killed in that room, and he tries to change history and save him. Or something like that. It's been years since I read that one.
Typo Boy - Dec 08, 2003 5:33:02 pm PST #123 of 10002
Calli: My people have a saying. A man who trusts can never be betrayed, only mistaken.Avon: Life expectancy among your people must be extremely short.
Question for the literary hivemind. I'm trying to think of examples of really annoying excessively cheerful optimists from classic (or at least famous) literature. The two examples that spring to mind are Pollyanna and Pangloss. (I just realized I never actually read Pollyanna so maybe I'm being unfair to her.) I somehow managed to miss Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm too, so I don't know whether she qualifies. Any other examples people care to share?
Thanks
Gar
Steph L. - Dec 08, 2003 5:37:24 pm PST #124 of 10002
Unusually and exceedingly peculiar and altogether quite impossible to describe
Anne of Green Gables?