looking for a few good literature books for 9 yr old

For boys, Homer Price by Robert McCloskey. Chapters are a little long, but the vocabulary isn’t overly difficult. I second Henry Huggins for this age, as well. If you have a girl, Ramona books by the same author. Horse lovers may like the Black Stallion series by Walter Farley or the Marguerite Henry books. Dog lovers may like books by Jim Kjelgaard or Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner. A favorite of mine at that age was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. (Love the 70s movie with Gene Wilder, not so much the more recent Johnny Depp version).

Would Where the Red Fern Grows be too much for them?

oh yikes- we watched the original Where the Red Fern Grows last weekend as our family movie – the girls are still getting kind of choked up about the ending when they think about it… how was I supposed to know? 🙂

Pam- We got a series from Rainbow Resource called The Living Forest Series by Sam Campbell. They were written in the 40s and 50s. I haven’t read them yet, but the review on Rainbow seemed complimentary.

Just looking through the first book, “How’s Inky?”, it seems like it would be a good book for boys. I have a daughter who is seven and she loves books about animals. Campbell does seem to give a lot of human characteristics, but he is observing first-hand the animals he sees around his home, and I think we all tend to do that. That’s the only thing that kind of bothers me about them so far. There are 12 books in the series.