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	cygnia 2011-04-16 04:43 am UTC (link)
	How about "The Westing Game"? (Reply to this)(Thread)

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quartz, 2011-04-16 04:57 am UTC

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jhaelyn, 2011-04-16 05:29 pm UTC

crysiana
2011-04-16 04:47 am UTC (link)

They'd be young for her, but I don't think the Boxcar Children series has objectionable stuff? Or the Bobbsey Twins series. They have both boys and girls as main characters, but they'd definitely be mysteries.

Also, Nellie Frisinger's stuff is out of print (and therefore harder to get) but they are explicitly Christian kids' mysteries - like the aformentioned ones, they might skew young for her, but I can't think of any YA off the top of my head that would be acceptable.

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quartz, 2011-04-16 05:03 am UTC

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crysiana, 2011-04-16 05:03 am UTC

	qem_chibati 2011-04-16 04:50 am UTC (link)
	=/ Anthropomorphic animals are a definite no? (Reply to this)(Thread)

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quartz, 2011-04-16 04:55 am UTC

iamnotyourmuse
2011-04-16 04:50 am UTC (link)

They're not mysteries, but she might enjoy some of the Swallows and Amazons books by Arthur Ransome. They're about a group of boys and girls (more girls, and the girls are all awesome) having adventures and pretending to be pirates and explorers while vacationing in the Lake District in England on their school holidays.

Now, they were written in the 1930s, so there's some dated language in there. Peter Duck and Missee Lee should probably be avoided until they can be read within their historical context (nasty racial stereotypes abound). That being said, however, for a kid who likes to read and wants some vocabulary she might not have encountered elsewhere? I'd recommend them. The first and second books, definitely. We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea and Winter Holiday too.

I'll have to look at the Sammy Keyes books on Tuesday when I get back to work. I know some won't pass the parental check for her given their covers but some might and Sammy's a great girl detective.

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undomielregina, 2011-04-16 05:07 am UTC

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iamnotyourmuse, 2011-04-16 12:36 pm UTC

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quartz, 2011-04-16 05:09 am UTC

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iamnotyourmuse, 2011-04-16 12:40 pm UTC

keri
2011-04-16 04:51 am UTC (link)

Trixie Belden! She's a more...modern? version of Nancy, if you consider that Nancy is from the 30s and Trixie's from the 60s (though Nancy got updated).

Also Mandy - it's a Christian-based mystery series inspired by Nancy Drew, so it should be okay. But there may be kissing...I never read far enough into the series to know.

I definitely recommend poking around LibraryThing's TagMash - stick in tags like "mystery,children's literature" and you'll get a bunch of results. (here's one!) - you can try different tags to see. Also, check recommendations from works that show up. I'd contact the user collectorator on there, because she knows a TON of old children's series that might be appropriate (she collects them and is in her fifties, I think, so she knows a lot).

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keri, 2011-04-16 04:55 am UTC

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quartz, 2011-04-16 05:16 am UTC

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keri, 2011-04-16 05:23 am UTC

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keri, 2011-04-17 02:13 am UTC

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beejium, 2011-04-17 03:00 am UTC

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kookaburra, 2011-04-16 05:36 am UTC

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oxfordcomma, 2011-04-16 05:48 pm UTC

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kookaburra, 2011-04-17 03:02 am UTC

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cassildra, 2011-04-16 02:31 pm UTC

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jedi_dwh, 2011-04-16 07:47 pm UTC

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thoms, 2011-04-17 02:59 am UTC

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jrs1980, 2011-04-19 10:41 pm UTC

keri
2011-04-16 05:02 am UTC (link)

Also, I know this is kind of useless to say here, but it makes me so upset when people are so restrictive about reading! Or anything! I know that you don't really need magic or kissing to make a good story, but you're limiting so much when you take it out, and losing out on really good stories that use things like metaphor and allegory at the very least!

Bah. I know that even something like Charlotte Temple would be on the parents' no fly list because it has kissing and implied sex before marriage, even though the whole point of the book is that kissing/sex is BAD and DANGEROUS and it completely ruins Charlotte's life (also the language is probably too difficult for a twelve-year-old, and it's a Sentamentalist novel where the point is to cry and sympathise with how everything keeps getting worse for the main character, who isn't very bright, and keeps letting her emotions carry her along).

