Literature and science fiction recommendations for a 13 year old

[Kelso]

After giving my twelve year old niece (she'll be thirteen in May) a $10 B&N gift card for Christmas, my sister-in-law turned to me and said, "I'm glad you are encouraging her to read, but I had hoped you would start introducing her to some of the real classics. I know that you could pick out better things for her to read."

No pressure, right?

My mind immediately began whirling with all of the great books I could buy for her! Great works of literature! The classics of science fiction! But the trouble is this: I'm a thirty-one year old man with a five year old daughter. I have never had to worry about what would be appropriate for (or of interest to) a thirteen year old girl!

I'm hoping that you all can help me out. What books would you buy for a thirteen year old girl? What books do you wish someone had bought for you to read at that age? What would be thought-provoking and essential, but engaging and age-appropriate?

 

[Me-Ike]

Michael Ende! I loved him as a child, I rediscovered him as an adult. My favorite is Momo but his best known work probably is The Neverending Story. Both would be appropriate, I think.

Or Hogdson-Burnett. She also writes intelligent literature and disguises it with mainstream titles like A Little Princess. How cute, you think, this is probably going to be about fashion and boys! BAM! A well-rounded female character who has to go through hardships and does it gracefully. Or The Secret Garden, in which another very good female character is the adventurer (uncommon for the time Burnett wrote in).

 

[Kestra]

I'm having a really hard time remembering what I was reading around that age. I do remember liking A Little Princess much more than The Secret Garden, but I feel like I read those a bit earlier than thirteen. Do you know what she's into? I got really into mysteries at that age and never grew out of it, honestly. I could recommend some good adventure/mystery stories, but I'm not sure if that's her sort of thing or if you're looking for something more intellectual. Trixie Belden, Nancy Drew, that sort of thing.

I also read a lot of Enid Blyton due to spending time in India. Out of those that I read, the Barney Mystery series were favorites, along with the Secret Series and Mallory Towers.

Sorry I can't be of more help!

 

[Jetfire]

The Bible.

I thought 13 year old girls liked Twilight & The Vampire Diaries?

 

[Me-Ike]

You might be right about Burnett. I have only read them as an adult and think that they make great literature no matter what age, but a thirteen year old might differ with me on that.

 

[Kestra]

What about City of Ember, for something a little more fantastical? I never read the book but I saw the movie and my younger cousins had both read the book.

 

[Pingfah]

^ I really enjoyed that film. The reviews all said it was slow and boring, but I found it very engaging and highly imaginative. It was slow, but that was part of the charm of it.

 

[arthur2sheds]

The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner, a classic British fantasy novel for teenagers and young adults.

 

[Namikaze]

Animorphs by K.A. Applegate - What's cooler than a group of kids using alien shapeshifting technology, which was given to them by a dying Prince, to battle evil body-snatching slugs, by changing into any animal they can touch?

Gulp.... Too many commas... Bad sentence structure... Forgive me Grammar Nazis...

FYI - It is an engaging read for a child of that age, opens the child up to biology and zoology, as well as being fun. Also, there are 50 books in the series to occupy time with.

 

[marillion]

What about City of Ember, for something a little more fantastical? I never read the book but I saw the movie and my younger cousins had both read the book.

My (now 14 year old) daughter read the Ember series and quite liked it..

I would go out on a limb and suggest the Hitchhiker's Guide series, IF she can put up with (understand) the Brit homour.

My daugher is a bit of an anomoly in that she was voraciously reading at a VERY early age, so she blew through series earlier than most.. She really enjoyed the Potter books (duh) as well as the Charlie Bone series which is similar in vein in some respects.

 

[Owain Taggart]

What about the Wrinkle in Time series by Madeline L'Engle. I read those recently and they came across as good books for around that age group.

 

[DrCorby]

My 11 and 13 year old daughters love a couple of series by Rick Riordan. The Heroes of Olympus was initially a 5-book series, with the first 2 books of a new series released so far. The first book of the series is The Lightning Thief (far, FAR better than the movie based on it). The books deal with the existence of the Greek gods still alive and active in the world, and their demi-god sons and daughters, heroes pulled into prophecies and world-saving adventures, while battling mythical monsters. Told from the point-of-view of the teen protagonist, in a very fun style. (Even recommended for adults; I've read and enjoyed the series.)

Riordan's Kane Chronicles (starting with The Red Pyramid) deal with a brother and sister getting involved with Egyptian gods. I haven't read this yet, but my wife and daughters really enjoyed both books out so far. The third book should be out in a few months.

Madeleine l'Engle's books are also recommended, especially A Wrinkle in Time. She features strong female characters.

My 11-year old has also been reading (and loving!) a series called the Kingdom Keepers by Ridley Pearson & Tristan Elwell. A group of teens have had electronic avatars of themselves created to be holographic guides at the Disneyworld park. But their avatars find themselves having to confront virtual Disney villains who want to take over the Magic Kingdom for real. The first book is Disney After Dark; the fifth book will be out in April.

