Clean library books for age 13

momaholic

Mon, Mar 25 2024, 5:02 pm

My daughter is an avid reader. Although we go to the Jewish library the books are just not the same. Does anyone have a list or some good clean books she can take out from the library.
She typically doesn’t like fantasy.

unclemoishy

Wed, Mar 27 2024, 9:39 pm

The website "Common Sense Media" might be helpful. Its not perfect, since most of the people who participate are not jewish, but its a good place to start!

momaholic

Thu, Mar 28 2024, 6:52 am

unclemoishy wrote:

The website "Common Sense Media" might be helpful. Its not perfect, since most of the people who participate are not jewish, but its a good place to start!

Yes I always check the books there

amother

Glitter

Thu, Mar 28 2024, 8:09 am

Hatzlachah. The Young Adult section is a mess. I have a bunch of readers, and it's a constant struggle.

Will she read nonfiction? Historical fiction? Older books?

amother

Pumpkin

Thu, Mar 28 2024, 8:23 am

Common sense media is a great resource

Kosherbooks.org

You could also call her school, pretty sure they have a list

It gets harder and harder as they get older…my kids end up reading books that are lower grade levels because the YA books just don’t work

momaholic

Thu, Mar 28 2024, 9:08 am

amother Glitter wrote:

Hatzlachah. The Young Adult section is a mess. I have a bunch of readers, and it's a constant struggle.

Will she read nonfiction? Historical fiction? Older books?

She is an advanced reader. Her preference is historical and realistic fiction.
She would read a murder mystery too.

amother

Lotus

Thu, Mar 28 2024, 9:27 am

momaholic wrote:

She is an advanced reader. Her preference is historical and realistic fiction.
She would read a murder mystery too.

My 12yo advanced reader loves Sherlock Holmes. Most of them are short stories, but the Hound of the Baskervilles is a novel and is excellent. He's learning lots of good vocabulary from it.
You will want to skim through them though, because there are a few that mention more adult topics.

tigerwife

Thu, Mar 28 2024, 9:29 am

momaholic wrote:

She is an advanced reader. Her preference is historical and realistic fiction.
She would read a murder mystery too.

Pretty sure Agatha Christie’s murder mysteries are clean. You can check out each book individually on Common Sense Media to be sure. That will keep her busy for a while.

rose613

Thu, Mar 28 2024, 10:41 am

Was also going to recommend Agatha Christie.

Nancy Drew might be okay (never read, but I assume anything from that time period won’t hold a candle to YA stuff now). Just depends on what you are sensitive to.

amother

Turquoise

Thu, Mar 28 2024, 11:10 am

The older books are usually cleaner than the modern stuff. Sherlock Holmes is perfectly suitable, and may take longer to read as the vocab and writing style is harder. Agatha Christie is also clean per se, but many of the plots do revolve around love being the motive for murder, but without any explicit details.
There's Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys, which may have boyfriend/girlfriend, but again without explicit details.

Reality

Thu, Mar 28 2024, 11:14 am

amother Turquoise wrote:

I love Agatha Christie but some of the later books mention things like a s-x maniac because she was criticized for being behind the times, grr.

Reality

Thu, Mar 28 2024, 11:19 am

Has she read Cynthia Voights books? The Tillerman Cycle is an excellent series all about a family's struggle to overcome poverty and mental health struggles. I loved it as a child and so did my kids.

The question is how strict are you OP? There is definitely some talk about going through puberty in some of her books but I had no problem with my kids reading it but I don't know how sheltered your kids are.

amother

Glitter

Thu, Mar 28 2024, 11:45 am

I would actually avoid Agatha Christie. Yes, she's cleaner in the way we tend to think about. But she is very very cynical, and a young teen doesn't need to start to see the world as a place where you assume every maid steals and every spouse cheats. But that's a judgement call.

Can she read Victorian novels? Would she want to?

amother

Obsidian

Thu, Mar 28 2024, 11:50 am

Elizabeth George Speare wrote historical fiction. Two are very good - Calico Captive, and, the witch of blackbird pond. There is very very light romance woven into the story plot, more about feelings than any actions. The Sign of the Beaver is excellent, too. No romance there at all.

I would avoid The bronze bow I think it was about christianity IIRC.

amother

Burlywood

Tue, Apr 02 2024, 8:27 am

Wow I could’ve written this exactly.

My daughter read all the Avnet gold from Jewish library.

She just finished mysterious Benedict society from secular library. But haven’t found much more than that actually on her level.

She does read dear America but it’s way way below her level.

thatworn

Tue, Apr 02 2024, 3:29 pm

Lavie Tidhar, the Candy mafia. I wish he'd write more stuff.
Are the American girl doll books and box car books too babyish?
Biggles. A bit boyish.
Some Roald Dahl.
Enid Blyton. Some of her series would still be entertaining for 13 year olds. I am still entertained by them ! hard to find in America but I think you can buy them all on amazon. They've been doctored a bit, sadly. Too much xenofobia and too much antiquated vocab, which is sad because her books were banned partially because she supposedly did not vary her vocab enough.
Noel Streatfield for a girl who likes performing arts. There are some chapters about xmas in her books, from memory. Nothing religious, just tree, presents and carrols.
My girls are in a supposedly very frum BY and the books they read are kind of not what I would permit them to read, with curse words (unsuccessfully whited out) and boy/girl stuff. So be wary of asking your school for a book list.

GLUE

Tue, Apr 02 2024, 3:42 pm

A big problem I found is that many of the older more excepted books are no longer in print so the public library will not carry them.

Doctor Dolittle- Hugh Lofting if your library has them, I think they are clean, I did not read all of them.

thatworn

Tue, Apr 02 2024, 4:31 pm

Oz books also. L Frank baum. Oz is not all Judy Garland. There are so many in the series and they are so cute and a bit kookie. Where I grew up it was so hard to find the other Oz books but in America I've found lots of them in public libraries..