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b_jellybean, 2011-04-16 12:33 pm UTC

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rosehiptea, 2011-04-16 04:20 pm UTC

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keri, 2011-04-17 02:05 am UTC

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b_jellybean, 2011-04-17 02:40 am UTC

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keri, 2011-04-17 02:52 am UTC

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b_jellybean, 2011-04-17 01:17 pm UTC

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nightwithmoon, 2011-04-16 01:45 pm UTC

ealusaid
2011-04-16 05:07 am UTC (link)

I'm having a hard time coming up with mysteries. The classics are really hard to object to--LM Montgomery, Louisa May Alcott. Swiss Family Robinson doesn't have a strong female lead, but it's an adventure that's good imagination fodder but low on objectionable stuff.

Kit Pearson's stuff is more coming-of-age, but it deals with emotionally heavy stuff and has good stuff (though Awake and Dreaming and A Handful of Time have fantasy elements). Sharon Creech is in the same category.

I think if she gets more into historical fiction, there's more for her that would be acceptable to her parents--Number the Stars is a classic, and she could get into series like Dear America.

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keri, 2011-04-16 05:26 am UTC

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keri, 2011-04-16 05:33 am UTC

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quartz, 2011-04-16 05:29 am UTC

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undomielregina, 2011-04-16 05:53 am UTC

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chibikaijuu, 2011-04-16 06:28 am UTC

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undomielregina, 2011-04-16 06:33 am UTC

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ekaterinv, 2011-04-16 06:51 am UTC

(no subject) - ealusaid, 2011-04-16 07:15 am UTC

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quartz, 2011-04-16 07:58 am UTC

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chibikaijuu, 2011-04-16 08:34 am UTC

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sepiamagpie, 2011-04-16 12:45 pm UTC

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the_sun_is_up, 2011-04-17 08:55 am UTC

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qem_chibati, 2011-04-16 07:01 am UTC

(no subject) - ealusaid, 2011-04-16 07:08 am UTC

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quartz, 2011-04-16 05:10 pm UTC

the__ivorytower
2011-04-16 05:40 am UTC (link)

You know what might be good?

A Little Princess, by the same author as "The Secret Garden." Keep in mind, it's been a LONG time since I read it, so I don't know about any objectionable supernatural material, but I know there's no kissing in it.

You'd have to browse a book summary to see if anything else hits there 'no' button. Sadly, I'm not much help otherwise because I loved fantasy as a child, and you've already covered some of my early reading. I *devoured* the Nancy Drew books.

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cairea, 2011-04-16 05:52 am UTC

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seiberwing, 2011-04-16 05:53 am UTC

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spacelogic, 2011-04-16 05:59 am UTC

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quartz, 2011-04-16 06:07 am UTC

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omgpolarbear, 2011-04-17 09:01 am UTC

kookaburra
2011-04-16 05:43 am UTC (link)

I'm posting as titles come into my head: The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle? I was going to recommend EB White but I guess the talking animals take them out.

Oh, "Summer of the Monkeys" is a great book by Wilson Rawls, author of "Where the Red Fern Grows"

What really gets me is that by excluding all that stuff, the parents are actually making lots of decent Christian fiction forbidden.

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spacelogic, 2011-04-16 06:02 am UTC

undomielregina
2011-04-16 05:48 am UTC (link)

Unfortunately, I think Little Women is off limits because Amy kisses Laurie before they're married. Oh, and Jo writes sensational novels. :( Which is a real pity, because normally it'd be one of the first things I'd consider offering to a precocious pre-teen girl with a strictly religious family.

What about The Iron Peacock? Has anyone else read that to confirm whether or not Joanna kisses Ross? (I'm so excited to see that this is back in print. The only copy I have was my mother's when she was a girl, so I've never been able to rec it before!)

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undomielregina, 2011-04-16 06:28 am UTC

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undomielregina, 2011-04-16 09:02 pm UTC

	bienegold 2011-04-16 06:10 am UTC (link)
	Second Trixie Belden. Man, I can't think of anything. I'm going down the list of all the stuff I loved as a kid and it is tough. Hmm. That no kissing thing really narrows things down. Question: is she ESL? What's her reading level like? Jules Verne usually goes over pretty well with my mom's students who are around that age (but her classes are mostly boys, iirc). (Reply to this)(Thread)

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quartz, 2011-04-16 06:38 am UTC

cairea
2011-04-16 06:16 am UTC (link)

Apparently everything I ever read when I was a kid was fantasy somehow and most of what I've read since, so I'm dredging up things I see on the shelf at my job and checking them out on Amazon for the themes you've mentioned being unacceptable. So, uh, you can take these with a grain of salt because I haven't read hardly any of them myself.

