GoodWitch...the dear friend i inherited from MiLady Wife...has a granddaughter who is turning 8...(i'll call her Lil'Witch)...

Lil'Witch is very smart...and has a curious mind...but doesn't like reading...

Since i've collected a bunch of stuff to send to both Witches, i decided to add some of my favorite books when i was her age (i had to get them second hand)...and most are series...i'm only sending the first book of each...

Freddy the Pig Series...Walter Brooks (talking animals in crazy adventures...including SF and visiting Santa)

Mrs. Piggle Wiggle Series...Betty MacDonald (who wouldn't love her crazy solutions?)

Mushroom Planet Series...Eleanor Cameron (yeah...i liked SF even then...even with boy protagonists)

All-of-a-Kind Family Series...Sydney Taylor (poor Jewish family in NY in 1912)

Johnny Tremain...Esther Forbes (there was a Disney short movie of this one...about Paul Revere's apprentice)

Lil'Witch may have to move schools for next year...so i figure some unusual summer reading might stand her in good stead with her new teacher...and she might just be bored enough to pick up a book...

i'm not bothering sending Dr. Seuss...those are still popular everywhere...i figured something different might attract her attention...

What books did you love as a kid?

i'm in love with thriftbooks...and i play them off against Amazon's used books...sometimes one will beat out the other...

I loved Ameila Bedeila, Horton Hatches an Egg, anything about dinosaurs (I LOVED dinosaurs), and the Mr. Men books those were some of my favorites.

The Martian Chronicles, by Ray Bradbury
(I loved the Mushroom Planet, too)

My aunt gave me her copy of Grimm's Fairy-tales. I thought they were wonderfully edgy at the time.

Not from my childhood but take a look at the author
M T Anderson
He writes some interesting story for children and young adults.

I started LOTR in about 7th grade and have never looked back. Hmmm. Hold old are you in 7th grade?

I read Tom Swift books when I was younger than that.

To what Kenneth said.

Read everything you can get your hands on---including the text books of the courses you are taking.

Second for Thrift Books. Their main competitor is Better World Books.

Here is a great site for used books .Not sure if you know about this .
https://www.thriftbooks.com/

I have bought books on the website.
I add this. I didn`t have a favorite book or type
However My family and extended family did the following
They made Books Fun and it was adventure. Books introduce me to thoughts and ideas. I read as a kid. I read Call of Wild,Ben Hur,a Christmas Carol.
Robin Hood.I also had some "coffee table" type books as
well. My problem is I don`t read anywhere near like I
use to as a kid. For me reading was introduce as fun
something to do.

I used to tear apart the school reading books, and anything I could get my hands on that interested me, but I loved reading from a young age.

I loved stories about horses and ponies,
Norman Thelwell, Marguerite Henry, C.W. Anderson were favorite authors, along with many more.

I liked the Danny Dunn series (science-based adventures), Nancy Drew series for a while (amateur sleuth mysteries), but quickly grew bored of the formula plots and never finished the series though my mother kept buying them. I also liked Trixie Beldon and The Hardy Boys. All of Beverly Cleary's books (favorite was Runaway Ralph !),

I didn't much care for the Dr. Seuss books. While I see, today, they are fun, when I was a young reader, they seemed like nonsense and I preferred an engrossing story to silly rhymes.

Ppink...that store sounds wonderful...

i loved Dr. Doolittle, too...i don't know why i didn't think of those...maybe i didn't read them when i was that young...

i still have dreams about that sea snail they traveled in...(Rex Harrison version)

I loved every book mentioned. I could take or leave Nancy Drew but loved Trixie Belden. The Wrinkle in time series is good.

As a stand alone book I liked The Saturday Club.

I was reading by age 4 and read everything I could get my hands on, still do.

