Almost Can't-Miss Sure Shot Books...for Girls

[Judy Freeman]

26 BOOKS GIRLS CAN’T RESIST


Boys like talking rats and mice; girls like talking dogs and cats. Boys like rampaging monsters that tear down cities and are defeated by a hero; girls like rampaging alpha girls who tear down the less popular girls and are given their comeuppance by the nice girl who has finally had enough.


Do the statements above fit your kids? Of course not; they’re generalities, and it’s always satisfying to watch kids defy the stereotypes. Not all boys love trucks and not all girls love dolls. But it’s instructive to watch boys and girls at play to see what toys they gravitate to and the ways they interact with them. Boys and girls have their own preferences in books, too. Is it hormone based? I don’t know. I’m not a scientist—just a book-lover who has watched kids from birth to teen as they choose, read, and talk about the books they love.


To illustrate each of the 13 categories, I’ve listed a pair of books, one for younger children, and one for older. Let us know which of these books satisfy your readers and what titles you would add to the mix.


Here then are my 13 adages when it comes to girls and books:


1. Girls would prefer to stay up all night so they don’t have to miss anything exciting, though a good rousing bedtime story or two can sometimes lure them to sleep.


Sleeping Cutie. Pinkney, Andrea Davis. Illus. by Brian Pinkney. Harcourt, 2004. (32 pages; Suggested Ages: 2-6)
Adorable little Cutie LaRue is sweet as cream all day long, but when her parents try to get her to go to sleep at night, she stomps and hollers, "I'm not tired." Then they bring in Night Owl, a talking doll from the Trusty Trinket toy catalog, who brings Cutie to the Dreamland Nightclub, where she can party all night long.






The Giants and the Joneses. Donaldson, Julia. Illus. by Greg Swearington. Henry Holt, 2005. (215 pages; Suggested Ages: 7 and Up)
Nine-year-old giant, Jumbeelia, loves her mij to read her that exciting bedtime story about the iggly plop who climbed up a bimplestonk into the giants’ land of Groil. Mij says iggly plops don't exist, but when Jumbeelia throws some bimples over the edge of Groil, a bimplestock springs up overnight, and she climbs down. There she finds three human children, Steven Jones and his sisters Colette and four-year-old Poppy, who she snatches up and brings back home to live in her giant dollhouse.




2. Girls love to look at people and what they’re wearing—clothes, jewelry, hair, and accouterments. (The Fancy Nancy books by Jane O’Connor have tapped into this mode, which is why they’re so appealing to little girls, and appalling to little boys.) Interestingly, while you may have noticed this fashion-loving trait in real life, in a huge percentage of children’s books with noteworthy female characters, the girls couldn’t give a whit about their appearance, and are often tomboys. Go figure.


Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse. Henkes, Kevin. Illus. by the author. Greenwillow, 1996. (32 pages; Suggested Ages: 3-8)
Lilly, a young mouse, is so enraged when her adored teacher, Mr. Slinger, confiscates her entrancing new purple plastic purse and movie star sunglasses that she draws a dreadful picture of him, and slips it into his book bag. How dare that mean teacher take her show-and-tell treasures! "I do not want to be a teacher when I grow up!" Lilly proclaims.



Clementine. Pennypacker, Sara. Illus. by Marla Frazee. Hyperion, 2006. (136 pages; Suggested Ages 6-9)
When third grader Clementine finds her fastidious friend, Margaret, crying in the school bathroom, having just tried to cut some glue out of her halfway-down-her-waist straight brown hair, Clementine offers to help by chopping off the rest of her hair. Of course, Clementine is blamed and is sent to the principal's office, even though she thinks Margaret, shorn, looks beautiful, like a dandelion.





3. Girls who are expected not to make a mess and to be good and kind and helpful and quiet often appreciate living vicariously through sassy girls in books who are none of those things and break the rules to boot.


