First chapter book

[LiquoriceAllsorts2]

My son is 4.5 and I am wanting to start introducing chapter books. Is this the right age and which ones do you recommend?

The Magic Faraway Tree is usually a hit with this age. Winnie-the-Pooh maybe? Paddington? The 'Sophie' stories perhaps.

For them to read or for you to read to them?

Seconding the magic faraway tree, my four year old is obsessed! He especially loves the audiobooks. We have just read George’s Marvellous Medicine and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and are half-through The Worst Witch series.

I started with a Dick King-Smith ('A Pig Called Lollipop' as it happens) as a sort of easy introduction to chapter books, but one of those and it was straight on to The Magic Faraway Tree, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Heidi, etc.

I'm not sure that there is a "right age." Some children are ready for simple chapter books at 4 or even 3, some don't yet have the attention span. I was an early devotee so I expected my child to be the same, but I think I put my child off by trying to introduce them too early.

The Magic Faraway Tree is quite good as an introductory one because it's basically a series of short stories with the same characters, much like Biff and Chip, but contained in one book rather than lots of little books.

The one that caught DC's attention in the end was the Ickabog.

The owl who was afraid of the dark was a big hit in our house!

Read to him. He can’t read yet