Recommendations for enjoyable chapter books to read aloud to a six-year-old

[AliasGrape]

DD will turn 6 in the summer holidays.

We have endless picture books and forever picking up more, but I’m finding it hard to find chapter books to read to her that she enjoys and don’t make me want to jump out of the window whilst reading them (I just cant face another bedtime of Rachel and Kirsty helping their fairy friends find the three magical objects over and over).

Any recommendations for chapter books for this age? She is, despite my best efforts, very into the stereotypically girly princess fairy sparkle unicorn stuff, but I would like to also encourage a bit of branching out where possible.

Things we’ve got/ read with her -

Rainbow bastard magic fairies - she loves, but even she is getting a bit over the exact same plot every time now

Secret Seven - Her dad’s been reading his old ones to her. She quite enjoyed them on and off, but has said she’s bored of them now!
I was a Famous Five girl myself and might try her with those at some point.

Magic Faraway Tree - she wasn’t interested, though to be fair she was probably still a bit young when we tried and might be worth another go

Sophie Mouse - I think they’re sweet, I think she finds them a bit dull

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - she loved this, tempted to try other Dahl’s now but she can be a bit sensitive and I think she’d find Trunchbull too scary in Matilda, I also think the BFG might scare her (might be projecting as I was terrified of him as a child!) Same for The Witches but I know there’s others. I do struggle with people being described as fat and/ or stupid on every page, think I need to get over myself a bit though.

The Worst Witch - I had high hopes but she couldn’t have been less interested!

We’ve tried a few from the library but the selection is crap and we tend to fall into the trap of grabbing anything with a fairy/ unicorn/ mermaid on the front and then they’re just not very good. Or she’ll gravitate towards stuff that’s too old for her. So I’d like to have some suggestions to reserve, or to put on her birthday list to buy please.

She is gymnastics obsessed at the moment also - don’t know if there’s any books with that as a theme?

Shes not overly fussed about independent reading yet unless it’s information books - she’ll have a go, but this is still mostly for us reading to her as she likes a story at bedtime.

I'd leave Ballet Shoes for a couple of years.

I had an illustrated adaptation of Heidi which I loved - this one:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/123895650917

Other versions are available. The original would be too much for a 6yo.

I preferred The Wishing Chair to the Faraway Tree.

My kids are 14 and 18 and we still quote Mr Gum books to each other all the time! 😅

The Teddy Robinson books are lovely. A stand-alone story per chapter with humour and a nice nostalgia (they were written in the 1950s).

Today was the first day I read a chapter book to my just turned 6 year old. It was Michael Morpurgo's Cool as a Cucumber. I really enjoyed it and she did too. Totally agree about the magic fairy books...

My 6yo DS is absolutely in love with the Tiny Dogs series of books by Rose Lihou, they are about a young girl who finds a group of tiny dogs at the bottom of the garden and their adventures together. Absolutely beautiful full colour illustrations and wonderful stories that are fun and meaningful, he’s captivated by them.

The magic finger, the twits and giraffe, pelly, all Dahl books good for now. Oh and Danny the champion.

Also I can’t recommend enough, Pamela Bucharts books. Maybe try the wigglesbottom primary ones which are younger, and if you/she likes them, then go for the older stories. I love them all but the one about the yeti is very funny.

The Claude books (lovely quirky adventures of a dog)

The Rabbit and Bear series

Shifty McGifty (there are pictures books but also chapter books)

Isadora Moon

Mary Poppins?

My daughter loved Amelia Fang at that age

I came on to recommend these too - our 5 and 7 year olds both love them!

Also recommend Isadora Moon - chapter books with illustrations about a girl who is half fairy and half vampire. Not scary - little adventures like starting a new school, going to a wedding etc. The same author has a new series The Diary of Wiska Wildflower which is about a world of tiny fairy-like creatures and has lovely colour illustrations.

OP I feel your pain about the Rainbow Fairies books and the dreaded Rachel and Kirsty…! Although if you can face it they have released some new comic book style ones which I find a little less soul destroying to read!

I liked Isadora Moon too. They were well written and witty.

When I reread esio trot I was appalled. I do love dahl but honestly the neighbour was a creepy voyeur.