Big Bad Bunny. Billingsley, Franny. Illus. by G. Brian Karas. Atheneum, 2008. (32 pages; Suggested Ages: 2-6)
Big Bad Bunny is on a rampage, showing her long sharp claws and chomping on trees with her pointy yellow teeth. Over in the Mouse House in a tree trunk, Mama Mouse is tucking her babies into bed "But wait! Where is Baby Boo-Boo?” Mama Mouse cries, and rushes outside to find her. Surprise (and Spoiler Alert): Big Bad Bunny and Baby Boo-Boo are one and the same, a pretending-to-be-fierce little girl mouse wearing rabbit ears.


Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat. Jonell, Lynne. Illus. by Jonathan Bean. Henry Holt, 2007. (346 pages: Suggested Ages: 8 and Up)
The more Emmy tries to be good, the more everyone seems to ignore her—her parents, her classmates, and even her teacher don't notice her at all. The Rat who lives in a cage in her classroom tells her, "The bad ones get all the attention . . . Try being bad for once. You might like it." And she does, sneaking the Rat outside and setting him free.




4. Girls like to read about girls, but they’re interested in reading about boys, too, without making an issue of it. Girls are also interested in toys with which they can interact, like dolls and stuffed animals, and love to pretend they are real, and to have conversations and go on imaginary adventures with them.


That Rabbit Belongs to Emily Brown. Cowell, Cressida. Illus. by Neal Layton. Hyperion, 2007. (32 pages; Suggested Ages: 3-7)
Even though Her Excellence, the Most Mighty Queen Gloriana the Third offers her all the toys she could ever desire in exchange, will Emily Brown let the Queen take her old gray stuffed rabbit called Stanley? She will not! And when the Queen's special commandos steal Stanley from her bed in the middle of the night, Emily Brown is so cross, she marches right up to the palace to fetch him back.



The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. DiCamillo, Kate. Illus. by Bagram Ibatoulline. Candlewick, 2006. (198 pages; Suggested Ages: 8 and Up)
Edward Tulane, beloved companion of young Abilene, is a three-foot china rabbit who loves no one but himself. On an ocean voyage with Abilene and her family, Edward is inadvertently thrown overboard and sinks to the ocean floor. From his rescue by a kind fisherman and through a succession of caretakers. Edward’s odyssey exposes him to life, love, and loss.




5. Boys like reading about animals that are squishy and squirmy and scary; girls prefer animals that are soft and snuggly and sweet.


The Broken Cat. Perkins, Lynne Rae. Illus. by the author. Greenwillow, 2002. (32 pages; Suggested Ages: 5-8)
Andy and his mom, his Grandma, his Aunt Cookie, and his injured gray tabby cat, Frank, are in the vet's waiting room. When Andy asks his mom to tell him (and poor Frank) the story of how she broke her arm in third grade, each person in the family has something to add to her account. As the vet examines Frank, each family member offers her a version of what happened to him, too. There's a lovely compare and contrast page where we watch the cat get better and learn how Mom's
arm finally healed.


Pocket Babies and Other Marsupials. Collard, Sneed B., III. Illus. with photos. Darby Creek, 2007. (72 pages; Suggested Ages: 8 and Up)
“Marveling at Marsupials,” is the first of many lively chapter headings, and that's what you will do when you encounter the amiable narrative, fascinating descriptions, astonishing facts, and plethora of color photos of that third group of mammals, the metatherians. Collard raised a baby opossum as a boy, and his delight in the subject reverberates on every page.



6. Girls like to pore over the intricacies of human relationships, trying to figure out how boys work, how to deal with notions of belonging and boyfriends and romance, and where their place is in the social structure.




Horace and Morris But Mostly Dolores. Howe, James. Illus. by Amy Walrod. Atheneum, 1999. (32 pages; Suggested Ages: 3-7)
Three mouse best friends do everything together until the day the two boys leave Dolores behind to join the Mega-Mice, an all-boys clubhouse. Spunky Dolores, undaunted, starts her own clubhouse that everyone can join.





