Help! Need Book Suggestions for My Niece

I had some interesting conversations with my niece and sister-in-law the other day.

I am in need of book suggestions for my niece to read.

My niece just turned eleven and is in sixth grade in public school. She is typical and mainstream, being concerned with having the right clothes, the in clothes, the right brands, concerned with fitting in, knowing the trends and using her iPod, cell phone, and chatting with IM.

She will only read realistic fiction. She's gone through some twaddle series. Her parents do not read books and they do not do family read aloud's. Our past gifts of the Little House books in hardcover, I was told, were thrown away unread (she was six when I gave them to her thinking they'd be used for read aloud's).

She just finished some series with at least 22 books in the series, the name of it has slipped my mind but I'd never heard of it recommended in my homeschooling circles or living book circles. I suspect twaddle through and through.

She is nearly at the end of the Princess books by Meg Cabot, loves them and is reading each book in less than 48 hours.

Her mother said she just read the first Clique book and loved it. I raised my eyebrows and said to my niece, "I read some of those, I don't like them." To my sister-in-law I asked, "Did you read it?"

Sister-in-law: "No, I don't read books because they put me to sleep."

Me to niece: "Don't you think the girls are mean and nasty to each other, even their best friends?"

Niece: "Yes."

Me: "And they are shallow and really judge everyone on their clothes and wear all designer clothes?"

Niece: "Yes."

Me: "And the text message insults to each other even stabbing their best friends in the back?"

Niece: "Yes."

Me: "And the girl who is really poor but pretending to be rich so her friends accept her, isn't that ridiculous."

Niece: "Yes."

Me: "I really don't like that kind of book, to me it really is a bunch of junk and not really about how good friends would treat each other or the way I'd like to see you be, either."

Sister-in-law: "Oh, that book sounds horrible." Then, to her daughter, "I don't want you reading that. We have to find you some new books."

She then asked me for titles. One not good thing is my sister-in-law is asking for a series. She thinks series books are good. I was a bit tapped out by the exchange and didn't feel like going into an explanation of why sometimes series books, the formula ones, are not always great books, or how sometimes, as is with the case with my older son right now, the first book is great, the second is not so great, and the third is barely readable.

I introduced my sister-in-law to Common Sense Media.com and she poked around a bit on that site right then and there.

I would have recommended that she read a bunch of Amazon customer reviews but that is too time consuming and sometimes the most problematic books are highly praised by child or teen book reviewers or adults who have different tastes and standards in books, especially when they think certain content is fine and well (for a myriad of reasons which I'll not list here).

I also told her of the issue with the Clique books that they have marketing inside them to introduce the readers to the "It Girl" series and those then introduce "Gossip Girl" series, so they escalate higher and higher into more controversial topics that may be too mature for the age of the reader. My sister-in-law already knew of issues with the "Gossip Girl" books and said, "I will not let her read THOSE!" (Perhaps she saw one of the Gossip Girl TV shows.) Her eyes were opened up to the fact that the juvenile literaure and young adult book publishing industry does not always have the interests of the young readers at heart but instead has their eye on the profits they can earn. The books published today are very much different than the content of the books available for she and I to read when we were teens in the 1980s.

So I'm in need of a book series to recommend, or at least, a good author who writes realistic fiction for girls. She doesn't seem interestd in the fantasy genre (not even Harry Potter, she saw the movies so why bother with the books, she says). She prefers modern stories and has no interest in books written in the early 1900s or set in time periods prior to 1980. Historical fiction is not an option.

My sister-in-law did say, "Isn't there a book list where we can look books up by character traits or something like that?" And I replied, "Yes, you can buy book list books that have descriptions of the books and some do put them into categories by character traits".

I didn't give her a book list book title recommendation. To be honest I'm not sure if there is one that mostly has modern realistic fiction books. I know the great books I own and use for our homeschooling reading lists but my kids and I are open to different genres and also to historical fiction and books that they would think are too 'educational' just because they deal with a country other than America, are a biography or are set in a different time period.

Perhaps what they'd like (and I'd like to see) is a list of modern fiction books for girls that lists issues with the books such as things like 'promiscuous sex portrayed in positive light', 'characters smoke pot with no negative ramifications' as well as talking about the good that the book has to offer, such as character issues addressed in the book.

I'm happy that my sister-in-law is embarking down the path of researching material ahead of time now and is trying to find good and great books to put into her daughter's hands.

If you can help guide me so I can help them, I'd appreciate it. Please leave a comment to this post if you have suggestions.

P.S. The family is Catholic but not what I call 'religious' compared to my religious Catholic, homeschooling friends.