Please suggest some good books for a 5 year old

[CamperFan]

DS1 is 5, in YR and quite good at reading (not stealth boasting, honest!) - he's on Stage 6, Orange books. At home, he is sharing Tin Tin with DH (i think the stories are too complex - we have to "translate" it a lot, so he can't actually read or follow them himself), but I'd like to find some really good story books that are still short enough for him to read over a maximum of two nights, but interesting stories. The ones from school are OK (seem to be Oxford Reading Tree mainly), but not that exciting!

Any recommendations gratefully received!

at this age we liked to share some of the shorter roald dahl books: the enormous crocodile is a good one as is esio trot.
beast quest books are easy to read and follow and 5 yr old boys mostly like them..... however high brow literature they are not and I didn't "enjoy" reading them together.

otherwise we started harry potter reading together at this age but that took a lot longer than 2 nights to read. you could also try the hobbit ( I read this with DS1 when he was just 7 )... this however took MONTHS to get through

Read outloud, read in his head, or share with you?

My DS2 is at a similar stage to your DS, but we find that school reading outloud is enough for him, particularly now the books are getting longer.

He still likes reading his picture books, and we are currently reading James and the Giant Peach at bedtime.

The library do a good set of first readers - yellow banana etc, which we borrow a sometimes.

DS1 was similar, but moved straight to Roald Dahl and various history books.

I just go to all the National Trust properties which have second hand book stalls in their tea rooms and buy all the appealing children's stories. I find that we/she reads so many it isn't fruitful to be too specific. With the classics Wind in the Willows, Alice in Wonderland, etc, it is. But those are read to her. My daughter can read me Where the Wild Things Are and Dr Seuss' books with lots of pleasure.

Michael Rosen books appeal at that sort of age.

Oh, and DS1 reads Beast Quest to DS2, which is great, as I don't have to read them!

Roald Dahl good idea - will have a look at those. Re: Harry Potter and The Hobbit, I'm just not sure he would be hooked enough to take that long over the same book - at 5? Despite the great reading, he definitely likes something to look at too, which is why he likes the Tin Tin books so much. I've never heard of Beast Quest, this is all new to me.

sitting (I hope your NN is not just wishful thinking!), I was thinking reading outloud so I could follow his progress, but actually it would be nice to have something to read to him as well (as in the suggestions above). But with a 19 month old DS2 as well, I don't have loads of time for reading with DS1

Ah, yes, more Dr Seuss - he does love those, and actually since his reading has improved so much we haven't read any, so I need to get those back out as he could read lots himself now.

I will check out Rosen.

Thanks.

Dirty Bertie always goes down well...

Actually that sounds very wrong

Are you sure you're on the right thread beachy?

My DS is in Reception and is ORT Level 7. He loves comics and we have some old Marvel nonsense that he loves. We have also got Dr Seuss and Charlie and Lola back out as he can read them alone now.

He loves the ORT school books on Oxford Owl. The Project X/ non fiction are a hit. Something about reading them on a laptop makes them interesting?

During a recent holiday we read The Iron Giant - A story in five nights (Iron Man) by Ted Hughes. I read it to him on my Kindle and he followed along; he absolutely LOVED it. I suggest you read it yourself first to see if you think it is suitable.

I just bought a Michael Rosen anthology from the book people for a fiver, with CD. We have had it about 4 days and 5yo DD is already reciting chunks of it and asking for the poems at bedtime. She laughs along with them even though I am sure she doesn't really 'get' them all even though I chuckled at stupid Gove wanting them to learn poetry

The Happy Family series of books by Allan Ahlberg are short and funny.

Magic Treehouse series (Mary Pope Osborn) are a big longer but simply written.

Winnie the Witch - either picture or moving onto chapter books

Ds (just turned 5yo) is similar stage reading. We've been reading and sharing books. He'll read maybe a page, or a paragraph, and I read the rest, then sometimes he'll read a bit to himself after I've gone downstairs.

In the last year (other than aircraft manuals which he loves) we've read various Little House books, a couple of Enid Blyton, War Horse (he was desperate to read it to himself but it was too hard) and are currently on When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit.

He's very interested in the World Wars hence the obvious theme here. Basically if he's interested then he really takes off with them. We've had one or two books I thought he'd love, but he wasn't interested so I moved on.

He's been reading with minimal help some fiction stories set on factual events in WWII aimed at his level. We get them from the library. He also likes Horrible Histories, again he needs some help, but they're quite well broken up for him to read a little at a time.

Was just about to post and someone has beaten me to it!!!

You cannot beat the happy families books IMO for this stage of reading they are fab and my DS who is now on lime level still re-reads them, he never tires of them!!!

Enid Blyton - faraway tree books. DS2 loved them!

Eggrules-was just about to suggest the Iron Man! DS (5) loves it so much we read it at least once a month!

For reading to him, can I suggest the David Walliams books. They are so funny and entertaining-I can read the same book to all 3DC (7,5,3) and have them giggling away.

Oh and what do people do all day? Richard Scarry. DS reads it over and over too :)

Thanks so much.

My Ds is in reception and at a similar ability to yours. He has just read a Horrid Henry Early Reader over the 1/2 term break. Read a couple of chapters a night so finished in 2-3 days.
He quite likes reading the Dr Seuss books too.

I bought a series of books from The Book People website which involve a young boy wizard called Oliver Moon. My son has read the books over and over again. (he is now 7) They have some fantastic characters in them including Oliver's little sister called the Witch Baby; we laugh out loud at the books and the text is quite straight forward. The Book People Website is brilliant as sets of books on there are a fraction of the regular price and they are categorised into rough age groups.

A five year old reading the hobbit?

Why not Homer's Iliad?

lol I didnt mean the 5 yr old would read it..... more that we'd read it "together" ( so short sentences/ bits of speech for the child and then grown up reading the rest0.

and as I said we read it when ds1 was 6/7 and it took MONTHS