The American Girl books, focusing on the lives of a variety of girls from different eras in American history, are well-written and engaging for many girls. My daughters have learned a lot about history along the way, while connecting with the lives of many of these girls, who range from a Nez Perce Indian to an immigrant from Sweden to a freed former slave to a girl survivng the Depression to a girl dealing with life on the homefront while her father is serving as a doctor during World War II. All very positive. (Several straight-to-DVD movies based on these stories have been released, and are quite good, as well.)

As was said above, connecting with your niece's interests can be the best way to get her interested in a book -- horses, fantasy, real-life girls, etc. Hope you can get your niece hooked on reading!

 

[Technobuilder]

Not really sure about "classics" since I still haven't read many of those myself but...

I remember really enjoying Ender's Game by OSC (Of course, I was a kid who liked series and kept reading so Speaker For the Dead turned out to be a favorite despite being completely different and in my mind skewed much older)

Also, David Weber has a new Young Adult series of books featuring a strong female character named Stephanie Harrington and her adventures on the colony world of Sphinx interacting with the indigenous and highly intelligent telempathic Treecats. The first book is called A Beautiful Friendship.

And she might be a bit old for it... but I always like The Westing Game.

 

[Mistral]

Not really sure about "classics" since I still haven't read many of those myself but...

I remember really enjoying Ender's Game by OSC (Of course, I was a kid who liked series and kept reading so Speaker For the Dead turned out to be a favorite despite being completely different and in my mind skewed much older)

Also, David Weber has a new Young Adult series of books featuring a strong female character named Stephanie Harrington and her adventures on the colony world of Sphinx interacting with the indigenous and highly intelligent telempathic Treecats. The first book is called A Beautiful Friendship.

And she might be a bit old for it... but I always like The Westing Game.

If you liked the Westing Game pick up Ready Player One by Ernest Kline. Adult, not children, and a heck of a good read.

That said, for the 13 yr old girl-Black Beauty, A Wrinkle in Time, Podkayne of Mars by Robert Heinlein, Ivanhoe, the Trixie Belden series, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh, Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi, The Hunger Games, Z is For Zacharia, The People by Zenna Henderson, To Ride Pegasus by Anne McCaffrey, and maybe also her The White Dragon from the Pern series.

 

[Stevil2001]

I'd recommend anything by M. T. Anderson. His Feed is a really good dystopian novel about a future where we all have the Internet in our brains, and his Octavian Nothing books are gorgeous historical fiction about a slave during the Revolutionary War. (I've heard good things about The Game of Sunken Places, but I've not read it yet.)

 

[DigificWriter]

It's hard to pick 'classic' stuff for you to recommend because the term 'classic' is rather subjective. However, here are some of my favorite books that would be appropriate for a 13-year-old:
* Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli

*Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper (this is the first book of a 5-book series called The Dark is Rising Sequence; the other books are The Dark is Rising, Greenwitch, The Grey King, and Silver on the Tree)

* Banner in the Sky by James Ramsey Ullman (this is the book that Walt Disney based his film Third Man on the Mountain - and, subsequently, the Matterhorn Bobsleds ride at his theme parks - on)

* Peter and the Starcatchers (this book is the first of four thus far that effective 're-imagine' J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan stories, although the first book was marketed and labeled as being a prequel to Barrie's works)

* The Looking-Glass Wars by Frank Beddor (this is the first book in a trilogy that 're-imagines' Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland stories; the other books are Seeing Reed and ArchEnemy)

* The Wall and the Wing by Laura Ruby (this book has a sequel - The Chaos King - which I've never read)

* Fly By Night by Francis Hardinge

* Beach House by R.L. Stine

* Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan

* To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

* Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

* Many Waters by Madeline L'Engle (this is the third sequel to A Wrinkle in Time - following A Wind in the Door and A Swiftly Tilting Planet - but can be read independently of the other books that precede it, so long as you've read A Wrinkle in Time as well)

 

[TheSeeker]

I remember loving the Prydain Chronicles around that age. Although I'm not sure how much girls would like it. Also, you can't go wrong with Harry Potter.

 

[Kegg]

My safest pick (off the top of my head) is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It's just really rather funny and brisk, and also science fiction, and close to the sort of thing I read voraciously at that age, should be easy to get into and pretty rewarding for same. Now when I say 'sort of thing' what I really mean is I read mostly Terry Pratchett, and thus mostly his fantasy Discworld series, but also his early sci-fi books The Dark Side of the Sun and Strata.

And to get a little more idiosyncratic:

Arthur C. Clarke. Let's say Childhood's End, Rendezvous with Rama, The City and the Stars (or Against The Fall of Night, which is a variation of the same book), but especially a volume of his short stories, preferably a volume containing "The Sentinel". There's no science fiction writer I read more constantly as a young teen, so my mind goes naturally here.

More broadly with classics? Uhh. Well I loved The Iliad at that age, but it's an epic war story, I have no idea how well it'd go over with a young girl.

 

[WillsBabe]

Hitchhikers
Wuthering Heights
Jane Eyre
His Dark Materials
War Horse
Artemis Fowl
Lord of the Flies


A bit of a mixed bag there, but at least its diverse!!

 

[Australis]

Andre Norton
Anne McCaffrey
CS Lewis
Philip Pullman