What to Read?

My kids are both bookworms.

They love to read.  Neither will leave the house without a handful of books in tow - and if it's a trip of any length, then they pack a bagful.

I love this characteristic.  I love that they're curious, they love the written word, they get lost in stories of imaginary times and lands and people.  They read to gain information, to learn how things work, to figure out their world, to add to their storehouse of knowledge.

But all of that reading takes a lot of books, and while one of them happily reads the same books about the same topics over and over, accepting that new books on these topics are limited, the other frets and pushes the limits.

She doesn't want to read the same books time and again.  She wants to be challenged with new material, new words, new terms and concepts.

So I hunt, searching for books suitable for both her age and reading level, trying to find mysteries and humor and children being creative but being children.  I search for books with characters who are kind, mature, problem-solving, and for authors who write with flowing prose and strong vocabularies.

That's hard.  There are lots of kiddie chapter book series out there, but many of them have a watered-down vocabulary and name-calling characters.  She can read harder books, but many of them contain information for which she is too young.

I don't expect her to read Moby Dick, and fluffy books make great entertainment; but even fluffy books can be of good quality.


So my search continues.  I currently have stacks of kiddie books to read before her but would love to find something more difficult, something that makes her think and takes longer than 30 minutes to read.

What about you?  Do you read books before passing them off to your children?  What are their favorite books/authors??