Well written kids’ literature

This might be a little early for the question, but I have a 6 year old kid who’s into reading, and also likes being read to.

Right now it’s things like Magic Treehouse and Unicorn Academy, but she’s shown interest in me reading her higher level stories like The Hobbit (we stopped after the second chapter because it was “too boring,” but she thought the party chapter was absolutely hilarious).

So I’ve been trying to preview some well regarded kid lit. I just finished The Golden Compass, which is more YA, though she’d be fine with most of it until the end which is much too violent for her, and obviously the themes in the rest of the series will be more mature.

Which all got me thinking, what kids’ books out there are especially well written and might help introduce kids to more of a “literary” writing style, perhaps with good usage of metaphor, writing that’s engaging and could acclimate younger readers to “showing” more than “telling,” kind of painting with words?

Fantasy or mystery or maybe humor are probably the best genres. I don’t think she’s especially interested in slice-of-life right now. Not way too deep, and especially not very sad (she can be really sensitive to sad emotions). She did listen to the Ramona books when she was 4/5, though I think she’d be more bored by them now.

I didn’t read when I was her age, but a little bit older I loved Big Red and The Hundred and One Dalmatians and Bambi: A Life in the Woods. As a pre-teen I actually liked The Jungle Book and The Call of the Wild. But I know now as an adult, some of those books have some elements I want to be careful of introducing before she’s old enough to think critically (colonialism, cultural stereotypes, even 101D has some subtle sexism and a chapter that’s not nice to “gypsies”).

Anyway, what’s the brief again?

Ah yes, well written kid lit in a literary style that’s not violent or sad, has inclusive sensibilities, perhaps with good metaphor use, funny or marginally suspenseful, and isn’t particularly religious (involving myths or legends or promoting multicultural understanding is fine – just nothing really meant to ingrain religious ideas. We’ve already read The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe, and I’ve got mixed opinions there).

Easy peasy, right?

by FaceOfDay