I have a 7yr old who has high functioning autism and loves reading. He has always shown an interest from birth and had a long attention span for books. So I kept buying him books, borrowing books and reading whenever we had the chance. He struggled with his reading at first and had a lot of problems with comprehension but then it just clicked. He is now reading well ahead if his peers, and has an hour of silent reading on his own every night.

This has freed me up to read with my daughter as she always had to sit and listen to whatever he wanted us to read before. We have now read through all her favourites several times over and she needs some new books on her shelf. She is 4yrs old and recently tested in the very superior range (despite having had to put up with her brother's needs often being met before hers). I would like to try and offer some more opportunity for language enrichment than I have has time for in the past and am after some good book suggestions. She is starting to read on her own but I am looking more for things I can read to her at bedtime, when my son is preoccupied with his books and I have some quality time for her.

She loves a lot of the language in the old classics, her favorites include any of the Beatrix Potter books, The Velveteen Rabbit, Alice in Wonderland. Books my son would never have been interested in as the language confused him. We have read a lot of Dr Suess as these were my son's favourites early on. She also loves the fancy nancy series with all the big words, which she will then quickly use in her own conversations soon after learning them.

While her scores were pretty consistent, her verbal IQ was quite impressive, and I would like to nurture it with some good children's books that might give her some of the extension she has been lacking. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Chapter books:
Half Magic and sequel
Betsy-Tacy and sequels
Mandy

Picture books:
The Secret in the garden
The night is singing
Ladybug girl and sequels
Blueberry girl

Have fun!

Milly-Molly-Mandy and sequels
Little House on the Prairie and sequels
Ramona books

For herself, if she's just starting to read, see if she likes the Rainbow Magic fairy books. Those were the "crack" that got my daughter reading independently when she was five. Don't read them aloud - they'll melt your brain - but little girls seem to love them.

I've always liked the Shoes books, by Noel Streatfeild. Theater Shoes, Ballet Shoes, Skating Shoes, etc.

If she likes the language of the classics and has the attention span for the bigger books, she might like those. They are classic, old, and British. I'm still waiting for my DD to get to where she will sit through them -- we just finished our first large chapter book with no pictures, The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles, and she was a bit worn out on it by the end. We're starting on The Wizard of Oz soon, after she fills up on books with more pictures again!

I second Half Magic -- that's still one of my favorites. The Night They Stole the Alphabet is in there, too -- can't recall author.

Beverly Cleary books, like The Mouse and the Motorcycle, Henry and Ribsy, Ramona the Brave.

Kate DiCamillo's Edward Tulane is very much like The Velveteen Rabbit, and her other books are lovely, too. The Tale of Despereaux is one of the last books that my DD allowed me to read aloud to her.

The Great Brain (series).

Take a look at the ALA's list of Newbery winners and honorees for examples of remarkable children's literature, too. We found some amazing books that way when my DD was this age.

The suggestion is good, but be sure to prescreen for suitability. You would not believe the number of dead dogs in Newbery books, especially the winners. It's become an in joke for me and one of the other moms at DD9's school. Newbery books are generally aimed at middle schoolers, and may be too much for a younger child emotionally even though they are good books.

We have never read to our children. I wonder if that is considered unusual around here.

DS would be apoplectic without books and reading as a family. We easily spend 2-3 hours each day, often more, reading at his behest. It is his greatest passion.

To the OP--
- The Enid Blyton books (not the "Noddy" series) are a great hit.
- James Herriott's various animal stories are delightful and innocent. I used to love the cat stories as a child. (I still do, actually!)
- Jane Hissey is a fabulous author and draws remarkable pencil crayon illustrations. Her stories were adventures written for her children starring their favourite stuffed animals.
- Shel Silverstein poetry.
- Paddington Bear. Anthropomorphism FTW!

I bet! Not even when they were tiny? Why not?

Depends on taste; my 4yo was very easily scared by books which made many things unsuitable. I do remember him enjoying

Winnie the Pooh (the originals of course!)
Farmer Giles of Ham

and to my surprise, Seamus Heaney's wonderful translation of Beowulf!

