I thought that in the spirit of parental comradery, I would share a few of our favorites. I have had this kind of conversations with numerous other moms and we all agree that it would be really nice if there were a list somewhere that we could consult. My daughter is 8 1/2 but because of her love of reading, her reading ability is higher than what is normally considered a second grade level. So in my list I will do my best to ball park a difficulty and age range so far and comprehension and content go.
The first series of books that Addy read independently was The Magic Tree House series by Mary Pope Osborne. Initially, I was reading it to her at bedtime but soon those 20 minutes a day were not enough and so she started venturing ahead on her own. I was both very proud and very sad. She was in kindergarten at the time, late in the year, and also she is a fall birthday so she was 6 when she was reading these. However, my son Derek (who is still in kinder and is a summer b-day) is 5 1/2 and he has recently expressed an interest in reading them on his own as well. The books are very early chapter books. Very (almost painfully) repetitive and simple to follow. There are about a million (really only like 46 or something but still) of them so if your child is interested you can stay with this series for quite some time. I think it was a great series to start out with because it is interesting and fun but it's so easy to read that they feel successful when they finish.
Magic Tree House Boxed Set, Books 1-4: Dinosaurs Before Dark, The Knight at Dawn, Mummies in the Morning, and Pirates Past Noon
She also read the Betsy-Tacy books by Maud Hart Lovelace. These are older books, written in the 1950s, about two little girls and their adventures. The books get progressively more difficult and some of it is hard for little ones to relate with just because of such a huge generation gap but she really enjoyed them.
There is a series of easy readers about a girl named Cam Jansen by David A Adler that Addy also really enjoyed. It was another one that provided a successful enjoyable read for her but was pretty simple.
A to Z Mysteries by Ron Roy have been some of her favorites. She has reread some of them 3 or 4 times. She started reading these in 1st grade. There are more words per page in these books and the dialogue is a little older. But she really enjoys the mystery element. We have had a lot of fun conversations about who she thinks "did it" so I could tell she was absorbing what she read.
Geronimo Stilton books by Elisabetta Dami are also very fun. They do read like a comic book and I have a friend who didn't like that about them but it didn't bother Addy. Again she was in 1st grade more toward the end of the year so she was 7 or so when she got into these. There is a spin off about Geronimo's sister Thea Stilton. Those read older to me and I didn't enjoy them as much so she only read a few.
The Rainbow Magic books were a huge favorite. They are also all very similar and easy to read so by the time she had read a few of them (there are also about a million of these) and had the format down she could read one of them in about a half an hour.
We were introduced to a series called The World According to Humphrey by Betty G Birney when Addy was in kindergarten. I read them out loud to her but by the time she was at the end of 1st grade and into 2nd she was rereading them on her own. It is a wonderful non-gender specific story about a class pet. This is one of my personal favorites.
The American Girl books were a great bridge into more mature books. The vocabulary in some of these, especially the mysteries, is definitely more advanced and they cover more serious topics (especially the Addy series). But Addy says that series is her favorite.
She also really loved reading Ivy and Bean by Annie Barrows. She read the first one so fast I didn't believe her when she told me she was finished so I read it and quizzed her on it. She totally read it and caught things that I had missed! These are super fun and a little older but still great for younger kids.
These next few are all older books, I actually had a hard time letting her make the adjustment into some older subject matter but it has been good for her. Some of her friends in her new school got her interested in The Sisters Grimm by Michael Buckely. It's a fairy tale type book about 2 sisters and all of the fairy tale creatures they encounter. It is definitely at least a 2nd grade level for both vocabulary and content (mild fantastical violence) but it is absolutely one of her favorites.
Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew by Carolyn Keene is a fun more modern version of the classic. The girls in the books are older and so again I would say 2nd grade at a minimum but they are very fun and relatively short.
The last 2 I'll mention today are Harry Potter and the Books of Beginning series'. She started reading Harry Potter about a year ago but it was too soon. The vocabulary and complexity was too much for her. But she asked to revisit it a few months back and has been loving it. She's currently on book 4 and I can't decided how far I'm willing to let her go. We'll see. The Books of Beginning by John Stephens are ones that my husband and myself have thoroughly enjoyed. She read the first one before I could get to it and after I read it I was a little concerned because it really is kind of scary and intense. It didn't seem to bother her but then she started getting nervous about being alone and I think it was the book. So we've put that one on hold for now but I recently recommended it to my friend who's son is 10.
We are a book family for sure and I have loved watching my kids discover their own love and taste in books. It's one of my loves in life that I can share with them and I adore watching them immerse themselves in a good book.
You can find a list of these books here : Book List
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