Feisty Females
Suggestions from Mt. Lebanon Public Library, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania www.mtlebanonlibrary.org
Spend some time with the great girls in these books!
For grades 4 and up.
Shelved in children’s fiction under the author’s last name.
________________________________________________
Joan Aiken -THE WOLVES OF WILLOUGHBY CHASE
An adventure with wicked wolves, evil governesses and 2 brave girls.
Louisa May Alcott -LITTLE WOMEN
The beloved story of the four March sisters.
Lloyd Alexander -THE VESPER HOLLY series
A 16-year-old orphan and her guardian embark on exciting adventures.
Avi -THE TRUE CONFESSIONS OF CHARLOTTE DOYLE
A young girl tells the story of murder on a transatlantic voyage in 1832 .
Natalie Babbitt -TUCK EVERLASTING
A girl finds the secret to eternal life.
Joan Bauer -SQUASHED
A 16 year old girl changes her life while she attempts to grow the biggest pumpkin in Iowa. Also other titles by this author.
Vera Cleaver -WHERE THE LILIES BLOOM
Fourteen-year old Mary Call tries to keep her family together
after her father’s death.
Audrey Couloumbis -THE MISADVENTURES OF MAUDE MARCH,
OR, TROUBLE RIDES A FAST HORSE
When 11-year-old Sallie and her 15-year-old sister escape their guardians, they begin exciting adventures like those in the books Sallie reads.
Sharon Creech -WALK TWO MOONS
A 13 year old girl and her grandparents take a meaningful cross-country trip.
Karen Cushman
-CATHERINE, CALLED BIRDY
A 13 year-old daughter of an English knight longs for adventure.
-THE MIDWIFE’S APPRENTICE
In medieval England, a homeless girl is taken in by a short-tempered midwife.
-MATILDA BONE
Fourteen year old Matilda is an apprentice bonesetter and practitioner of medicine in a medieval English village.
Kate DiCamillo -BECAUSE OF WINN-DIXIE
Good things happen to a ten year-old girl because of her big ugly dog Winn-Dixie.
Frances O’Roark Dowell -DOVEY COE
A 12 year-old girl is accused of murder in her small North Carolina town in 1928.
Louise Erdrich -THE BIRCHBARK HOUSE
A year in the life of a 7 year-old Native American girl in 1847.
Louise Fitzhugh -HARRIET THE SPY
Funny story of a girl who spies on everyone.
Jean George -JULIE OF THE WOLVES
After she becomes lost in Alaska, a 13-year-old Inuit girl is befriended
by a wolf pack.
Patricia Reilly Giff -LILY’S CROSSING
When her father goes to war, Lily spends the summer of 1944 with her grand-parents where she befriends a young Hungarian refugee. Also others by this author.
Karen Hesse -OUT OF THE DUST
Poetic text relates the life of a 15-year old girl during the Oklahoma Dust Bowl.
Jennifer L. Holm
-OUR ONLY MAY AMELIA
May Amelia is the only girl in her Finnish-American family of 7 brothers growing up in Washington State in 1899.
-BOSTON JANE
Jane, a 15 year-old young lady from Philadelphia, finds little use for etiquette in the Pacific Northwest, where she lives among American traders and Chinook Indians.
Kimberly Holt -MY LOUISIANA SKY
In the 1950s, a 12-year-old girl has conflicting feelings about her stern, but loving grandmother, her mentally slow parents, and her good friend Jesse.
Eve Ibbotson
-THE STAR OF KAZAN
After inheriting a trunk of costume jewelry, 12-year-old Annika is taken by a woman claiming to be her mother to Germany, where cruel villains, aristocrats, and some lovable professors combine to create a grand historical adventure.
-JOURNEY TO THE RIVER SEA
In 1910, a young London girl is sent with her governess to live in the Brazilian Amazon with her dreadful relatives.
Sally Keehn -I AM REGINA
A young girl spends years with the Allegheny Indians after her capture.
E. L. Konigsburg -A PROUD TASTE FOR SCARLET AND MINIVER
In heaven, Eleanor of Aquitaine reflects on her fascinating life in exciting twelfth century England and France.
Gail Carson Levine -ELLA ENCHANTED
Based on the Cinderella story, Ella is cursed with a spell that causes her to obey
any order given to her.
