Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion book ideas for 4 year old?

Hi everyone! I'm looking for new books for my 4 year old boy. He was reading basic words by his second birthday and now enjoys reading almost anything in front of him. He recently finished all of The Magic Treehouse Books. He was reading about 1 or 2 per day.

It's been hard to find books with appropriate content for a 4 year old (he just turned 4). He has an extremely vivid imagination and intense fears. He's done okay with most of The Magic Treehouse books, but we've had to talk to him about some of the scary things.

He does love non-fiction, but I'm having more trouble finding good fiction books for him. Any suggestions would be great!!

DS5 has always adored Carl Barks duck comics (and so have I). Here are a few good'uns. If you decide to explore these, shop around; you can often get them for $5-10 US.

There is a book thread here with lots of suggestions

www.chinaberry.com, lots of nice books here

http://www.commonsensemedia.org, this has book review, talks about content, I keep this in my favorites.

You may want to read the first book in these series to make sure these are ok for your DS4.

Comet in Moominland, This is one series by Tove Jansson

Puppy Place by Ellen Miles

Books by Janet Brett, wonderful illustrations

The Mysterious Cheese Thief, Series by Geronimo Stilton


Nate the Great, a little easier than Magic Tree House

Cara the camp fairy / by Daisy Meadows. This series looks girly but my son liked them too.

I *found* this website when I was wondering the exact same thing. Why are there only 45 Magic Treehouse books?! (Only 41 in paperback...) Here's the link to the thread I found: http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/18268/1.html

Here's more discussion:
http://nicoleandmaggie.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/preschooler-chapter-books/ There are some great suggestions in the comments as well.

Magic and non-fiction have definitely been the way for us to go. He's also enjoyed Arnold Lobel. The Wizard of Oz and Magic School Bus have given us some traction. Right now he's all about science books. They really need to reprint Ruth Chew's books, but your library may have some.

I don't know if it was here... that I saw recommendations for the Andrew Lost series (J C Greenberg) and the Nathaniel Fludd Beastologist series (R L LaFevers). Andrew Lost has a tinge of magic school bus in the factual references.

With both it's nice to read at least the first in the series first.

Polly

We had a similiar problem. Some older books are good ( e.g., Bobbsey Twins). Also Little House on the Prairie series (people think of them for girls, but my son loved these), Cam Jansen, Encyclopedia Brown, Dragon's of Blueland.

Hope this helps. It is very tricky to find appropriate content. My son would fall apart over anything scary or supernatural at that age (he is fine with it now). I did find that books written 40-50 years ago worked very well. My local librarian helped us by looking for older books on topics my son would find interesting ("Wild West," for example).

Definitely the older books, as mentioned above.

You might try The Phantom Tollbooth -- my son loved that one around age 4.

Also the Beverly Cleary books, such as The Mouse and the Motorcycle, Henry and Ribsy, the Ramona and Beezus books (I think they just made a movie of one of those?).

There is a great poetry book called A Pizza the Size of the Sun that he might like, and another called Science Verse, I forget the authors.