Recommendations for read aloud books for 8 and 10 year old

[tildathyme]

My children still love me to read a chapter or two every might from a book before they go to their separate rooms and read their own books. They particularly love series but am starting to struggle to choose appropriate ones.

Critiera is: wholesome and somewhat challenging in terms of vocabulary (books they wouldn’t really read themselves), either a series of standalone book, probably a classic, we have had less luck with more modern books which they prefer to read themselves.

Over the years we have read the following: Little House on the Prairie. Narnia, Anne of Green Gables, Mallory Towers, the Worst Witch, Harry Potter, the Magic Faraway Tree, Tom’s Midnight Garden, the Secret Garden, Lord of the Rings.

Any suggestions gratefully received!

How about Alice in wonderland? Or Enid Blighton's the famous five?

If they’re used to the language of the classics I can recommend Just William. Very amusing stand alone stories. Challenging vocab. We’re on book 4 of the series with my 7&9 year old and they’re always asking for them.

E. Nesbit - The Phoenix and the Carpet, Five Children and it
Susan Cooper - The Dark is Rising series
Joan Aitken - The Wolves of Wiloughby Chase
The Little Princess

And more modern but good vocab
Lemony Snicket - A Series of Unfortunate Events

My sister read me The Painted Garden when I was eight, had appendicitis and we were moving house. I’m 56 and can still hear her voice reading it.

My children enjoyed having the Swallows and Amazons books read to them at that age.

Wind in the Willows. My grown up DC say they can still hear me reading it.
I second Lemony Snikket - great books

Stig of the Dump

Oh and also The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

And Moominland in Winter... can you tell I loved books as a child 😀

The silver sword by Ian seralier
The day hitler stole pink rabbit by (I think) Judith Kerr
Both really gripping books I've read to classes that age.

Agree with all these. Recently read The Treasure Seekers by E Nesbit to mine and it’s great (required some minor editing) and now on to the Railway Children.

Just William yes! - the audio books by Martin Jarvis are also superb.

Any classics really - Little Women, The Secret Garden, Paddington is very good.

Cressida Cowell is very good. How to train your dragon is a 12 book series (different to the films) and very good and builds over the series so worth reading the lot.

On classics, carrie’s war by Nina bawden went down well (and she has lots of other books) and the box of delights by John Masefield (there is an another book in the series that comes first that you could read too).

we have read the silver crown (but he found that a bit scary) and I tried Mrs Frisby and the rats of NIMH but he didn’t take to it but others might. They are both Robert O’Brien.

Amazing, thank you so much for the recommendations. A few I forgot we had read already - Famous Five, Ballet Shoes, Treasure Seekers. But will look into the others, some I haven’t heard of.

If they liked the Famous Five (and all of the other mystery style Enid Blyton books), they might enjoy the Adventure Island series by Helen Moss. Quite similar to FF etc but a lot more modern and the female character actually gets to contribute! DD loved those when she was about 9.

ETA: When I say "modern", I meant in terms of some of the more outdated ideas in the Blyton books.

What about the City of Ember books?
Black Beauty
Swallows and Amazons
Milly Molly Mandy books
Ballet Shoes and other Noel Streatfields
Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare
Oliver Twist

The Silver Sword

If they liked Tom's Midnight Garden you could look at Moondial by Helen Cresswell, Green Knowe, other Philippa Pearce books like The Way to Sattin Shore. The Borrowers, Narnia stories.

There's the Carbonel and Calidor series, Cynthia Harnett books, The Growing Summer by Noel Statfield and also Alison Uttley's Traveller in Time.

Books by Jan Mark are good, also Jill Paton Walsh.

Heidi and the sequels
What Katy Did and sequels
Pollyanna series
His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman

Katherine Rundell's Impossible creatures

I second Just William,I remember my mum reading that to my sister and me and we were all roaring ,so funny🤣

Mine enjoyed the Catwings series by Ursula K. Le Guin & East by Edith Pattou

Artemis Fowl. Marge in Charge (aimed younger, but pretty funny!) Are they too young to start on Discworld? Absolutely agree with How to Train Your Dragon - books far better than films, although films are good, totally different plot development.

The Princess Bride by William Goldman.

It lends itself very well to being read aloud (much as in the film).

A stitch in time 🙂

there’s loads of other good adventure series by enid blur on, the r mysteries, the five find outer sans a dog, the x of adventure, the secret seven etc also St Clare’s, the juniour dis worlds are fun, peter pan, the little white horse,
101 dalmations and the straight barking after. I do Hobbit but not lord of the rings at that age.