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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1734 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 27, 2025

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One of my friends has a 9-year-old niece, and she's a fairly precocious reader (to his delight). She apparently, and I'm quoting here, "rips through books and has outgrown Highlights." He's asked for recommendations for a monthly magazine or book-club that is age appropriate and steers clear of culture war fodder/is non-woke. Any suggestions from the Motte?

I second the 80's Cricket magazine. Also the old Analog and those sorts of magazines. The old Boys Life magazines were also good if she's not sensitive to the title. Used bookstores used to have them.

Around that age my modern kid read/we read with her the Little House books, Boxcar children, Trixie Beldon, Three Investigator, (the old) Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Chronicles of Narnia, Madeleine L'Engle, Ursula K. LeGuin, Roald Dahl, Lewis Carroll, E. Nesbit, Susan Cooper, Peter S. Beagle, the color Fairy books, Edgar Eager, Wizard of Oz books, Chronicles of Prydain... So I guess I am saying if you can't find some easy subscription thing like Cricket, do a do it yourself book subscription and send a "keeper" book or 3 every month. (In contrast to the Magic Treehouse and Rainbow Fairy books which will slowly drive you mad and you will gleefully pass along to another child as soon as your kid lets you.)

Nice list! Could add "Famous Five" and "Swallows and Amazons" et al if you want to inject some anglophilia and normalize free-range activities. (eg. looking for pirate treasure, or being a pirate, depending on one's taste"

I mean for little girls, I remember reading Beverly Clearly’s Ramona books as a kid, Babysitters Club, Sweet Valley High. Those aren’t woke and would probably be interesting to a girl.

If you can find the 80’s run of Cricket literary magazine for kids, I have very fond memories of it.

The Newbery Medal and the similar Carnegie Medal provide lists of children's books decades long which have been critically acclaimed for their quality. As long as your friend stays away from anything after 2010, the titles should be non-woke.

In particular, the early Newbery Medal winners and runner ups (called Newbery Honors) are entering the American public domain. Thirty-one of them are currently there, and another nine will join them on January 1st, 2026. So if your friend is willing to give his niece an e-ink reader, he can just download several of them for free from Project Gutenberg.

Alternatively, he could try a long running series such Animorphs, Goosebumps, or Encyclopedia Brown.

Not exactly a book club, but as a former precocious and voracious reader, the Great Illustrated Classics served me well at that age. It's classic literature like Jane Eyre or The Red Badge of Courage rewritten to almost exactly that level, but the maturity of the underlying subject matter makes them hit much better than other books for middle schoolers. Excellent mix of volumes for boys or girls, and more than enough to keep the kid busy until she's ready to try (and fail) to read OG Dickens.

And I'm very happy to note that the prices are very reasonable for books these days.

Oh man, talk about awaking a core memory. I read Great Illustrated Classics' The Swiss Family Robinson cover-to-cover like a half a dozen times as a kid.

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