Card Captor Sakura is adorable. I think it would be a really great place to start. My little sister loved it. I don't think there's anything inappropriate in it. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. My sis read it when she was about 11, I think. She watched the anime before that even. Very sweet show.
Also, anything "Teen" rated by CLAMP (NOT older teen, be sure to check the warning carefully) should be fine for your daughter's age, I think.
I'm a girl, grew up on Ghibli and started reading manga when I was about your daughters age (I was 13, actually) so I sorta have an idea of what she might be into/what might be inappropriate for her. What sort of manga does she want? Shoujo is manga "for girls" usually centered around a romance. Shounen is "for guys" and is more action-y/fighting based. Most of what I'm suggesting in this post is shoujo.
Do you know about the rating labels on the back of the books? They help A LOT. I'll give you my interpretation of them, since they can be sorta confusing/hazy in what they actually mean, content-wise:
Anything under "Teen" rating should be very safe for her age, no doubt. I think Teen is sorta like PG.
Teen is probably ok... I'd be pretty shocked if it isn't. Skip Beat! Is a very cute, well done, well known, Teen rated series. It's about a girl that wants to get into showbiz and the romance is just peripheral and very innocent too.
Older teen is where you need to be most careful. They can be rather iffy or just mildly objectionable. It really varies.
It can range from pretty explicit sex (steamy but only breasts and butts shown - genitals are blocked/not drawn at all (see Ceres, by Yuu Watase - I remember mid/end book 7 it starts to get dicey, if you want to see for yourself what I'm talking about. It caught me off-guard when I was maybe 13, but I was not scarred or anything. It is also pretty violent, limbs getting amputated in fights, decapitations, blood spatters, guts... Sorta the equivalent of an PG-13/borderline R rating. Still PG-13, i think, but I can see parents writing in to complain about it being inappropriate for their 13 yr old. Actually, I think the violence could put it through to an R.
But some other older teen books are not really too inappropriate - more on the border of PG and PG-13.
What comes to mind is Imadoki, another series from Yuu Watase that is just generally adorable. The protagonist's relationship with the guy centers around a school gardening club and the most objectionable thing in it is that one of the protagonist's friends is a bit of a party girl and gets pregnant (the sex is just alluded to in words, very briefly). Kisses are the pinnacle of all the other relationships in the series. Another Yuu Watase one that I really enjoyed as a kid (probably at 14 or so) was called Alice 19th. It was adventure/romance and I really had fun reading it. It has boobs shown once or twice but not in a sexual way. Maybe it's a little violent for her though... But I'd put it right at PG-13.
I don't really know how mature your daughter is (12 is kind of a variable age, maturity-wise), so I'm just tossing out everything here - sorry if it seems like it doesn't apply to your kid at all. Feel free to pm me or post here if you have more specific questions about content/recommendations. Between me and my sisters, I can think up some more, I'm sure. (:
22 Jan 2011, 10:46 am