Flipped. Van Draanen, Wendelin. Knopf, 2001. (212 pages; Suggested Ages 11 and Up)
In the first chapter, eighth grader Bryce Loski starts his narrative with, "All I've ever wanted is for Juli Baker to leave me alone." In the second chapter, setting up the pattern of alternating voices, Juli Baker starts with, "The first day I met Bryce Loski, I flipped." Bryce has spent six years avoiding Juli until the day he takes a new look at her and, wham, he flips. She, on the other hand, starts seeing him for what he really is—a normal male teen, actually.



7. Girls like crafts and cookbooks and creative activities and hands-on books where they can learn something, make something, or try something new. (The stereotype has it that girls don’t tend to like science and math, but this is obviously wrong, as more than 48% of the students entering U. S. medical schools and 77% in veterinary schools in 2008 were women.)



The New Jumbo Book of Easy Crafts. Sadler, Judy Ann. Illus. by Caroline Price. Kids Can, 2009. (176 pages; Suggested Ages: 3-9)
Bad weather days will give you and your crafty kids a perfect excuse for tackling some of the 150+ easy-to-do projects in this well thought out and cheerfully illustrated hands-on crafts book. Make cool stuff like a top hat, a magic wand, a fringed poncho, a tissue-box dollhouse, puppets, and a variety of Christmas tree ornaments, many with around-the-house materials.



Dr. Frankenstein’s Human Body Book: The Monstrous Truth about How Your Body Works. Walker, Richard. DK, 2008. (94 pages; Suggested Ages: 8 and Up)
As the assistants to Dr. Frankenstein, we follow closely as he constructs a human being out of all its components and body parts. Heavystock pages bursting with diagrams, drawings, photographs, and punchy sidebars of related information move sequentially from atoms and cells to tissues and organs, and give a brief but compelling look at all of the systems in the human body. Richard Walker also collaborated on the text with illustrator David Macaulay for The Way We Work (Houghton Mifflin, 2008; 336 pages; Suggested Ages: 10 and Up), another mesmerizing and groundbreaking exposé of the human body for older readers.




8. Girls love to read books that mirror their most personal thoughts and innermost worries, especially when they contain words like “popular” and “best friend.”



My Best Friend. Rodman, Mary Ann. Illus. by E. B. Lewis. Viking, 2005. (32 pages; Suggested Ages 4-7)
At the neighborhood pool, six-year-old Lily says hi to Tamika, who's seven, but Tamika ignores her and jumps into the pool with Shanice. Keesha is nice to Lily, though, and sticks by her. Winsome watercolors capture Lily’s longing, rejection, hopefulness, and final recognition that Keesha is a real friend and Tamika is not.





All Alone in the Universe. Perkins, Lynne Rae. Illus. by the author. Greenwillow, 1999. (133 pages; Suggested Ages 10 and Up)
Debbie is devastated when her longtime best friend, Maureen, drops her in favor of another girl, the drippy Genna Flaiber. Over the course of nine months in 1969, Debbie goes through the stages of grief and hits the skids emotionally, until her new English teacher, Miss Epler, encourages her to face her situation and move on.






9. Girls like to fall over laughing, finding humor in a world full of super-serious life situations with demanding teachers, nagging parents, whining siblings, and annoying friends.



Babymouse: Our Hero. Holm, Jennifer L., and Matthew Holm. Illus. by Matthew Holm. Random House, 2005. (91 pages; Suggested Ages 7-11)
Daydreamer Babymouse misses the bus again (“Typical!”) and drags herself to school where she must contend with a homework-eating locker; her nemesis, the cat Felicia Furrypaws; and the one aspect of school that is her undoing—that dreaded phys ed nightmare known as dodgeball. Drawn with heavy black lines and hand-drawn panels, highlighted in passionate pink, the illustrations and snappy dialogue in this series of little graphic novels are refreshingly original and gloriously comical.




