This is so great. My 9yr ds loves the Diary of a Whimpy Kid series. He also likes Beast Quest and Goosebumps. Both my kids have always loved encyclopedias and history type books. We picked up a book on tanks and army machines recently. I did not allow my dd 12yrs to read Twilight because she is struggling with boy/girl stuff and told her she could in highschool. She loves the Riordan books and is also reading the books Glass, Impulse, Crank. The library rarely has these in so she has had to wait. She reads them over and over. This weekend she read one in just a few hours. I know these are very grown up but these kids are being forced to grow up so fast. She is studying sexual reproduction in Science and this is not the class we had 30 years ago. They say it is because our kids are being forced to grow up to fast these days that we need to teach them about sex way earlier. I remember my mom not wanting me to see "the movies" in science because she simply did not want us to know anything. But these days your 12yr old will end up pregnant if you don't teach them early. At least the teacher she has is really taking this from a scientific approach which is a great way to learn. I told ds that she will learn why things happen the way they do, where most of the boys in her class just think it is all funny when the teacher uses certain phrases. When she comes home it is easier to then take the scientific info she now has and apply it to real life. So when she reads these books about addiction and abuse she looks at the subjects more deeply and we then discuss them. I really want her to see how harmful things can be and how it really can ruin your life and everyone around you. She likes to have these kinds of talks so that makes me happy. She never liked the Little House series for some reason. She recently read Uncle Tom's Cabin and has picked up Pride and Prejudice but has not completed it. I am seriously going to look into some of these other series for her. It is so hard to tell if one is going to like something or not. The folks at our used bookstore were really helpful in suggestions too.

I will always recommend the Harry Potter books. They are long, but most kids cannot put them down. 10 is a good age to read the first one. The series has been known to turn the hardest cases of non-readers into bookworms. ;o) The Goosebump series (R.L. Stein) was hugely popular a few years ago, but is still a favorite on the bookshelf at my kids' school. Creepy stories, haunted houses, kids caught in supernatural mysteries. Fast reads, and so many books in the series that if she likes one she'll find a lot more like it. New books are still coming out, too. Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Jeff Kinney) is very popular series right now, but I have not read any of these yet. It's very new, there are only 2 out, but another is coming. They are humorous. I LOVE the kids' novels by Carl Hiaasen, "Hoot" and "Flush." They are stories of environmental wrong-doing adults foiled by the earth-conscious kids in the funniest, most ironic, "poetic justice" situations. Smart kids will get the irony. My 11 y/o DS is also a bright kid, but really not much of a reader. He loved both those books, laughed through them, and stole a couple one-liners. They are risque enough to be "cool" to kids, defiant kids question authority, a coupls "damns" and "hells" in the text. But the prevailing message is "Do the right thing." Great books, in my opinion. (But know that kids' books is not Hiaasen's main genre. If she likes the author, don't let her get into the other books he writes for adults. Those are for mature readers, R-rated situations and language including the f-bomb.) She might like books by Kate DiCamillo (Because of Winn-Dixie, Tale of Desperaux, and others). They are either realistic fiction featuring animals/pets, or fantasy with animal characters. There is the Redwall series (Brian Jacques). Those are fantasy about animals, rodents mostly, and set in a sort of medieval setting, with castles and heroic battles to save the village, sort of mice as knights. Varjak Paw (SF Said) is a fantasy/mystery about a house cat who goes into the world to save his family. I didn't read it, but my 11 y/o read it twice, so it must have impressed him! The poetry collections of Shel Silverstein. I was given Where the Sidewalk Ends when I was 10, I still have it, dated and inscribed "Love, Mom and Dad." My kids read it. They all like hearing the poems, but it's my 11 y/o that gets the humor and play on words. Some more titles/authors that might appeal to her b/c they are fantasty and some feature animals. A Cricket in Times Square, George Seldon Indian in the Cupbord, Lynne Reid Banks James and the Giant Peach, Ronald Dahl Rats of NIHM series, Robert C. O'Brien Well, sorry to go so long, you hit one of my favorite topics. Hope there is something there that helps.

Thanks for the information. I have looked at much of the Schwab website and have a moderate degree of information about LD's myself (taught GED classes and math classes for many years and have counseled and referred many teens and adults with previously undiagnosed LD's for testing), I haven't seen anything that describes my daughter's situation. She doesn't struggle at school AT ALL, she has a very good attention span and takes a tremendous amount of responsibility for creating good learning environments for herself (asking to move to a quite corner during testing, turning her back to everyone during silent reading time, and often, double checking her answers before she turns things in, etc.) I think I overstated the problem when I said that her reading rate was "seriously low"--it's actually at or slightly above her grade level. That's where her frustration comes in--she knows that she is not a fast reader even though she wants and tries to be. As you know, most standardized tests don't test reading rate--comprehension and vocabulary only and she tests very high on both of these areas. It's just that compared to her high comprehension and vocabulary skills, there is quite a discrepancy. Tests that are given at her grade level are quite easy for her because the reading is so simple and there is either not a time limit or there is ample time for her to read the rather "easy" selections. In my gut, I really do feel like this is a vision problem and that's what I was asking about having the special ed. teacher screen her for since I know that unusual vision problems can appear to be a LD--and in fact they are often misdiagnosed as some sort of LD. Sandi, I must not have explained very well, cause my daughter's teacher doesn't at all think that I think DD should be in special ed. I don't think she needs to learn more about LD's--she is considered by many in our school district to be extremely informed and also knows my daughter quite well. As you probably know, policies and laws vary by state--in our state, it is a certain percentage of students in a school district that can receive special ed services--I think it's 13% here--which means that if there are more than 13% (or whatever the #) of the kids need special ed services, then the one's with mild problems, in fact, don't get served.

My American Journey -- Colin L. Powell, Joseph E. Persico