Books for gifted 9 year olds

Recommended books compiled by Sally-Anne Macdonald from the OzGifted list. 

Parents may need to take care with general recommendations for authors - who sometimes write in both adult and young adult genres. Please send any comments/suggestions to the Webmaster at the link at the bottom of the page.

By Author

AIKEN Joan - The Wolves of Willoughby Chase; Black Hearts in Battersea; The Last Slice of Rainbow and Other Stories; A Small Pinch of Weather; All and More (all high vocab, complex fantasy/ adventure tales)
ALCOTT Louisa May - Little Women (Baronet 1989)
ALEXANDER Lloyd - The Black Cauldron series (five books based in Welsh legends)
ANDERSON H. C. - (good especially if you can get an accurate translation of the originals)
de ANGELI Marguerite - Door in the Wall (Dell 1990)
APPLEGATE K.A. - Animorphs series
ARNOLD Adoff - Sports Pages (Lippencott 1986)

BABBITT Natalie - Tuck Everlasting (try your library for this one - 10 out of 10)
BALL Duncan - Selby series (if they are keen on dogs, you can't go past the humour)
BANKS Lynne Reid - The Key to the Indian (absolutely not to be missed!!)
BEATTY, Patricia - Turn Homeward; Hannalee (Morrow 1984)
BAUM Frank - The Wizard of Oz (and others)
BODECKER N.M. -
BURNETT Frances - The Secret Garden; The Little Princess
BYARS Betsy - The Cartoonist; The Eighteenth Emergency; The Computer Nut; The Summer Fox; and lots more

CARROL Lewis - Alice in Wonderland; Alice Through the Looking Glass (slightly surreal, wonderful characters, memorable stories)
CASWELL Brian - Merryl of the Stones (captivating - Australian author!)
CLEAVER Vera and Bill - Where the Lilies Bloom (Harper & Row 1969)
COOPER Susan - The Dark is Rising quintet
COOPER Susan series, beginning with Over Sea, Under Stone
CUSHMEN Karen - The Midwife's Apprentice (Clarion 1995); Catherine, Called Birdie (Clarion 1994)

DAHL Roald - (anything)
DEFELICE Cynthia - Weasel (MacMillan 1990 )
DEFOE Daniel - Robinson Crusoe (Acclaim Books 1997)
DUBOIS William Pene - Twenty-One Balloons (Viking Press 1947)
DURRELL Gerald - My Family and Other Animals (hilarious, and lots of good stuff about wildlife. Demanding language, but good to read aloud)

EAGER Edward -
EDDINGS David - series: The Pawn of Prophecy is the first in the series.
ENDE Michael - The Night of Wishes; The Neverending Story (book wraps 5000 rings around film of same name)

FARMER Penelope - Charlotte Sometimes
FILIPOVIC, Zlata - Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Sarajevo (Viking 1994)
FISK Nicholas, Trillions (sci fi - strange crystalline aliens fall to Earth)
FITZHUGH L. - Harriet the Spy
FLEISCHMAN Paul - Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices (Harper Collins 1988)
FREEDMAN Russell - The Wright Brothers: How They Invented the Airplane (Holiday House 1991)
FRENCH Jackie, - The Book of Unicorns
FRITZ Jean - Homesick, My Own Story (Dell 1982)
FROST Robert - Poetry for Young People (Sterling 1994)

GEE Maurice, Under the Mountain; The Half Men of O; The Priests of Ferris; Motherstone
GEORGE Jeane - My Side of the Mountain (Puffin 1988)
GIBSON Fred - Old Yeller (Harper & Row 1964)
GLEITZMAN Morris - Blabbermouth and Stickybeak (anything by him)
GRAHAME Kenneth - The Wind in the Willows (Yearling Classics 1990)
GREEN Roger Lancelyn - The Adventures of Robin Hood; The Luck of Troy
GURNEY James - Dinotopia and The World Beneath
GUY Rosa - The Friends (Holt 1966)

