Books by Eleanor Estes

The Moffats
The Middle Moffat
Rufus M
The Moffat Museum

Ginger Pye
Pinky Pye

Our 7, 9, and 12 year-olds recently read the above, and recommend them all, though our 7 year-old didn't think Pinky Pye was as good as the others.

I (their mother) read only Ginger Pye, and thought it was wonderful. The characters, especially the children, are quirky in a true-to-life way, and the book is very funny. My favorite is Uncle Benny:

Uncle Bennie was famous in Cranbury. He was a hero because here he was, only three years old, and yet he was an uncle. All the children came and gaped at him when he came to visit Jerry and Rachel, which was just about every Saturday...."What's your name?" people would say to Benny. "Uncle Benny," he would answer. And like as not someone would give him a nickel or a penny merely for being an uncle.

And this about Uncle Bennie and his blanket:

Uncle Bennie called not only his old pink blanket "bubbah," he called the little bits of wool he plucked from it and with which he tickled his nose and chin and even his knees "bubbah," too. When he waked up in the morning the first thing he would say, ecstatically, was, "Ah-h. Bubbah!" Sometimes he would crawl around on his hands and knees picking up old stray pieces of bubbah he had dropped. And, outdoors, he might find a little speck that Gramma had shaken from the rugs. "Ah-h, Bubbah!" he would exclaim and gather it fondly up.

The book is really about a brother and sister and their dog Ginger, and what they go through to get him and keep him, which is a great deal. The story is suspenseful and compelling, but not too intense for most younger readers.