Let's start a list of books that a parent or teacher can reccoment for children who are strong readers at an early age. I remember being able to read at adult levels long before I was ready to read about adult themes!
Nonfiction offers many choices, but here are some fiction favorites of mine and my son's:
L. Frank Baum's Oz series
The Phantom Tollbooth
My Father's Dragon
Mrs. Pigglewiggle
Sideways School
Junie B. Jones
Geronimo Stilton. About a 3rd grade reading level series of chapter books, but perfect for a young child. A mouse newspaper reporter has adventures. Sometimes referred to as the Italian Harry Potter as the books are so popular and printed in so many different languages. Plus - color pictures throughout the book and, my son's favorite, some words in the text use different colors and fonts to emphasize them.
If you have never seen them - go flip through one in the bookstore. You'll be hooked.
Mary
My 9 yr old son and I are reading Eragon which is fantastic. It is particularly interesting to him because the writer started it when he was 15 years old and it was on the bestseller list by the time he was 19. My 7 yr old loves Sharon Creech (Walk Two Moons, Chasing Redbird, Granny Torrelli).
My 7 year old has read the following and enjoyed:
Chronicles of Narnia
SugarCreek Gang
Winnie the Pooh
Peter Pan
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Great Illustrated Classics
Pippi Longstocking
Boxcar Children
Ditto the above posts for anything by C.S. Lewis or Roald Dahl.
The "Redwall" series is popular, as are "Harry Potter" and "Series of Unfortunate Events."
Rick Riordan's books are really popular with my daughter and her friends (The Lightning Thief, Sea of Monsters)
"The Guardians of Ga'hoole" series--although a little dark
"Artemis Fowl" is good; we haven't read the others in the series
The Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
Celia
Hi Celia,
I didn't see your posting for The Lightning Thief and Sea if Monsters before I started a topic for older readers.
My son just raved about them! My daughter is just starting her second book in the Redwall series. THat series should keep her occupied for awhile.
I will look for the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil although my kids don't stray too far from the fantasy/magic genre. Is it newish?
Thanks for leads.
Diana
Agree on Stilton for Kindergarteners into early chapterbooks. Also, good ol' Flat Stanley and the other Stanley adventures.
(Hate the "Magic Treehouse" books. Don't get me started. When my son read the first one, he said, "mom...isn't a Pteranodon carniverous?!? Why on earth is she petting one??")
Another vote here for the Mrs. PiggleWiggle books, by Betsey MacDonald. DD6 got some of these for Christmas and loves them.
They're not chapter books, but the "Sir Cumference" books were a hit with my kids, too.
They're also into funny poetry -- Jack Prelutsky, Shel Silverstein. Big books of poetry are great bedtime reading.
My DD5 loves Runny Babbit by Shel Silverstein so much that she "talks Runny Babbit" during normal conversation. Runny Babbit is poetry full of spoonerisms. For example,
instead of saying purple hat
we all say hurple pat
The book is a fun choice for a child who loves to play with words.
Some translations from european languages:
Nicholas, Nicholas Again, Nicolas on Vacation (great hardcover editions by Phaidon), all Moomintrolls, Children of Noisy Village and Brothers Lionheart by Astrid Lindgren.
Also check out Oscar and the Lady in Pink.
Happy reading!
Ania
DD6 has been enjoying the Magic School Bus series of Science Chapter Books. She just finished #17, Food Chain Frenzy. First she read it by herself, then we re-read it aloud together. As we read, we made a list of any words she didn't know or were hard to pronounce (chlorophyll, photosynthesis, illuminating, phytoplankton, carbohydrates, etc.) Later I typed these up, showed how each word divides into syllables so she can practice saying it, and gave a brief definition for each.
This was time consuming for me, but she's really excited to start a collection of "big words" from various books she reads. And she is learning a lot from it--expanding her vocabulary, as well as learning new concepts. DS8 wants to read the book and look over the words, too.
On the lighter side, DD6 is also enjoying a series called the Cobble Street Cousins by Cynthia Rylant. These are really quick, easy, "fluff" reading for her (age guide is 7-9), not challenging, but they're sweet books for a little girl. These would be great for a 4-5 year old girl who is starting to read chapter books.