Charlotte got me a Kindle Fire for Christmas one year. And we got my mom a Kindle Fire HD for Christmas last year and we love it. We use Amazon a lot so it's really nice with Prime and all of that. I read, play games, watch Netflix and you can use Skype. The Kindle Fire also has a butt load of parental controls so you don't have to worry about what she is doing. You can also adjust what she does, have it so she can only play 30 minutes of games but hours of reading.
The only way this wouldn't be the buy for you is if you don't want to use the Amazon Appstore. If you do have Prime then you get a bunch of extra goodies. You would then have Amazon Instant Video, which is just a bunch of Prime (free) movies and TV shows, unlimited cloud space, Prime Music, 2 day free shipping, etc.
My niece has one of these as well. She also has an IPad Mini that she loves. If you don't mind buying a fruit then maybe you can look for a last generation IPad for sale. I'm sure there isn't much of a difference between them.