Recommendations for enjoyable chapter books to read aloud to a six-year-old

Jill Tomlinson's animal books, I can't remember the exact titles now but they're think like The Otter Who Wanted to Know, The Gorilla Who Wantes To Grow Up, there are loads of them.

Gobbolino The Witch's Cat

I had a weird kid who didn't like anything magical or unlikely to happen in real life, but was totally okay with talking animals.

Also liked The Borrowers.

Adventure Mice Series
Isadora Moon, Mirabel
My 6yo dd is also really enjoying the Dog Man series (but reading by herself).

Pippi Long stocking!

Romana Quimby series. By Beverly Cleary. Still love them as an adult!

Quite a few of theee books are ones she should be starting to read to herself, or will soon, so be careful of using all the most fun early readers up just before she can use them. Ideally for just reading aloud to her, pitch ahead. But doing alternate pages of early chapter books is a good way of supporting their reading eg dick king smith The Hodgeheg, Dahl Esiotrot etc

Op asked for books to be read aloud to a child. At 6 my two were reading for themselves books like isadora moon, beast quest, Amelia fang, horrid henry, the adventurers, Mr gum, Daisy, bunny vs monkey, dog man.

But books we read to them were the longer ones, hobbit, the borrowers, terry pratchet etc

I loved the Roald Dahl books at that age like the Twits and George’s Marvellous Medicine.

I would say I may be out of touch here as I am old as shit, but I did notice they were all still on sale at Smyths!

My daughter re-read some of these when she could read them to herself and got something different out of them, but I think some of the stories can be understood at different levels so she loved them for different reasons at different ages. The classics go at a very calm pace (at least these sorts of classics).

My husband read all of the Hobbit and lord of the rings to my son when he was 6/7 - he liked listening but some of it didn't totally make sense until he was a little bit older.

Also no reason to panic at all! Literally any reading is great. Reading together is great. Reading on their own is great. Reading comics or science books or star wars informatics is great. If you and your child are enjoying it that's the only consideration. This post just spoke to me as I got trapped in the Rainbow Fairy loop as well and did anything and everything to escape (and flat out refused to ever read the Beast Quest to my son in fear of ending up in the same situation. He had to wait to read them to himself)

At that age, DS enjoyed:

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Narnia (we read them all)
Harry Potter 1
How to Train Your Dragon
Flat Stanley
The Magic Faraway Tree

He‘s growing up in Germany, so a lot of books contained cultural elements he just couldn’t relate to. Mr Majeika was one, as was Mrs Pepperpot.

He dislikes most Roald Dahl as doesn’t like the meanness and teasing.

Paddington Bear
Moomins

Don’t panic - It’s a judgement call. I felt the same when DS1 was in Year 2 and it seemed like all of his friends were reading Harry Potter. In contrast, I was reading Lotta says NO by Astrid Lindgren, which felt much younger.

Children will be able to enjoy with much more advanced texts if they are listening to a parent read & I’m sure that his friends got a lot out of HP. I just wanted to wait as I felt the later books had storylines more suited to older children & I didn’t wanted to spoil them by reading them too soon - this worked well for us. Lots of the older books mentioned have quite sophisticated English, so I don’t think it’s lesser reading experience than an “older text”.

That said, I did end up reading all of the Little House books at quite a young age to DS1 & 2; which I didn’t expect (I thought they would lose interest at the fashion & dating in the later books) as they were so interested in Pa building houses & Almanzo horse training.

To add to previous suggestions, Astrid Lindgren’s Emil & Bullerby series are worth a look.

@summerheatwaves I think some posters are just generally recommending books they liked as kids.

You can read the classics to 21st century 5 and 6 year olds but my goodness some of them require a lot of explanation re vocabulary and there are significant cultural changes too. For example, I loved My Naughty Little Sister but even I was blown away by the idea you'd send a 3 year old unaccompanied in the guard's van to visit granny!

Is there a massive leap between five and six or do you all have really advanced children? I have a five year old and am panicking now thinking we’re really behind as books like Ballet Shoes, Anne of Green Gables and the like seem to me more upper primary; Year 4 - 7 maybe?

Oh and we also did some stretch reads with her - the hobbit and some of the classics - a little princess and the secret garden (though that was far more racist than I remembered). I read her all of little house on the prairie which was a big hit. She still remembers them now. We tried Anne of green gables but she wasn’t as into it.

Isadora moon and all the spinoffs got us out of the rainbow fairy theme. We saw Harriet Muncaster at a book festival at that age and she was hooked. They’re adorable and very relatable.

Zoe’s rescue zoo is cute. The kitty books are fun if she likes Isadora.

My dd is the exact same age! And I hate those rainbow fairies too, even though dd inexplicably loves them.

I've been buying (on vinted) all the old books I remember from when I was that age. So those ladybird hardback books where they did 6yo versions of classics like the Secret Garden and Black Beauty. Also Choose Your Own Adventure (do you go to the planet Zerg, turn to page 21). And The Worst Witch, which was the OG magic boarding school series.

The ‘Secret diary of pig’ books by Emer Stamp (4 books) are really funny. There are also three ‘Pests’ books by the same author. These books gave my then seven year old a love of reading.

I wouldn't read isadora moon to them, they should be reading that themselves and it'll use up a nice series if you read it.

Malory towers, narnia, the hobbit, ickabog, some terry pratchet (the Tiffany aching series) are all great books to read to them at this age.

LOVE Claude - he's brilliant. We also enjoyed the Mr Penguin books (imagine Indiana Jones was a penguin....) as being great fun for DD6 but also something I enjoyed reading to her. Also Knight St Louis.

When I reread esio trot I was appalled. I do love dahl but honestly the neighbour was a creepy voyeur.

I liked Isadora Moon too. They were well written and witty.

I came on to recommend these too - our 5 and 7 year olds both love them!

Also recommend Isadora Moon - chapter books with illustrations about a girl who is half fairy and half vampire. Not scary - little adventures like starting a new school, going to a wedding etc. The same author has a new series The Diary of Wiska Wildflower which is about a world of tiny fairy-like creatures and has lovely colour illustrations.

OP I feel your pain about the Rainbow Fairies books and the dreaded Rachel and Kirsty…! Although if you can face it they have released some new comic book style ones which I find a little less soul destroying to read!

My daughter loved Amelia Fang at that age

Mary Poppins?