LOVE Claude - he's brilliant. We also enjoyed the Mr Penguin books (imagine Indiana Jones was a penguin....) as being great fun for DD6 but also something I enjoyed reading to her. Also Knight St Louis.

I wouldn't read isadora moon to them, they should be reading that themselves and it'll use up a nice series if you read it.

Malory towers, narnia, the hobbit, ickabog, some terry pratchet (the Tiffany aching series) are all great books to read to them at this age.

The ‘Secret diary of pig’ books by Emer Stamp (4 books) are really funny. There are also three ‘Pests’ books by the same author. These books gave my then seven year old a love of reading.

My dd is the exact same age! And I hate those rainbow fairies too, even though dd inexplicably loves them.

I've been buying (on vinted) all the old books I remember from when I was that age. So those ladybird hardback books where they did 6yo versions of classics like the Secret Garden and Black Beauty. Also Choose Your Own Adventure (do you go to the planet Zerg, turn to page 21). And The Worst Witch, which was the OG magic boarding school series.

Isadora moon and all the spinoffs got us out of the rainbow fairy theme. We saw Harriet Muncaster at a book festival at that age and she was hooked. They’re adorable and very relatable.

Zoe’s rescue zoo is cute. The kitty books are fun if she likes Isadora.

Oh and we also did some stretch reads with her - the hobbit and some of the classics - a little princess and the secret garden (though that was far more racist than I remembered). I read her all of little house on the prairie which was a big hit. She still remembers them now. We tried Anne of green gables but she wasn’t as into it.

Is there a massive leap between five and six or do you all have really advanced children? I have a five year old and am panicking now thinking we’re really behind as books like Ballet Shoes, Anne of Green Gables and the like seem to me more upper primary; Year 4 - 7 maybe?

@summerheatwaves I think some posters are just generally recommending books they liked as kids.

You can read the classics to 21st century 5 and 6 year olds but my goodness some of them require a lot of explanation re vocabulary and there are significant cultural changes too. For example, I loved My Naughty Little Sister but even I was blown away by the idea you'd send a 3 year old unaccompanied in the guard's van to visit granny!

Don’t panic - It’s a judgement call. I felt the same when DS1 was in Year 2 and it seemed like all of his friends were reading Harry Potter. In contrast, I was reading Lotta says NO by Astrid Lindgren, which felt much younger.

Children will be able to enjoy with much more advanced texts if they are listening to a parent read & I’m sure that his friends got a lot out of HP. I just wanted to wait as I felt the later books had storylines more suited to older children & I didn’t wanted to spoil them by reading them too soon - this worked well for us. Lots of the older books mentioned have quite sophisticated English, so I don’t think it’s lesser reading experience than an “older text”.

That said, I did end up reading all of the Little House books at quite a young age to DS1 & 2; which I didn’t expect (I thought they would lose interest at the fashion & dating in the later books) as they were so interested in Pa building houses & Almanzo horse training.

To add to previous suggestions, Astrid Lindgren’s Emil & Bullerby series are worth a look.

Paddington Bear
Moomins

At that age, DS enjoyed:

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Narnia (we read them all)
Harry Potter 1
How to Train Your Dragon
Flat Stanley
The Magic Faraway Tree

He‘s growing up in Germany, so a lot of books contained cultural elements he just couldn’t relate to. Mr Majeika was one, as was Mrs Pepperpot.

He dislikes most Roald Dahl as doesn’t like the meanness and teasing.

My daughter re-read some of these when she could read them to herself and got something different out of them, but I think some of the stories can be understood at different levels so she loved them for different reasons at different ages. The classics go at a very calm pace (at least these sorts of classics).

My husband read all of the Hobbit and lord of the rings to my son when he was 6/7 - he liked listening but some of it didn't totally make sense until he was a little bit older.

Also no reason to panic at all! Literally any reading is great. Reading together is great. Reading on their own is great. Reading comics or science books or star wars informatics is great. If you and your child are enjoying it that's the only consideration. This post just spoke to me as I got trapped in the Rainbow Fairy loop as well and did anything and everything to escape (and flat out refused to ever read the Beast Quest to my son in fear of ending up in the same situation. He had to wait to read them to himself)

I loved the Roald Dahl books at that age like the Twits and George’s Marvellous Medicine.

I would say I may be out of touch here as I am old as shit, but I did notice they were all still on sale at Smyths!