Maud’s stepdaughter A. is in New York for a visit, and Maud is asking for recommendations on books to buy her (profile: smart, stylish, almost 12 years old, so probably starting 6th grade? seventh?, well read so skip the Lemony Snicket and Danziger, and don’t even go to the Gossip Girls place). I just spent a happy 15 minutes in our library looking at the shelf where I keep books for that age, and can suggest this list of titles: the Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, which begins with The Golden Compass; Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson (seriously, has anyone else read this? so excellent); Joan Aiken’s Wolves of Willoughby Chase; and while Mr. Maud has already introduced A. to Madeleine L’Engle I would check and see if he got her into the Meet the Austins series (less tesseracting, more tress-reacting (sorry) than the Wrinkle In Time series), as I remember these rocking my world at that age (as did barettes with feathers; it was an easily rocked world). And oh oh, she’s probably ready for Jane Eyre! I was about 11 when I read it for the first time and have a v. happy memory of hanging upside down from the couch in our basement as I devoured it over the weekend, with occasional appearance of the parents’ legs urging a visit outdoors.

Feel free to continue with recommendations in the comments.

I’d also recommend a trip to Books of Wonder with A. in tow. My famous friend Hortense Brood makes frequent mention of this store in her calls from New York, and Justine Larbalestier extolled its virtues in a recent blog post. (Speaking of Justine, her novel, Magic or Madness, is another excellent choice.)

It was consoling to read Maud’s reflections on feeling inept as a stepmother. The first time I met my stepson Linus he was 14. He was slouched down on a couch, watching television. I kept attempting to ply him with dried apricots from a painted tin, like, “Hi, I’m Carrie. Would you like a dried apricot?” Grunt. Cartoon guns, cartoon voices. “Are you sure?”