What books to read to a 4 year old?

[wintertime6]

The books I read to my 4 and a half year old daughter are all getting much too young for her now and I'm thinking she would probably enjoy chapter books. I can only really think of Roald Dahl books? Any recommendations for something she would enjoy?

Oh- just on Narnia- I should say that I find dealing with some stuff a bit tricky at his age - like the characterisation of the Calormenes- so have gone for books that don’t need contextualising conversations about racism etc first- Silver Chair and the Dawn Treader, Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe are easier. Horse and His Boy and the Last Battle I’m holding off on...

I find uncle Andrew too creepy to be borne, so I’m not even cracking open the Magicians Nephew for a while yet!

Hairy McLary
Isadora Moon
Flat Stanley

I think 4 is too young to enjoy Roald Dahl properly.

We started Narnia with DD when she was 4 and abandoned it. Much of it was ok but when we got to the killing Aslan and pictures of animals holding daggers, I felt that was too much for her. She’s quite sensitive to ‘threat’ in cartoons etc. Also I didn’t like the heavily Christian undertones, wasn’t quite how I remembered it! But imagine we’ll come back to it.

OP, DD is 5 now and we’ve just finished the ‘naughtiest unicorn’ series of chapter books. A bit silly with lots about farting and poo but some nice messages about friendship and doing the right thing. Also enough pictures to keep her engaged.

I agree with pps that Ronald Dahl a little wasted at that age. We have read a few, she liked giraffe prolly and me, but found mr fox too scary for her with guns and trying to kill him. She found Matilda movie scary so haven’t tried the book.

Between 4 and 5 found myself ordering lots of books about emotions and friendships, as these seemed the things she needed help with at that stage. Tom Percival books are great - not challenging really but all really good for normalising experiences at nursery and starting school.