HAMILTON Virginia - Sweet Whispers, Brother Rush (Philomel 1982)
HASKINS Jim - I Have a Dream Millbrook Press 1994; One More River to Cross (Scholastic 1982)
HEINLEIN Robert - (Science Fiction, series of 10 junvenile books from the 1950's. Good writing, not too simple, but squeaky clean!) - Note some of his adult books (generally the thicker ones) have advanced sexual references.
HIRSCH Odo - Bartlett and the Ice Voyage
HOMER - The Odyssey
HOUSTON James - Farewell to Manzanar (Bantam 1974)
HUGHES Langston - The Dream Keeper and Other Poems (Knopf 1994)
HUNT Irene - Across Five Aprils (Berkley Pacer 1964)
HUNTER Norman - Professor Branestawm (lots of amusing inventions)

JACQUES Brian - Redwall [other books from series accepted] (Philomel 1986)
JANSSON (?jansen) Tove - Moomin series (from Finland)
JINKS Catherine - series beginning with Pagans Crusade (Australian author)
JONES Diane Wynne - A Tale of Time City (time-travel story, featuring lots of strange
futuristic inventions); Witch Week; A Charmed Life
JUSTER Norton - The Phantom Tollbooth, Random House 1961; The Dot and the Line; A Romance (not a novel like Tolbooth, but equally clever concepts; hard to get outside of a good bookshop)

KAYE M.M. - The Ordinary Princess (short novel, very enjoyable unstereotyped characterisations)
KIPLING Rudyard -
KJELGAARD Jim - Big Red (Holiday House 1973)
KONIGSBURG E.L., Proud Taste for Scarlet; Miniver; From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E. Frankenweiler

Le GUIN Ursula - The Earthsea Quartet (beginning with The Wizard of Earthsea)
L'ENGLE Madeleine - A Wrinkle in Time (Farrar 1962)
LEWIS C.S - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe series (still great reading despite somewhat dated English characterisations and language)
LIPSYTE Robert - The Contender (Harper 1996)
LIVELY Penelope - The Ghost of Thomas Kempe
LONDON Jack - White Fang (Aimont 1964)
LOWRY L., Anastasia series (about nine books)

MAHY Margaret - The Haunting
MARSHALL Alan - Whispering in the Wind (good read, hard to get hold of)
MAZER Harry - Snow Bound (Covercraft 1973)
MONSELL Helen Albee - Susan B. Anthony (Aladdin 1960)
MONTGOMERY Lucy Maud - Anne of Green Gables series (New American Library (ppbk) 1991 (Org. 1909))
MURPHY Jim - Across America on an Emigrant Train (Clarion 1993)

NESBIT Edith - The Railway Children
NEVILLE Emily - It's like this Cat (Harper Collins 1991)
NICOLLS Beverley (not sure about spelling) - The Tree That Sat Down; The Stream that Stood Still
NIGHT Eric - Lassie Come Home (Dell 1992)
NIXON Joan Lowrey - A Family Apart (Bantan 1987)

O'DELL Scott - Island of the Blue Dolphins (highly recommended); Sing Down the Moon (Yearling 1992)

PARK Barbara - Skinnybones; Partners in Grime etc (very funny)
PATTERSON Katherine - The Great Gilly Hopkins (Crowell 1978)
PAULSEN Gary - The Schernoff Discoveries (funny) and Hatchet (adventure) and others
PETRY Anne - Harriet Tubman (Underground Railroad Trophy Books 1983)
PIERCE Tamora, (anything written)
PRATCHETT Terry (anything)

RANSOM Arthur - Swallows and Amazons
RASKIN Ellen - The Westing Game (Dutton 1978) (Avon 1978)
RAWLINGS Marjorie Kinnan - The Yearling (Collier 1938)
RAWLS Wilson - Summer of Monkeys (Doubleday 1962); Where the Red Fern Grows (Doubleday 1962)
RICHTER Conrad - The Light in the Forest (Knopf 1953)
RODDA Emily - Finders Keepers; The Timekeers; Rowan of Rin; Rowan and the Travellers
ROWLINGS J. R. - Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone; Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

SCHUSTERMAN Neal - The Eyes of Kid Midas (Permabound 1994)
SCIESZKA Jon, Time Warp Trio series (very short, but fast and funny)
SCOTT Richard - Jackie Robinson (Chelsea House 1987)
SEWELL Anna - Black Beauty (Yearling (ppbk) 1990 (Org. 1877))
SLEATER William - The Duplicate (Dutton 1988)
SLOTHE Alfred - Finding Buck McHenry (Harper Collins 1991)
SOTO Gary - Fire in My Hands (Scholastic 1990)
SPERRY Armstrong - Call It Courage (MacMillan 1968)
STEVENSON Robert Louis - Treasure Island (Signet 1994)
STORR Catherine - The Chinese Egg; Marianne Dreams by (interesting and thought-provoking story about a magic pencil)
SUTCLIFFE Rosemary - The Sword and the Circle trilogy