I loved the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books, anything by Ronald Dahl, Phil Silverstein, E. B. White, especially The Trumpeter Swan, Swiss Family Robinson... greatbook and all of The Doctor Doolitte Books by Hugh Lofting. My girls loved The American Girl books, in fact so much older daughter is still planning on naming a girl Felicity Elizabeth after the main character from the first book she read in the series when she was 8 or 9. She's almost 34 now. That's a long time keep a potential child's name when it has zero connection to anyone in the family or their friends.

If I think of anymore I'll message you if you want.

You might like the Mrs Pollifax books. Really need to start with book one. Lil'Witch might enjoy those. i was around 9 when I read the first one. They are by Dorothy Gilman.

Darn, now I need to start a new book list for the children's bookcase here. It has mainly Dr. Seuss books since Little Man is only 6 months old.

We are lucky to have a hugh nonprofit book store here that sorts through 40-50 thousand books a week. It's actually the old Kohler factory and warehouse. Books are $1.25 a pound or $25.00 a box, meaning all you can stuff in the box. The first time I got a box was because I was getting a book that weighted 11 pounds. That's pre-covid when a box was only $20.00.

cory{BI} you would love it. They have a number of comfortable reading couches and chairs. On the weekends they usually have sales but they have a small coffee, tea and baked goods from the best bakery in town with very reasonable prices.

krysta...i love "Rose in Bloom"...and the prequel..."Eight Cousins"...i read them about once a year...and as a gift from your mother...priceless...

i liked "Little Women"...and tried to read others she wrote...but they didn't hit me the same way...LMA can be a bit preachy...though she comes by it naturally...and it was the fashion at the time...

i remember Mama and Grandma talked about "Elsie Dinsmore"...a girl so perfect she developed many an enemy among young people...i may have read it...i'm sure Grandma read it to my older aunts...Grandma LOVED books...especially poetry...and the "Girl of the Limberlost" books...they reminded her of her childhood...so did the "Little House" books...Grandma was born in 1886...and traveled by covered wagon...so she could relate...

yeah, "A Wrinkle in Time" and the sequels...

Delilah...i remember Mama reading some of those to us when we laid down for our afternoon naps...and The Box Car Children...and the "Shoe" books...each title being some kind of shoe...school shoes, ballet shoes, etc. https://www.amazon.com/The-Shoe-Books-6-book-series/dp/B08PF4H5R5

Pepin...i've had similar thoughts...that's why i'm just sending used books she might enjoy...no pressure...i mostly talk to GoodWitch...so i won't be looking for book reports or anything...but i'll be happy if she likes even one...or she can trade them to friends...

I'm not going to diagnose from a distance but will say that sometime smart kids who don't like to read have a disability or two---and if she does,tread carefully;don't make it worse.

Perhaps a period of reading to her,10-15 minutes a day will help her to like reading. It could be a daily newspaper,literature for adults. Sooner or later,she'll either like it or you will have figured out why she does not?

I remember reading 'A Wrinkle in Time', 'Charlotte's Web', 'Little Women'.

I sometimes wish I still had them, but I got rid of them all when I outgrew them.

I do have one. My mom bought, or was given, 'Rose in Bloom' by Louisa May Alcott. On the inside of the front cover, she wrote her name, address and the date. She was 11 years old. Underneath hers, I wrote my name, address and the date she gave it to me. I was 12. It has a dark blue cloth cover; the title is in black lettering, and kind of hard to see against the blue. The pages are yellowed but overall, the book is in pretty good condition. It's on my bookcase, locked in a ziplock bag. It's the only book I own that doesn't have dust on it. *s*

I treasure it.

I loved Winnie the Pooh, and books by Beatrice Potter. I learnt to read her book, The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin. I always got stuck on the word 'impertinent', I remember.

krysta...i loved those, too...and all the Nancy Drew books...i even got a couple books Mama had from when she was young...

I was very into the Trixie Belden series. I'd get so excited every time a new one came out. I don't know how many there were all together, but I'd collected and read the first 16 or so before I outgrew them and moved on to other books.