My daughter is 9 and she is a voracious reader. She will read a book with over 300 pages in just a few days. She reads everything from fantasy to nonfiction, though her favorites tend to have animals as the main characters. She is quickly working through the Warriors series at the moment.
So far she has read:
Warriors by Erin Hunter
Epic Order of the Seven by Jenny L Cote
Chronicles of Narnia
Nancy Drew
Hardy Boys
almost everything written by Roald Dahl
by BluePenguin509
14 Comments
Redwall is long, and I was *all* about them at that age
How about the Flavia de Luce series (11year old smarty pants amateur chemist and detective solving mystery in her small English village)?
The Menagerie Trilogy by Tui T Sutherland. All the magical creatures talk, and they’re all hilarious. She’ll love it
Anne of Green Gables is one of the few classic series that really holds up. There’s one critical remark about the French in the original book and that’s it. If she likes it, there are 8 in the series. No dragons, but the tale of a girl who imagines and reads so much that she scares herself should work
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C Wrede. Awesome satire of traditional fairy tales with a princess that runs away to live with dragons and then fights off the princes who try to rescue her. Talking dragons and over a dozen talking cats. Oh and a talking blue donkey with wings who used to be a rabbit before he blundered into a witch’s garden
The Penderwicks series is fantastic – it’s charming, funny and about a family of sisters.
The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge (from 1946). A girl moves with her governess to the manor of a distant relative. Features cooking, embroidery, light romance, unicorns and adventure and also has a touch of cottage core.
The Narnia books by C.S. Lewis
The Series of Unfortunate Events, Michelle Paver’s Wolf Boy series, and anything and everything by Robin Jarvis
The Dark is Rising sequence by Susan Cooper – excellent fantasy
The Hobbit (and then she’ll probably want to move on to LotR)
Charmed Life (and the other Chestomanci books but Charmed Life really stands out for me) by Dianna Wynne Jones (and probably many of her other works)
That was me at 9 years old. I was really into:
– Anne of Green Gables (and the continuing series)
– The Westing Game
– What Katy Did
– The Hobbit (and then the entire LoTR series)
– Ender’s Game (and Ender’s Shadow)
– Dune
The Wildwood series by Colin Meloy is very good, I actually read it as an adult and loved it! Agree with Anne of Green Gables and I also suggest Little Women and the others in the series! I read that with one of my nanny kiddos who I did not expect to enjoy it and she loved it!
Skulduggery Pleasant
Impossible Creatures (and most Katherine Rundell books)
A Series of Unfortunate Events
A Murder Most Unladylike
The Highland Falcon Thief
The Swifts
The Land of Stories
The Monsters of Rookhaven
Guardians of Ga’Hoole are fun adventure books that I devoured at her age. There are like 14 of them or something – would definitely keep her busy. And the main characters are owls! Honestly I haven’t read Warriors but it seems Warriors-adjacent in style.
​
If she likes animal main characters she might also like The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford – then you could watch the movie together afterwards!
​
They don’t have animal main characters but the Heartland books focus on a horse rescue ranch and there are about 20(?) of them. Though might be a bit intense for her as the first book starts with the main character losing her mother and a horse in a car accident – this is about as dark as the book gets but not sure if 9 is too young. Think I might have been 11 when I read them. You could always read the start of the first book yourself if you’re not sure!
​
Another horse series I loved (I was a big horse girl) was the Pony Pals series. If Heartland is too much for her, Pony Pals might be perfect. And again, the series is lengthy – just looked it up and there are 44(!!) books.
​
Anne of Green Gables has been mentioned here and is great. I also read Heidi with my mom at that age and enjoyed it. The Secret Garden as well!
​
And of course, the Percy Jackson series is a classic for kids her age. If she likes those, she can also look into Rick Riordan’s other books: The Kane Chronicles, Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, etc. Plus Rick Riordan has a publishing imprint where other authors publish similar types of work as well.
The amazing Maurice and his educated rodents by Terry Pratchett or his Tiffany books
A Hero’s Guide To Saving The Kingdom by Christopher Healy. Peter and the Starcatchers by Barry and Perason. Ranger’s Apprentice, Brotherband Chronicles and The Royal Ranger by John Flanagan
Charles Watermere’s Uninvited Guest by Agatha Pennyfeather is beyond wonderful. The entire cast of characters are animals based on the wildlife of the English Countryside (author is from Liverpool) and it’s a delightful read. My daughter is a voracious reader as well and she fell in love with this book. Highly, highly recommend!