Journey to the River Sea by Eva Ibbotson. Pretty much everything else she's ever written has fantasy elements, but this one looks like it's got a girl main character and no supernatural stuff.

Willo Davis Roberts writes a lot of mysteries for that age group. I remember really liking Megan's Island when I was little!

Will Hobbs writes adventure and mystery, though I think a lot of his protagonists are boys.

Also, Marguerite Henry's Misty of Chincoteague is a great book, even if she's not into horses. I wasn't particularly at that age, but I loved it.

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quartz, 2011-04-16 07:18 am UTC

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cairea, 2011-04-16 05:17 pm UTC

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madelfdisease, 2011-04-18 04:20 pm UTC

innervoice_chan
2011-04-16 06:28 am UTC (link)

You could try Enid Blyton's books; they usually have a mixed-boys-and-girls group of protagonists and are totally innocent of kissing or romance (as far as I remember).

My favorites as a kid were The Adventurous Four and The Adventurous Four Again. The villains in the first one are Nazis, but it's stated in a very subtle way (a single reference to "the crooked cross" symbol on their plane) so when I first read it I didn't even pick up on it. The villains in the second one are pirates.

The Famous Five series is one of Blyton's best-known. It has a tomboy character, George (insists on being called that instead of Georgina), but since Nancy Drew also has a tomboy friend called George (instead of Georgia) and the parents haven't objected, it may be safe.

I also vaguely remember the Barney Mysteries/"R" Mysteries series being good.

/was raised on Enid Blyton and Nancy Drew

You could also try Donald J. Sobol's Encyclopedia Brown series; the protagonist is male but he has a tomboyish female sidekick, Sally Kimball. I hope the parents are okay with a girl punching people (played for laughs), though.

Seconding the recommendation for Swallows and Amazons.

I remember Baby-Sitting Is A Dangerous Job by Willo Davis Roberts as being a good book. It gets a bit scary (the kids and their babysitter get kidnapped for ransom) but probably no scarier than the various kidnappings Nancy Drew gets into, so hey.

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innervoice_chan, 2011-04-16 06:51 am UTC

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athersgeo, 2011-04-16 06:55 am UTC

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quartz, 2011-04-16 07:14 am UTC

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athersgeo, 2011-04-16 07:33 am UTC

platedlizard
2011-04-16 06:34 am UTC (link)

Wow, that's a tough one. Does she like other animals besides horses? Cats, dogs, dinosaurs etc? How about nonfiction?

If she likes traveling Around The World in 80 Days would probably be good.

I haven't read this one, but I did see the Masterpiece show of it, My Family and Other Animals. It's a autobiography by Gerald Durrell, a noted biologist, about his childhood on the Greek island of Corfu.

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platedlizard, 2011-04-16 08:00 am UTC

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sumire, 2011-04-18 05:58 pm UTC

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platedlizard, 2011-04-18 07:51 pm UTC

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seiberwing, 2011-04-17 02:13 am UTC

herongale
2011-04-16 06:36 am UTC (link)

The Little House On The Prarie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder happens to be utterly devoid of magic, IIRC. It also happens to be utterly charming.

Although Madeleine L'Engle was known for her fantastical books, she wrote several that were non-magical too. She was also Christian (a nice kind of Christian) and so her stories tend to be very wholesome and uplifting. Meet the Austins is one such book.

I happen to think Boarding School novels would be great for her. Specifically, the Malory Towers books by Enid Blyton: it's all about girls experiencing normal school-day woes. Very well written, not a speck of magic. Her Famous Five series is also pretty good and, well, famous. Full of adventures! These tend to be older and many are out of print, but used copies are pretty easy to find and can be fairly reasonably priced.

Good luck. I commend you for wanting to work within the parent's restrictions, unreasonable as they are. Once she's older hopefully she can find a way to read all the magical books on her own, but for now giving her things that her parents will let her read will at least give her things to read!

