6-10 Year Olds

Ramona Series by Beverly Cleary
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In this book, Elizabeth Ann, a frail, scaredy-kid,who is an orphan, is being brought up by her Great Aunt and her Great Aunt's daughter, whom she calls Aunt Frances.

Aunt Frances is thin and frail and scared of dogs and so on. Elizabeth Ann has been so cosseted that she has never had a real thought of her own, nor has she even ever dressed herself.

Almost overnight, due to her Great Aunt's sickness, Elizabeth Ann's life is turned upside down and she is on a train to the loathed Putney, Vermont relatives.

Once there, Elizabeth Ann becomes Betsy and learns to think for herself and take care of herself and finds real happiness.

When her classmates find her notebook and read her painfully blunt comments about them, Harriet finds herself a lonely outcast. Fitzhugh's writing is astonishingly vivid, real and engaging, and Harriet, by no means a typical, loveable heroine, is one of literature's most unforgettable characters."

My Father's Dragon Series by Ruth Gannett
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This is an enthralling story of love, evil, magic, and four children in 1912 in England.

While their father is away in Egypt they come to live with their batchelor uncle and his houseman in a town that has evil magic woven through it. The children by their goodness and high spirits, with the help of golden bees and the houseman, manage to conquer the black magic and set all to rights. This sounds trite, but it is a wonderful story to read aloud, and everyone will want to keep going and find out what happens next.

It is set in 13th century Scotland, and the heroine begins the book as a nine-year old and grows up. She ends up being forced to fight against her older sister, whom she worships, who is a powerful witch.

It is also Jackie Robinson's first major league season and the year of the Boar in the Chinese calendar.

Arriving in Brooklyn speaking no English, Shirley slowly makes friends and learns to love baseball.

Betsy-Tacy Series
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The children are desperate for her to stay, but she misses Maine so much, there on the prairie, that the story is full of fears of her deciding not to stay.

And it's funny too.

It is the story of the adventures of a nine-year old girl on her own trying to recover her stolen dog. She ends up journeying down from her home in the Tibetan mountains eventually all the way into Calcutta. As well as being exciting, it is a well-developed picture of another time and place. It was a Newbery Honor Book in 1949.

It is the true story of a little girl who had to keep the lighthouse lamps burning during a terrible weeks-long storm in Maine in 1856.

Although there are no females of consequence in this tale, there is a lot of adventure and excitement.

The Mitchells Series by Hilda van Stockum
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Little House Books
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