Thank you! Any specific stories you recommend? The problem I was having with the things I was looking at were that a lot of them seemed to be basically romance novels for kids.
But I liked the Dealing with Dragons series from Patricia C. Wrede (humorous), The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword from Robin McKinley, and the Dragon's Blood series from Jane Yolen.
You can get the entire Enchanted Forest series (the name of the series that Dealing with Dragons is the first of; four books in total) for $20-30.
As a male I enjoyed it, and one of my best female friends also remembers it fondly.
I'd also throw in Sabriel, as a YA fantasy novel that I really liked, that had a female protagonist who kicked ass (rather than was there to support a male, or something else equally stereotypical)
I second the Sabriel series. I tend to think Garth Nix is a kind of Neil-Gaiman-starter author. Elements of gothic/horror stuff, but never really too scary for kids (or at least, not for me when I was that age, it tends to depend on the kid in question)
For the adventurous tomboy: "Alanna: The First Adventure" and "First Test" are the first books in two different series.
In general a good series: Sandry's Book (Circle of Magic Series)
Some of them do have romances/crushes (Alanna series more than the other two), but they're all focused on adventurous girls doing cool stuff, and the importance of hard work, friends, learning new things, etc. etc. I loved them as a kid (and now).
Lots of good recommendations below, I'll add Pegasus in Flight and The Ship Who Sang as my favorite McCaffery novels. Mercedes Lackey you do actually have to be careful with, because some of her books are reeaaaally smutty. I remember them fondly from when I was 12, but you probably don't want to be the uncle who gives them to her, come to think of it.