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okalintu, 2011-04-16 09:16 am UTC

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jaythenerdkid, 2011-04-16 02:56 pm UTC

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oxfordcomma, 2011-04-16 05:58 pm UTC

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wankaholic, 2011-04-16 06:20 pm UTC

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catslash, 2011-04-17 04:23 am UTC

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wankaholic, 2011-04-18 06:31 pm UTC

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sqbr, 2011-04-16 08:46 pm UTC

chibikaijuu
2011-04-16 07:07 am UTC (link)

I read a whole lot of fantasy/sci-fi as a kid, so pretty much all of my favorites are off-limits. I do still get a lot of joy from Noel Streatfeild's Ballet Shoes and Dancing Shoes. There really isn't anything objectionable that I can think of in Dancing Shoes, but in Ballet Shoes, two of the girls act as fairies in A Midsummer NIght's Dream, and also in another play with supernatural elements, and there are excerpts from the performance in the book. There aren't any actual supernatural elements or mentions of magic or demons or angels or fairies, though. (There are other books in the "series", but I never read them, so I can't say whether they have any issues. There is a possibility that there may be some racial issues due to the period in which they were written, but they don't appear in the two I've read). They aren't mysteries, and they *are* almost entirely about dancing and acting (and family relationships), but they have a lot of interesting and well-etched female characters (in fact, there are hardly any male characters at all), and at least in those two books, the main characters never age past their mid-teens, and there is never a hint of romance, much less kissing. They're a little young for a 12-year-old, but I'm almost 25 and I still re-read them.

She's already read Nancy Drew, which I loved (I, too, was bored by the Hardy Boys), and other than The Boxcar Children and The Bobbsey Twins, the only mystery series I really loved were the ones by John Bellairs, which have TONS of supernatural elements, sadly (even though Johnny Dixon is a devout Catholic and an altar boy), plus the leads are mostly male. There's also Encyclopedia Brown, but again, male lead.

The Wolves of Willhougby Chase is excellent, and doesn't have anything supernatural/mentions of, or any kissing (or romance at all), but it *is* rather full of people behaving extremely badly. (It's a kids' book, so obviously nothing really bad goes unpunished, and much of the worst is implied, but yeah, there are many Bad People in it, and even the leads are not necessarily the best-behaved of children, though it's in response to being unfairly-to-abusively.)

Peppermints In The Parlor is something of a mystery, with a female lead, but it's in the same vein as Wolves, in that the villains are sort of over-the-top and the main character deals with what is at best severe neglect, and being put to work as a servant.

I am having a really hard time with this - all of the books I can think of, if they don't actually have magic or ghosts or demons or angels or fairies in them, have characters that are obsessed with them, pretend they are them (or can see them, or that they're real), or the entire plot revolves around make-believe getting out-of-hand (in the end it's not real, but the characters and sometimes the reader think it is, at least for a while), or futuristic tech and aliens. Even the classic kidlit all has magic or "animals acting unnaturally".

Would they object to the Ramona Quimby books? I somehow feel like they might.

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bienegold, 2011-04-16 07:30 am UTC

qem_chibati
2011-04-16 07:14 am UTC (link)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Bemelmans

I feel bad about saying this one, since I loved the adaption but never read the originals. But Madeline books should mostly be okay.

http://www.amazon.com/Ballet-Drina-Jean-Estoril/dp/035611984X?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213450590&sr=1-1

Ballet for Drina, I loved these books when I was the same age - and I never liked ballet. In the early books the only bad thing, would be that she wants to do ballet against her grandparents wishes, but everything else should be fine I think. I'm not sure about the later books.

(I'm so sad that they don't understand metaphors. D: )

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chibikaijuu, 2011-04-16 07:19 am UTC

	jaina 2011-04-16 07:15 am UTC (link)
	I was going to suggest the All-of-a-Kind Family books (not mysteries, but some of the daughters are pretty plucky), but the family in the books is Jewish-- I'm guessing her family isn't big on books that talk about other religions. :( (Reply to this)(Thread)

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quartz, 2011-04-16 07:30 am UTC

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singe, 2011-04-16 12:56 pm UTC

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spawn_of_kong, 2011-04-16 01:16 pm UTC

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quartz, 2011-04-16 05:31 pm UTC

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the_sun_is_up, 2011-04-17 11:57 pm UTC

blue_penguin
2011-04-16 07:30 am UTC (link)

Man, when I was about that age, I used to love mysteries, hate supernatural elements (not for religious reasons, but because I fancied myself a scientist and considered magic Highly Illogical), and only read books with female protagonists... and I'm still having a hard time thinking of anything this girl can read.