A Crooked Kind of Perfect. Urban, Linda. Harcourt, 2007. (213 pages; Suggested Ages: 9 and Up)
"I was supposed to play the piano," states 11-year-old Zoe Elias, who’s always wanted to be a child prodigy. Instead, her dad gets her a "wood grained, vinyl-seated, wheeze-bag organ. The Perfectone D-60." Zoe’s comical narrative of how she learns to play it, enters a competition, and learns to accept her less-than-perfect life is spot-on quirky and funny all over the place.








10. Girls are captivated by fiction books where animals talk, especially with clever, snappy main characters that happen to be cats or dogs, or other small, endearing creatures.



Martha Speaks. Meddaugh, Susan. Illus. by the author. Houghton Mifflin, 1992. (32 pages; Suggested Ages: 3 to 8)
When the alphabet soup Martha eats goes up to her brain instead of down to her stomach, lo and behold, the lovable mutt begins to talk. And talk. And talk. Her human family, overwhelmed by her excess verbiage, cries, "Martha, please! SHUT UP!" and the dog, crushed, retreats in silence that lasts until a burglar breaks in.








Smart Dog. Vande Velde, Vivian. Harcourt, 1998. (146 pages; Suggested Ages: 8 and Up)
On her way to school, fifth grader Amy Prochenko encounters an ultra-intelligent talking dog, F-32, who has escaped from a dangerous college research lab. Amy renames the dog Sherlock and brings him to school where, with the help of classmate Sean, she hides him from college students hot on his trail.






11. In spite of our modern day worries about perpetuating stereotypes of helpless females rescued by stalwart heroes, girls still sigh over traditional fairy tales with happy-ever-after endings, and fairy tale-based fantasies.



Cinderella. McClintock, Barbara. Illus. by the author. Scholastic, 2005. (32 pages; Suggested Ages: 2-10)
In this charming new addition to your fairy tale collection, the old tale is set in 17th century France and illustrated on cream-colored pages with delicate pen, India ink, and watercolors. Cinderella forgives her stepsisters in this version, which is based on Charles Perrault's original retelling.









Ella Enchanted. Levine, Gail Carson Levine. HarperCollins, 1997. (232 pages; Suggested Ages: 9 and Up)
Cursed at birth by the interfering fairy Lucinda's "gift" of obedience, Ella, now 14, relates how she is shipped off to finishing school with her two cloddish and manipulating future stepsisters. Running away from that dreadful school, Ella meets up with friendly gnomes and dangerous ogres, and gradually finds herself falling in love with her genial friend, Prince Charmont.





12. Girls love feisty, tenacious, triumphant female heroes in biography and fiction who defy or overcome the odds, take risks to become successful, and inspire them to connect with their own dreams and ambitions.



Players in Pigtails. Corey, Shana. Illus. by Rebecca Gibbon. Scholastic, 2003. (40 pages; Suggested Ages: 5-10)
Disinterested in traditional "girl" pursuits, Katie Casey dreamed baseball. When the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League scouted for players in 1943, Katie signed up. Katie is a fictional character, modeled on all of those baseball-mad women who played pro ball during World War II. Simply told, with cheerful, spirited illustrations, this slice of life episode from sports history will get everyone eager to go outside and play a little ball.



Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment. Patterson, James. Little, Brown, 2005. (432 pages; Suggested Ages: 10 and Up)
Maximum Ride, aka Max, is the 14-year-old leader of a close-knit “family” of mutant bird kids: Fang, 14; Iggy, 14 and blind; Nudge, 11; the Gasman, 8; and his little sister, Angel, 6. With every Eraser (morphing bloodthirsty wolf men who are ordered to hunt and kill the flock) butt she kicks, she shaves a little more off the “damsel in distress” stereotype. Girls fast become addicted to Max’s narration as she cracks wise and flies even higher with each new installment to the series. Max even blogs for her fans at the ever-lively maximum-x.com site.


