Frances Hodgson Burnett Classics: The Secret Garden and A Little Princess.

I think every girl should read, or have read to her, these books. Yes, they are goopy Victorian morality tales, but they are also well-written stories with stout-hearted heroines.

I can't remember which I encountered first, my mother's edition of A Little Princess, (that's actually the link to the Tasha Tudor edition of the 1960s),

or the Shirley Temple movie version. Shirley Temple theater--the adult Ms. Temple introducing the films of her youth--was on TV when I was in grammar school, so it is possible I first saw, then read.

But, liking the book so much, I then turned to A Secret Garden