books for year two boys - Marina? Roisin? Anyone?

Don't say that Roisin! The number of ideas you've given me for ds - and not just on the books front either!

Don't say that Roisin! DD2 is going to be seven this month. Any suggestions for birthday books for her. I saw Lucy Willow by Sally Gardner in Waterstones the other day and plan to get her that, but would like a few more books that are a bit more individual than the stuff she normally reads (Daisy Meadowes, Enid Blyton, Linda Chapman)

I've just seen this.
Looks like I'm redundant

I have to say I find it so much easier with DD2 who is six and reading at a reasonable level for her age - she can read for instance Roald Dahl or those dangblasted fairy books or Enid Blyton by herself, but would probably struggle with, say, Harry Potter.
DD1 on the other hand, at the same age, had outgrown all of the obvious authors and I had a really hard time finding appropriate material for her. She was reading E Nesbit and so on at six, but the majority of the books that were complex enough for her reading needs were too much on another level - she was given Jacqueline Wilson's The Illustrated Mum at school for instance which I felt was wildly inappropriate - and I am quite liberal by most standards.

He is nearly 8. The Updike example was the Rabbit books, he thought they were about animals. It's the spine titles!
But as you say, the major hassle is sifting through all the excellent confident younger reader fiction around these days, and deciding what will fit with your child's fear/comprehension threshold. It's a puzzler sometimes.

DS loves Roald Dahl and those Ricky Ricotta ones.

Agree Rosa. I think my DS would be capable of reading Susan Cooper etc now (Y2), but I really don't think he would understand them. Will be delighted when he is ready for them though. At the moment it is Horrible Histories mixed with Narnia, and Lemony Snickett is waiting to be read, along with Adolphus Tips, and a large box of tissues!

Bellow and Updike! - blimey Marina how old is your DS? I think too, it is not just a matter of what is age-inappropriate, as those examples clearly are, but also, of what we push on children too early, and maybe put them off, when they might enjoy them more if they discovered them for themselves at a slightly later date. The threads on here are often full of these well-meaning recommendations which I feel are actually counter-productive as you end up with a child who has 'read' say Michelle Paver, Susan Cooper, Richmal Crompton or Ursula Le Guin (to give some of the examples from this thread) at six, but hasn't remotely entered into the kind of emotional engagement with them that they would be capable of at ten or twelve.

Joan Aiken- Black Hearts In Battersea- brilliant
Michelle Paver- Wolf Brother series
Penelope Lively-The Ghost of Thomas Kempe
Susan Cooper- The Dark is Rising
Arthur Ransome- Old Peter's Russian Tales

Louis Sachar? Jan Mark? Pete Johnson? Kevin Crossley-Holland?

My DD2 who is also year 2 is loving Famous Five at the moment. Marginal improvement on the secret seven I think - the girls get a little more share of the action.

Drosophila I too love the Earthsea books but I wouldn't have gone that far. Still it could have been worse - he would presumably have named a son Ged!

I loved Ursula K LeGuin, must dig those out.
Ds currently seems to prefer bombs to cloaks though

We have this issue too Rosa. Ds is a nosy confident reader in a house full of age-inappropriate literature (from Dilbert cartoon albums to Saul Bellow, to John Updike to Eric Schlosser, we've confiscated them all). We feel very cheered when he revisits some of his younger books because we can relax for a bit. He came home with a book, for children, by that SAS meathead Chris Ryan, from the book sale at school this week

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DP read the Earthsea books to DS (7). i htink it was more cos he loved them. He even wanted to name our DD Urusla.

Ursula le Guin's Earthsea book are fantastic but I can't agree they would be suitable for a 6/7 year old. They are brilliant for early teens but the themes they deal with would be way over the head of a younger child.
I do think there is a temptation when you have a child who is a very able reader to give them books that they would probably enjoy much more when they are slightly older - this is something I have struggled with a lot myself, but when you have a six year old who can read and comprehend at the level of a 12-year-old it is hard to remember that they are not getting the same thing out of the book that an actual 12-year-old would.

DS1 (now 8 and in Y4) read the first two Alex Rider books last year and gave up half way through the third. I can't say I blame him. They're very ...... dry, and very 'men's action' type stuff. He hasn't wanted to try Young Bond yet.

Ursla Lequin has written fantasy books for children and my DP thinks they are fantastic. Some argue that a certain very very popular children's writer who has writen a series of fantasy books for kids is much inferior. here

DS1 loved Varjak Paw and gulped it down ravenously.

Here

Hi puddle, there was a dicussion started by cod the other day on the merits of Alex Rider vs Young Bond.
The consensus was that Yr 2 is on the young side for either and that Alex Rider is actually better than Young Bond, which was depressing news for those of us who are grinding through Stormbreaker without having tried Young Bond yet.
Will find and link.
Varjak Paw has been a bigger hit with ds than Grk, interestingly.