My DS (nearly 4) normally gets three picture books at bedtime. However, he overheard me talking about a friend whose 4-year-old has started getting chapter books like Roald Dahl read to him, and was very excited at the idea of a story that's so long you can't read it all in the same bedtime. I happened to have a copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, so I (foolishly) offered to read it to him. We're on Chapter 22 and he is mostly loving it. However, I am having to edit it quite heavily as I go along, because he was very worried about what might happen to Augustus Gloop. And a couple of nights later, he managed the Violet Beauregarde incident by a combination of 'being brave' and me toning down the more dramatic language. This is a child who won't let me read The Gruffalo to him even though he knows what happens at the end, and cried for about 20 minutes at the end of sodding 'Numberblocks: Treasure of Hexagon Island' because he'd tried so hard to be brave about the scary pirate and felt betrayed when it turned out it was only 21 in disguise. So I'm not sure where to go from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I was an early and voracious reader and I remember all sorts of books that I absolutely loved, but it's been 40 years, and I wasn't that kind of sensitive, so I'm struggling to think of books that will work - as far as I remember, most of the excitement of longer children's books is from the slight scariness and suspense.
So I would be super grateful if anyone with more recent experience of this age of children's literature could recommend books that have:
- short chapters (he still expects three!)
- no or minimal peril or suspense
- easy to follow narrative (he's okay at listening, but I have to remind him who is talking if the dialogue has been going on for a while).
I'm thinking maybe The Sheep Pig? But can't think of anything else suitable. I secretly hate Roald Dahl anyway but I think all the rest of his are a bit scary.