A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer

Here's something I've been thinking about for a while. The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer is a cyberpunk (wikipedia says postcyberpunk) book by Neal Stephenson. It tells the story of, among other things, a very cool technologically advanced book with the same name as this post. The book is designed to, over the years, interact with and teach a young girl the things necessary for her to become an educated and refined (it's created by a gentleman in a Victorianesque society) young lady, but also an independent and downright badass girl with the skills to do anything she wants (which in Nell's case includes beating the crap out of a violent insurrectionist group and saving the world). The original idea for the Primer came from a man who wanted to make sure that his granddaughter didn't grow up to be just another educated but mindless Victorian lady.

So here's what I've been thinking: even though we don't have the technology for a real Primer, shouldn't there be some way of producing a similar effect from a combination of things that are available to us? You can't force exposure to all these things on a child, but you can encourage. Of course different people will place importance on different things, but for me, this is the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer:

A big part of it is about doing anything active, not spending every hour sitting in the house, watching TV, or even reading. The best activities are ones that teach a skill or information, although it's important to find things that one actually enjoys. Personally, I think the following things are important:
-exploration of the physical world, whether it's city streets or trees and streams
-some kind of self-defense - even if you think you will never need to use it, it can help with confidence and independence
-knowing how to make things and fix things that are important in daily life
-and, finally, partly due to my personal prejudices, but also realistic, I think: lots of reading

The real purpose of this post is to expand on that final suggestion about reading, because it is not enough to read just anything. There's a lot of crap out there. There's also a lot of stuff that isn't crap and definitely should be read, but doesn't contribute a lot towards the goal of the Primer. So, from my completely biased perspective, here are the books that do contribute towards that goal of opening the mind and/or helping a person to resist sheephood. If you have any to add, please let me know.
(Given in order according to approximate age-appropriateness.)

A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer:

Andrew Henry's Meadow, by Doris Burn
The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss
The King's Equal, by Katherine Paterson
Le Petit Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster
Island of the Blue Dolphins, by Scott O'Dell
Tuck Everlasting, by Natalie Babbitt
The Giver, by Lois Lowry

The Wind Singer, by William Nicholson

Alanna: The First Adventure, by Tamora Pierce
Holes, by Louis Sacher
Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card
The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman
Abarat, by Clive Barker
The Host, by Stephenie Meyer

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins

The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood
Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer, by Neal Stephenson