We were just looking today through some of DD6's "little" books So many awesome ones, but Sparkle and Spin stood out to me as being so nice and 'languagey' we just had to read it again right then. It's by Ann and Paul Rand

By 4 my daughter was heavily into all the Roald Dahl books and the Harry Potter series. Absolutely loved them. Most nights she'd sneak her light on again after we finished reading aloud to her, and read ahead in the books.

Anything by Oliver Jeffers!
Violet the Pilot
Curious George
Corduroy
Elephant and Piggie
Mercy Watson series
Dodsworth in [New York] series
Ladybug Girl and Bumblebee Boy
Fantastic Flying Books for Mr Morris Lessmore
Animalia
The insomniacs
Poppleton Series
Clementine Series
Harry Potter
Magic School Bus
Harold and the Purple Crayon
Danny and the Dinosaur
Neville
The Curious Garden
Shrinking Violet
The Cloud Spinner
Extra Yarn
I Want My Hat Back
Red Knit Cap Girl
Lemony Snicket Series of Unfortunate Events

Have fun!

And how could I forget William Joyce!

My DD loved The All of a KInd Family series at that age, especially because the youngest sister was also 4 in the first book. Same with the first in the Ramona series. She loved having a character her age. I strongly second the Shoe books. They are really wonderful. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach and Peter Pan were also big hits. We waited until she was 7 for the Harry Potter books but then they were huge favorites. I I would not have been comfortable doing them with a 4 year old.

If you are reading aloud you can still do some editing if needed. We went through a lot of the classics on audio books but there is a lot of racist language, death and violence it would have been nice to edit out if we were reading them aloud instead. Especially Doctor Doolittle.

Thanks everyone! Some fantastic ideas here!! Someone at work suggested the Enid Blyton faraway tree series and I hadn't considered them before because my son only discovered them when he was 6 (and quickly read the lot)! So we started with that last night and she is loving it. It is her first book without pictures other than Alice in Wonderland which we have listened to as an audiobook on our long commute to school pickup (my son is in an autism unit about 30mins away).

I told her when we started that there aren't any pictures but the words help you to make pictures in your head. She kind of brushed me off and said "don't worry mum, I can make pictures with my imagination!" She has asked me to read chapters at times other than bedtime, retelling bits of the story to her brother and asking in depth questions as we go, so it seems like it is the right level for her.

She will be starting school herself next term so will have lots of readers and picture books that she can borrow then. So I will focus on chapter books I think.

My current favorite book for precocious little girls is Fanny by Holly Hobbie. It deals wonderfully with many issues little kids face, such as being different, being left out, and not getting what you want from your parents. Fanny takes thing into her own hands, solving her own problems. But the best part, is I used this book to introduce my DD to the concept of recursion.

Of course, my all time favorite book to read is Wet Dog by Elise Broach. It's really a fun to read poem combined with amazing illustrations by David Catrow (who I think has become by wife's favorite illustrator... which is really saying something if you knew my wife and her artistic capabilities).

Uh, yeah, I'll bite! You didn't read to them when they couldn't read??

Suggestions:

Catwings
Jenny and the Cat Club
The Moomin series by Tove Jansson
My Father's Dragon
Pippi Longstocking

Enid Blyton's "the magic faraway tree" is what we are reading to our 4 year old (well when he lets us read instead of taking the book from us! lol )

On the other end of the spectrum, I wonder how many others read to their children while they were still in the womb.

I suspect more than a few. We're in that group.

As far as vocabulary and language we love anything by William Stieg. He has written at least three chapter books that are stellar. And, there is something about E B White that is very special to read aloud.

At 4 my DD's favorites by far were the Berenstein Bears. She still likes to pull them out occasionally and re-read them now at 8.

Just be aware that there's a small subset of those books that carry a fundamentalist Christian message, and are unidentifiable from the rest except for a tiny "Living Lights" icon and Mike Berenstain's name (Stan and Jan are the original authors) on the front cover. So unless fundamentalism is your thing, you'll want to avoid those.