The Baby-sitters' Club had a spinoff series of mysteries which might be okay; IIRC they usually didn't have romantic subplots the way the main series did, and all of the "supernatural" elements turned out to either be deliberately faked or just a result of misconceptions/overactive imaginations. Though given the Secret Garden thing, it may be better to just skip those.

On a non-mystery note, I also remember enjoying Elizabeth Enright's Melendy series (particularly the last one, which has mystery-ish elements) and most of Polly Horvath's books (they get a little same-y, but they're fun). However, it's been so long that I can't vouch for the lack of kissing or divorce in the latter with any kind of certainty. (I'm pretty sure An Occasional Cow is OK, but it's also probably the youngest of Horvath's books, and I'm not sure if it'd hold the interest of a twelve-year-old.)

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blue_penguin, 2011-04-16 07:31 am UTC

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sepiamagpie, 2011-04-16 12:54 pm UTC

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blue_penguin, 2011-04-16 01:53 pm UTC

puipui
2011-04-16 08:07 am UTC (link)

Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events, maybe? I think there's one instance in Book the Tenth of teenagers kissing before marriage, but it's not actually stated outright so much as vaguely implied in a fade-to-black kind of way, IIRC, and other than that, there's not even any implied kissing that I remember. There is one completely over-the-top villain who runs off with another completely over-the-top villain somewhere around Book the Sixth, dumping her husband in the process, but there's no actual divorce involved, and it's presented as being a really villainous thing to do, so maybe it'll get a pass? And there's five whole books before that happens, anyway, so if she has to stop at Book the Sixth, at least she got to read the first five, right?

Said over-the-top villainous woman also spends most of Book the Twelfth wearing nothing but a bikini made of lettuce, but nobody mentioned any rules against bikinis made of lettuce, and she is really very quite villainous, I have to say.

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quartz, 2011-04-16 05:35 pm UTC

zellieh
2011-04-16 10:42 am UTC (link)

In the vein of loving language, you could try giving her books about how to write English, and all the parts of English? Books like: The Bedford Handbook for Writers, The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style, The Penguin Writer's Manual, The Oxford Companion to the English Language? They're all reference works that could help her study, and so should pass parental examination.

Oh, and also maybe a study skills handbook? Although I'm not sure about American ones, the Palgrave one I have is very useful, as is Critical Thinking for Students by Roy van den Brink-Budgen. I'm guessing she isn't allowed to use the Internet, so she might really need reference books.

What about the Father Dowling Mysteries books, with Sister Steve? Some of the books are definitely unsuitable, but some of them might just scrape by; I seem to remember a few were just about financial crimes, rather than sex, although there was often kissing, but no supernatural elements? (I admit, I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel, here.)

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	cat_mcdougall 2011-04-16 11:36 am UTC (link)
	I think they might be too young for her, but Pipi Longstocking? There isn't any magic or kissing or anything, just a lot of imagination. I remember loving them as a kid. Umm, that's about all I can think of. (Reply to this)(Thread)

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lied_ohne_worte, 2011-04-17 07:11 am UTC

	queencallipygos 2011-04-16 11:56 am UTC (link)
	There's a whole lot of young reader suggestions on this thread on AskMetafilter. It's a father looking for reading suggestions for his voracious-reader 8-year-old daughter; 8 is younger than 12, I know, but I suspect that the father's "age appropriate for my 8-year-old" may also help subvert the "conservative parents" thing too. (Reply to this)(Thread)

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queencallipygos, 2011-04-16 11:58 am UTC

	demonoflight 2011-04-16 12:05 pm UTC (link)
	I don't have any suggestions, really, but I just wanted to note how sad this sort of upbringing makes me. (Reply to this)

	stealth_noodle 2011-04-16 12:37 pm UTC (link)
	I used to get Cam Jansen mysteries from my religiously strict relatives when I was a kid. Those might skew too young for her (I think I was given them when I was eight), but they're mystery books with a plucky female protagonist and a modern setting. So far as I remember, there's no magic or kissing whatsoever. (Reply to this)

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