The Red Pony is a classic that should be read. I have never heard of it being assigned before senior high school where it is an appropriate read.
Island of the Blue Dolphin is just trash and shouldn’t be read by anyone.
Lemony Snickett is fun mostly for boys of the middle school years and her recommendation of A Wrinkle in Time is better suited again for high schoolers.
The other books I am unfamiliar with. Parents would do well to have their children read age appropriate classics ( where classic usually means things like Treasure Island, anything by Milne, Rudyard Kipling, Dr. Seuss, etc etc)
Ah, Kipling. As a child living in the Commonwealth, I certainly was confronted with Kipling. For me, the final stanza of “The Young British Soldier” was always especially memorable, and certainly the kind of thing that would warm the heart of any kiddie...
When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Of course there are other verses that deal with alcohol abuse and having a colleague sleeping with your wife, but nothing satisfies like desperate suicide. Thanks Rudyard, for searing that imagery in my mind for the last 45 years.