YES! I so wished that my DD had enjoyed being read to more than she did. I did read Charlotte's Web to her, though, when she was about three. We both cried when Charlotte said goodbye to Wilbur.

She basically refused to be read aloud to once she learned to read, though, so this was a very short and sweet period in her life and ours.

Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankwiler
Cynthia Rylant has some nice read-aloud books (we especially liked Gooseberry Park)
Harry Potter
Chronicles of Narnia
Half Magic

I really tried to read books beyond their own reading level at that point, as I think it helped with vocabulary. That, and I could stand reading Junie B Jones or the A-Z Mysteries out loud!

Kid vary, but Harry Potter would not have worked with the 4-year-olds here (much too dark and scary). DS5 read the Narnia series a few months ago but I am definitely holding back HP for now. (I also think he would miss a lot of it, though he is not PG or anything so YMMV.)

Cynthia Rylant is totally awesome for this age, though--she has some really sweet early chapter books that are gentle as could be but not dumb.

That's right. They eventually taught themselves to read at age 2 or 3, so it turned out okay.

I'm still curious as to the reason why. Care to share?

I will throw in a plug specifically for Mr. Putter and Tabby, who are particularly beloved in our family.

Ultra's already mentioned Moomintroll, which I had forgotten earlier, to my embarrassment.

I would add Ogden Nash's book, Custard the Dragon, and to a lesser extent its sequel.

Shel Silverstein's books, in particular The Missing Piece and The Missing Piece Meets the Big O, are a huge favorite of my DD7 and have been for years.

Jack Prelutsky's A Pizza the Size of the Sun is another grand silly poetry book that is very popular with both my kids.

The Lyle the Crocodile books were my absolute favorites when I was very small.

Avi's series: Poppy, Poppy and Rye, etc.

22b, you'll have to forgive me, but I kind of feel like we are being trolled. You NEVER READ a SINGLE BOOK to your children, yet they cracked the code and taught themselves to read at age 2? Did they watch a crapload of educational TV and play Starfall all day? There had to be some mechanism of learning.

Freddy Goes to Florida by Walter R. Brooks (and other Freddy books)

Winnie the Pooh

I know someone said Newberry books but I loved going through all the Caldacott books with my sons. Some of them they didn't like but I loved doing things like reading Stone Soup and then making our own stone soup. Or reading a Caldacott winner book and then reading all the books we could find by that same author (we called them author studies).

Or if a Caldacott book has other versions by different authors (like Stone Soup does) we enjoyed getting them all out and doing some comparing and contrasting of the versions. Explaining that some tales started as oral stories and so now that they are written down there are slightly different versions.

This might be a helpful book Classic Children's Literature for Your Home Library: 550 Years of Delightful Reading (1450-2000) [Paperback] by Rev. Paul Peck M. Ed or maybe your library has something like this in its reference department.

My kid loves Charlotte's Web. He rereads portions of it even now. We finally checked out "The trumpet of the swan" - he is about four chapters in (I keep meaning to preread the book, but haven't yet done so)

Yes! Moomintroll books - how I could forget those? My boys love those stories!

I read to all my kids while pregnant - in fact I recall my husband reading during my first pregnancy and us having a good giggle as he absent mindedly showed my bump the pictures.

There are a few Puppy Mudge (level 1, or maybe pre-level 1) books, too, for kids who are just starting out.

DD is started to level out of Rylant's books, and I think I will miss Henry and Mudge and Mr. Putter.

Arnold Lobel has some wonderful books: the Frog and Toad series is my favorite, but we also enjoyed "Fables" and many of his others.

When DD was 4, she had a hard time listening to regular chapter books for some reason. The first chapter book she really got into, when she was 5, was "Beezus and Ramona" (in which Ramona is 4yo). After that we read through several more Ramona books, then went on to the first few books of the Little House on the Prairie series.

Dr. Seuss is always good, and can lead to conversations about characters and feelings and morals.