13. Where boys want action, girls want conversation. Girls like characters they can connect with personally and stories with emotional resonance that make your heart soar, or break (what my girl students used to call “five-Kleenex” books), or at least beat a little faster.



Fred Stays with Me! Coffelt, Nancy. Illus. by Tricia Tusa. Little, Brown, 2007. (32 pages; Suggested Ages: 4-8)
A pragmatic little brown haired girl explains that sometimes she lives with her mom and sometimes with her dad, but of her brown-eared, white, sausage-bodied dog she says, "My dog, Fred, stays with me." The divorced child will recognize the narrator’s situation; Fred is her friend, her confidant, and her lifeline. With both parents angry with him for barking and eating socks, there’s no way she's going to let them reject her dog.






Esperanza Rising. Ryan, Pam Muñoz. Scholastic, 2000. (262 pages; Suggested Ages 10 and Up)
Born into a prosperous Mexican ranching family, Esperanza lived a life of privilege and plenty until the eve of her fourteenth birthday in 1924, when her Papa was murdered. She and her mother escaped from Mexico to California, where they found work picking crops in the San Joaquin Valley. Based on the life of the author's grandmother, this moving and involving novel deals with the overwhelming hardships faced by Mexican migrant workers, but also the love and pride that helped them survive.

If you’ve been watching the phenomena over Twilight and the three other books in the blockbuster series by Stephenie Meyer, you may have noticed that both girls and boys are claiming these books. Teenage girls love them because of the sizzling love story between klutzy Bella and Edward, a brooding and dazzling teen vampire. Their boyfriends are picking up the hefty books because there’s vampire violence and danger, plus Edward and his family drive very cool cars. In spite of their differences, boys and girls often find common ground in the books they read. In an upcoming list, we’ll explore some of the books that both boys and girls read and love.

[Jennifer de Garmo]

Thank you for this wonderful book list. My husband are always frantically looking for good books to read to our 7 year old daughter. If we don't find one, she will demand we read Mary Poppins to her for the 100th time. We googled "books for girls" and got not great results. BTW, in desperation we read Heidi to her summer before last and she LOVED it. Couldn't believe it. But now that I think about it the elements of the story include a not nice aunt, the mystery of a ghost opening doors, an older boy friend, the antics of goats, and descriptions of the mountains and running around barefoot outside. I can see how she liked it. Suprisingly, after reading the story she asked us about God and if we believed in God and we had an interesting discussion about that (she was 5 almost 6)!

[Mark Perkins]

This is quite a good collection and variety (for the reasons you provide). I've found that girls really like bugs, as long as, they're cute bugs! I'd like to recommend "Ladybug Baby Bug" by Janice and Mark Perkins. For ages 0-5, it's avaialbel at all major online booksellers.

[Beth Williams]

Great list! My 5th grade students are all enthralled by the Gregor series by Suzanne Collins.

[Judy Freeman]

Hi Jennifer--
I'm going to be working on a new list for READKIDDOREAD of books both boys AND girls like. (Right now I'm finishing a list of classics books that has been so much fun to compile--keep your eyes open for it this month.) Girls tend to like books for boys, while boys don't want to admit to liking books for girls, even though they read them. (Sometimes boys will sneak "girl" books so their friends won't know they're reading them. I saw this a lot when I was a school librarian.) And, of course, kids NEED to read books for the opposite sex so they can figure out how the opposite sex ticks. I heartily agree with all of your recommendations--pageturners all. Thanks for your comments.
Judy Freeman
READKIDDOREAD Reviewer

[Jennifer Akers]

I like this list too, but girls like some of the stuff that boys like too. I would also recommend "The Series of Unfortunate Events", "Stargirl", and anything by Judy Bloom. My own 12 yr. old reads and gave me that list. :) I would also recommend for the high school level "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants".

[Kate Wheeler]

fantastic recommendations!