All girls should have the first 60 or so Nancy Drew books – the originals, not the ones hacked up by the pc police (http://www.series-books.com/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Drew ). My granddaughters also like the new Nancy Drew computer games and the 1930 movies (I think 4).
They also particularly like the two series of books by Lucy Maud Montgomery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucy_Maud_Montgomery): the Anne of Green Gables series and the Emily of New Moon series (unlike most, I prefer the latter series to the former).
The Canadian TV series of “Anne of Green Gables” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_of_Green_Gables_(1985_film ) is outstanding.
They also liked the books of Rosemary Sutcliff (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemary_Sutcliff ). Particular favorites were Tristan and Iseult (1971), Black Ships Before Troy (1993), The Wanderings of Odysseus (1995), ant the Arthurian series: Sword at Sunset (1963) also a part of the Eagle of the Ninth series, The Sword and the Circle (1981), The Light Beyond the Forest (1979), and The Road to Camlann (1981).
Like all kids of their generation they loved the Harry Potter books (7), movies, games, and particularly the seven audio tapes (all done by Stephen Fry - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Fry - I think). (They thought the tapes particularly good (and I did too – outstanding in fact) – lots of audio tapes are bad, but the good ones can be great for both entertainment, going to sleep by – and learning correct enunciation.)
They also much enjoyed the Narnia series, both the books and the three most recent movies (the older movies are not all that good).
They also liked Philip Pullman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Pullman ), mainly the Dark Materials trilogy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Dark_Materials ), and the one movie so far based on one of them (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Compass_(film) ). (Pullman is not my cup of tea.)
One more particular favorite writer was Elizabeth Enright. Three of her books they liked were 1938 Thimble Summer, 1957 Gone-Away Lake, 1961 Return to Gone-Away.
We watched a LOT of old movies. Their favorite players were Jean Arthur (who was around a looong time – she played the homesteader’s wife in “Shane”), Myrna Loy, Ginger Rogers, Deanna Durbin, Betty Grable (and to a lesser extent Rita Hayworth and Ava Gardner), Fred Astaire, William Powell, Gary Cooper, Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, Ray Milland, David Niven, and Haley Mills.
Their favorite series were the “Frances” series (6), “Charlie Chan” (lots), “The Thin Man” (6), Topper (3), all the Deanna Durbin movies (20 or so), some of the Betty Grable musicals, and all the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals (10) (they liked other musicals too, particularly “The Sound of Music”, “Mary Poppins” (for some reason, they did not like the books all that much), “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”, “One Touch of Venus”).
They liked most all movies with ghosts. In addition to the Topper series some were “Blythe Spirit”, “The Canterville Ghost” (they preferred the earlier version with Margaret O’Brien to the 1996 remake), Abbot & Costello in “The Time of Their Lives”, “Blackbeard’s Ghost”, “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir”, “Here Comes Mr. Jordan” (and to a lesser extent the remake “Heaven Can Wait” and the semi-sequel “Down to Earth”), and when older “The Uninvited”. You can find a list of ghost movies at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ghost_films .
Some other old movies they particular liked include “Beau Geste”, “The Bishop’s Wife”, “Father Goose”, both versions of “The Parent Trap”, “I Married a Witch, the six Herbie movies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbie#Films ), the 1960 “Swiss Family Robinson” (a somewhat similar more recent movie is “Nim’s Island”), “Candleshoe”, “The Major and the Minor”, “Bachelor Mother”, "Gigi", and the 1961 "The Absent Minded Professor".
NB – generally, DVDs when available are preferable to tapes, particularly DVDs with English subtitles. However, this is not always the case. This is sometimes pointed out in Amazon readers’ comments.
They particularly liked a number of TV series: “I Dream of Jeannie”, “Bewitched”, “Mister Ed”, the BBC Miss Marple series with Joan Hickson (12 - some of the other Miss Marple with different actresses too but not as much), the BBC Sherlock Holmes series with Jeremy Brett (11) (we saw all fourteen of the old Sherlock Holmes movies with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce – they were perfect in their parts but the movies were not all that good), some of the BBC Poirot series with David Suchet (he has stated that he plans to play Poirot in all the Poirot stories Agatha Christie wrote – should finish in 2011), and "Highway to Heaven".
We had a large number of books of a wide variety of comic strips. They liked all, but their very favorite was “Calvin & Hobbes” (http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Calvin-Hobbes-v/dp/0740748475/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1296779803&sr=1-1).
They want me to add that they much enjoyed playing with paper dolls – two still do. Their favorites were ones from Dover. I sometimes ordered from Dover, sometimes from Amazon (I think you can order any Dover product from Amazon).