Yes, we never read to our children. The oldest started reading at about 2.75, the 2nd at 3.75, and the 3rd is a non-reading toddler. We've had plenty of toys including educational electronic toys, laminated charts, puzzles, things to build with, and climb and jump on. And we've had plenty of (cheap 2nd hand kids') books to pick up, look at, and eventually read. There've been great PBS Kids shows: Word World, Super Why, Between the Lions, Signing Time, Sesame Street, Electric Company. Internet usage probably came after initial reading, but it is a great resource to reinforce reading, and learn maths and other things. There is unlimited screen time in our house. So our children have been surrounded by plenty of information to enable them to "crack the code" and teach themselves to read. But we never read to them, and we never actively taught them.

Enid Blyton, the Faraway Tree. Also the Magical Wishing Chair.

But, seriously, whyever not?! Even if they taught themselves to read at a week old, that seems so sad!!

I'm surprised that any child in a print-rich environment wouldn't ASK to be read to prior to gaining literacy for themselves.

Just because they ask doesn't mean a parent won't say no. If there's unlimited screen time from birth and they have never had the experience of cuddling up a having a story together they may not ask.

My eldest was read to in the womb and daily from birth. She had no screen time a all until 2+ years and then very limited time. As far as I can tell it had absolutely no impact on helping her learn to read at all (extremely delayed reading)...

Second child we basically forgot to read to before 6 months, we were so overwhelmed dealing with both of them. By then she was old enough to have an opinion on being read to, which amounted to "no way in hell". She found the love of books a few months later but probably never had the same volume per day, just not interested in sitting around that long. She learned the alphabet at 2 (before her 4.5yrs older sister who was struggling so much, as a side product of our attempts to teach her sister). She was reading novels well before the age her older sister mastered the alphabet...

Youngest child, similar story to the 2nd, only she was later again in tolerating being read to (over 12 months) and at 3yrs old still rarely tolerates more than 1-2 books a day... But learned the alphabet at 18months and is learning to sound things out and spell (iPad). I'm guessing she'll read the earliest.

Book interest and exposure has had an almost inverse relationship to reading aloud in our house.... Which I'm pretty sure is not evidence of anything at all, other than my kids are odd, and different from each other...

HK, not only does my youngest not ask she declines to be read to when offered... And yet I would describe her as loving books, enthusiastically choosing which book, etc. she just seems to have a clear idea about when and how much...

Oh, I definitely understand that. My DD very SELDOM wanted to be read to, and that was from day one. But she did ask periodically-- as you say, on HER terms, however.

I think the key word there is "aloud", because if you love being read to, why tip off the parents that you could be left alone?

22B: Might I ask what the philosophy behind "we do not read to our children" would be?

There's no "philosophy" and I never said we wouldn't have read to them. It's more that it just didn't end up happening.

? I totally don't get it.

I didn't read to my son when he was younger. He didn't like to sit in my lap and be read to. He didn't like to be read to without sitting still either. Now he does and lately I've read him "Peter Pan", "My Fathers Dragon", "The Whipping Boy", "Charlie and The Chocolate Factory", and started to read "A Little Princess". My daughter has always liked to sit in my lap and let me read picture books. My son was willing to be taught (many things), but was willing to sit in my lap and read picture books to me before he started liking sitting in my lap and letting me read picture books to him.

Me neither. My bibliophile brain is going haywire.

Yes, mine too! I keep picturing my kids' little toddler faces intently listening, gripped in the story. It's a different face to their reading faces and it's making me (unreasonably) sad to think of other little kids not having that face! haha

Mr W (5y) and I read to each other. I read one page and he reads the next. We stop to discuss. We do from 20-100 pages a day around a 5th grade level.

Right now we are working through Peter Pan stuff - including some newly released Tinker Bell books. He was into pirates recently so Treasure Island went down well. We generally pick something he is into then find books around his lexical ability or just beyond it. We screen for sexual topics, but not for death as he has been through some difficult family situations and it helps for him to see others dealing with it.