First Chapter Books for 8yo DS - recommendations?

[georgeousgeorge]

I'm running out of ideas....

He has refused to read "The owl who was afraid of the dark" as too babyish - however this is about the right reading level for him.

He wants to read Beast Quest / Enid Blyton however these are too hard at the moment...

Help!

Is Tom Gates within his grasp? There are lots of short chunks, so even if his reading isn't that brilliant he can go at it in little bursts of effort. Definitely not too babyish. There's a whole series to work through.

I can think of a couple of Jacqueline Wilson books (Cliffhanger and its follow-up) that may be ok. (About a pair of boys, and not too emotionally loaded as she can be....)

Hope this helps

DS (7) is really loving the Atticus Claw books by Jennifer Grey. What about the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series too?

The Spy Dog or Spy Pups series is liked a lot by DS.

some of the Dick King Smith books? the shorter Roald Dahl (magic finger, giraffe, pelly and me, fantastic mr fox)

most of my suggestions are girly I am afraid so can't help.

Mammoth Academy possibly?

oh and Humphrey the hamster they are good.

These look great! I think a trip to a proper old fashioned bookshop may be in order, so he can choose, as that's one thing you can't do on amazon that's look at the insides!

Going to the bookshop is a great idea. Let him choose something that interests him and then pay for it at the till. DS loves doing that when we go. If it's a big store, then sitting at the table in the children's area and sampling the goods is also a handy tactic. If your DS chooses something, reads the first few pages and gets absorbed in it he will be excited about carrying on reading it at home later.

... I don't know why I didn't think of a bookshop sooner!! With Amazon it is such a lottery until it arrives....

Try the Mr Gum series by Andy Stanton. My DS loved them at that age.

Out of Enid Blyton, Secret Seven are easier than Famous Five, Adventure or Mystery series. But beyond that try the Ricky Rocket and Axel Storm series by Shoo Rayner (they are really short), some of the Horrid Henry Easy Reader series, or the Jack Stalwart series.

these ones are great as first chapter books, and will definitely bridge the gap before he is ready for Enid Blyton etc ...

The Grunts by Philip Ardagh
Fortunately, the milk by Neil Gaiman
Also try the 'Diary of' series from Shamini Flint

I found the easiest first chapter books for DS were:
Horrid henry easy readers
Flat Stanley
Magic tree house books
Diary of the killer cat - by Anne fine, humorous and would appeal to an 8 yr old-there are a few in the series
Oliver moon-may be a bit babyish
Mr Majeika
The shorter Roald Dahl listed above

Then try:
Dinosaur cove
Jack Stalwart-more mature so good for an 8 year old
Jeremy strong books-funny-my brothers famous bottom, 100 mile an hour dog
astrosaurs
stanard length horrid henry
Captain underpants
Diary of a wimpy kid
secret seven
Mr Gum
Iron man -Ted hughes
Then beast quest etc

Dino FC series
Claude books by Alex T Smith

I agree with all the suggestions of the previous post, especially Horrid Henry: this series is very popular with young boys. Mine will spend hours in bed chuckling at the horrors that henry dreams up
This link has suggestions as well.

And I will get the Diary of a wimpy kid for my son. Thanks :)

DS , just turned 8 likes Horrid Henry, Jack Stalwart and Spy Dog Series.

When I'm looking at books for him ( when he just started reading longer books) I was looking for largeish print, lots of pictures breaking the text up and not tooooo many pages. We had a good run with " Edge, Dream to win, " sports biographies and lots of Barrington Stokes books ( its publisher rather than a series, but they format books every nicely for emerging independent readers).

Diary of a Loser series

DS is 7 and his favourites at the moment are astrosaurs, diary of a wimpy kid, and fleabag monkeyface.

He has horrid henry from school. He,liked the early readers before these, mostly horrid henry but there are some others. The book people do some great packs.

I was going to suggest the Horrid Henry 'easy readers' - they are great first chapter books.
If he likes that sort of story the Dirty Bertie Books are also quite simple.
Captain Underpants are more like a comic in style, and still might be a bit hard, but worth having a look at.

Julia Donaldson's "Dinosaur Diary" and "The Snake that came to stay"
Josh Lacey's "The Dragon-sitter"

Artemus Fowl is great and he won't be embarresed to let his anyone know he is reading it - possibly an issue with an eight year old boy.