TAYLOR Mildred -The Road to Memphis (Dial 1990)
TAYLOR Theodore - Timothy of the Cay Harcourt Brace 1993
TAYLOR William - Knitwits (funny)
TERBAN Marvin -
TOLKEIN R. - The Hobbit (Houghton Miflin 1966)

VERNE Jules - 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Troll 1990)
VOIGT Cynthia - Dicey's Song (Atheneum 1984)

WHITE/CUNNINGHAM - Ryan White, My Own Story (Signet 1992)
WHITE Ruth - Belle Prater's Boy (Farrar Straus Giroux 1996)
WHITE T.H. - The Once and Future King
WIESEL Elie - Night (Bantam 1960)
WILDER Laura Ingalls, series (good for reading aloud to younger kids too)
WREDE Patricia C. - Dealing with Dragons [other books from series accepted] (Harcount 1990)

YATES Elizabeth - Amos Fortune, Free Man (Dutton 1950)
YEP Laurence - Child of the Owl (Harper 1977)

I suggest reading biographies of important figures. There are many, such as a great one about Dian Fossey, that are geared towards juvenile readers.

Books of poetry are great too, especially the classics like Walt Whitman and Robert Frost. Analyzing poetry is great for developing budding advanced literary interpretation.

Any decent versions of the classic Greek and Roman Legends.

You might want to try the reading list at the following web sites:

http://members.aol.com/tea73/goodbks/Index.html
The first section of the list is "Books with gifted kids as major characters" - and another is "Long books and long books with sequels for kids who read too fast"

GTWorld site has a list of favourite kids' books at:
http://gtworld.org/gtbook.htm .

http://www.amazon.com - type in title of book, then it will list other books that people have bought when they have bought it.

Books for Gifted 9 Year Olds (Titles only)

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Aesop's Fables
Animal Farm (may be a little high)
Animorph books (humour plus a slight science bent. A caution here as not all parents recommend this series which can get the children in and have them reading if nothing else)
Arabian Nights
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Beauty and the Beast
The Borrowers.
The Boxcar series
Casey at the Bat
Charlie and the chocolate factory
Charlotte's Web (and others by E. B. White)
A Christmas Carol
Cinderella
David Copperfield
Don Quixote
Dracula
The Emperor's New Clothes
Flatland.
Foundation series (and others by Isaac Asimov, especially Azazel short
stories)
Frankenstein
Gulliver's Travels
The Green Knowe series
Grimm's Tales
Harry Potter (Harry Potter and the philosophers stone) fans.
Hamlet (recap of Shakespeare, probably not the original YET)
The Hardy Boys
Henrietta's House
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Incredible Mr. Fox (really good - David 9)
James and the Giant Peach (and others by Roald Dahl)
The Jungle Book
Just So Stories
King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Narnia series)
Little House on the Prairie (and others by L.I. Wilder)
Little Women/Little Men
Lord of the Rings (series that includes "The Hobbit)
Mary Poppins
Moby Dick
My side of the mountain
Nancy Drew Mysteries
Native Son
Nils the Elf books (I think the author won a Nobel prize for literature for it.)
Odyssey (and other Greek, Norse, Roman, Native American etc mythologies)
Oliver Twist
Paul Bunyan
Paul Revere's Ride
Peter Pan (the original books)
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
Pinocchio
Pollyanna
The Railway Children
The Raven
Rip Van Winkle
Robin Hood
Robinson Crusoe
Secret Garden
Sherlock Holmes
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Tales from Shakespeare (Puffin Classics)
Tales of Alvin Maker series.
Tarzan
Tom Sawyer
Treasure Island
Uncle Remus (Brer Bear and Brer Rabbit)
Uncle Tom's Cabin
The Wickedest Witch in the World
William Tell
The Wind in the Willows
Winnie the Pooh works on several levels too.

Classics:

Sir Walter Scott, Dumas (though boys seem to like these more than
girls!), Animal Farm, Mark Twain, T.H. White's "The Once and Future King"

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