First chapter books...books that are between picture books and chapter books?

[tassisssss]

I took my wee ones book shopping yesterday (with Christmas book tokens) and had a lovely time in Waterstones choosing books.

Ds will be 5 in April and we predominantly read him picture books, the sort we've been reading for the past 2 years.

So we (on his suggestion) ventured to the 5-8 section and I was so struck by what a HUGE jump it was from one type to the next.

We eventually found one about 3 Pirates which is fab. It has about 10 chapters of a reasonable length, but loads of pictures on every page.

I'm looking for more like this. Any suggestions?

Have a look in the library. Ours has loads of the Bananas series, they are short chapter books with colour pictures and are graded in level of difficulty - Green, Red, Blue and Yellow Bananas. You can read them to him and as he gets better at reading he can read them to you. Our library also has a withdrawn stock for sale section and I have bought quite a few from that for 20p or so.

DS is five in two days time. Over the last year we have enjoyed Jeremy James, Akimbo by Alistair McCall Smith, Elmer and the Dragon series, Ralph Mouse by Beverly Cleary and lots more with longer chapters and fewer pics eg James and the Giant Peach

Try the Gaskitt family books by Allan Ahlberg. Very fast paced and loads of illustrations. We found them very useful for bridging the gap between picture bokos and proper chapter books.

Hi

My DD 4yrs old loves reading the "I can read" series.They are funny and have lots of colour pictures. They were on offer as a set with two cds on the Bookpeople website.

Also, the Walker stories £9.99 from redhouse books for a set of twelve are good but these are only line drawings, no colour.

My DS (5 and half) loves Paddington Bear (Michael Bond) and some by Dick King-smith (The Hodgeheg for example)

They are black and white but are illustrated and the DKS ones have large-ish print so the chapters really aren't long at all.