Jean Little -FROM ANNA
A partially sighted German girl and her family move to Canada.
Lois Lowry -
-THE ANASTASIA BOOKS series
Adventures in the pre-teen and teenage life of Anastasia Krupnik.
-NUMBER THE STARS
A ten-year-old Danish girl helps hide her Jewish friend from the Nazis during the German occupation of Denmark in World War II.
L. M. Montgomery -ANNE OF GREEN GABLES series
The adventures of a lively, imaginative child on a Prince Edward Island farm.
Phyllis Reynolds Naylor -THE ALICE BOOKS series
Everyday life in the world of Alice McKinley, from pre-teen to teenager.
Scott O’Dell -ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS
An Indian girl spends eighteen years alone on an island.
Ruth Park -PLAYING BEATIE BOW
A lonely Australian girl is transported across time to another family in the 1880s.
Katherine Paterson
-JACOB, HAVE I LOVED
Louise finds her identity after feeling deprived all her life
-LYDDIE
A poor Vermont farm girl joins the working women in a Massachusetts mill town.
Richard Peck -FAIR WEATHER
In 1893, 13-year-old Rosie and her family travel to Chicago to attend the World's Columbian Exposition where they all have life-changing- and funny- experiences. Also other titles by this author.
Philip Pullman
-RUBY IN THE SMOKE trilogy
When a 16 year old girl sets out to solve the mystery surrounding her father’s death, she becomes involved in a deadly search for a mysterious ruby.
-THE GOLDEN COMPASS
Fantasy in which a girl tries to save her friend from becoming the subject of gruesome experiments in the Far North. First of the His Dark Materials Trilogy.
Ann Rinaldi -AMELIA’S WAR
A Maryland girl finds a way to save her town from being burned by Confederate troops. Based on a true incident. Also other titles of historical fiction by this author.
Pam Munoz Ryan -RIDING FREEDOM
The adventure-filled story of Charley Parkhurst, a girl who posed as a boy and fooled everyone. (Grades 3 –5)
Elizabeth George Speare -THE WITCH OF BLACKBIRD POND
In colonial Connecticut, a young girl from Barbados is presumed to be a witch because of her friendship with a kind, reclusive woman.
Jerry Spinelli -STARGIRL
An eccentric student named Stargirl changes Mica High School forever.
Suzanne Fisher Staples -SHABANU
Against her will, an eleven-year-old Pakistani girl is pledged in marriage to an older man whose money will bring prestige to her family.
Sidney Taylor -ALL-OF-A-KIND FAMILY series
Five Jewish sisters grow up in early twentieth century New York. (Grades 3-5)
Wendelin Van Draanen
-FLIPPED
In alternating chapters that span several years, two teenagers
deal with themselves, each other, and their families.
-THE SAMMY KEYES mysteries
A feisty teenage girl named Sammy lives with her grandmother and solves mysteries.
Cynthia Voigt
-HOMECOMING
Abandoned by their mother, Dicey and her siblings journey to find a home.
-IZZY WILLY-NILLY
Izzy’s life is changed forever because of a drunk driver.
Sarah Weeks -SO B. IT
Heidi, who for the past 12 years has been raised by her mentally-retarded mother and agoraphobic neighbor, sets out on a journey to find out who she really is.
Gloria Whelan -
-HOMELESS BIRD
In India, 13 year-old Koly fights against her arranged marriage.
-CHU JU’S HOUSE
To save her baby sister, 14-year-old Chu Ju leaves her Chinese home and survives by tending silk worms and planting rice seedlings. Also other titles by this author.
Deborah Wiles
-EACH LITTLE BIRD THAT SINGS
Ten year old Comfort Snowberger faces life-changing events one Spring that include the death of a beloved uncle and the betrayal of a friend.
-LOVE, RUBY LAVENDER
With her grandmother in Hawaii, Ruby Lavender learns to live on her own in Mississippi with new friends, and chickens.
Patricia Wrede -DEALING WITH DRAGONS series
Bored with palace life, a princess goes to live with the dragons and soon becomes involved in the fight against disreputable wizards.
Look for these and other great books in
The Children's Library
Mt. Lebanon Public Library
16 Castle Shannon Blvd.
Pittsburgh, PA 15228
412/531-1913d 4/06
www.mtlebanonlibrary.org
Catalog Search