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.

Op asked for books to be read aloud to a child. At 6 my two were reading for themselves books like isadora moon, beast quest, Amelia fang, horrid henry, the adventurers, Mr gum, Daisy, bunny vs monkey, dog man.

But books we read to them were the longer ones, hobbit, the borrowers, terry pratchet etc

Quite a few of theee books are ones she should be starting to read to herself, or will soon, so be careful of using all the most fun early readers up just before she can use them. Ideally for just reading aloud to her, pitch ahead. But doing alternate pages of early chapter books is a good way of supporting their reading eg dick king smith The Hodgeheg, Dahl Esiotrot etc

Wow, so many brilliant suggestions thank you. Some I hadn't heard of and some I'd forgotten about so it's great to get a good list.

For reading to herself - it's not something she's doing a great deal of to be honest, reading has been a bit of a struggle but we've worked a lot on it and she's at the 'expected' level now, which I'm happy with given she's one of the youngest in the year. She's not 6 till August.

She absolutely loves being read to, and also listening to stories on her yoto player. I'm hoping it will lead to a love of reading independently too, but at the moment she's not quite got the fluency/ confidence. We do have more success with non-fiction, she loves an info book on animals, nature or space and has started wanting to read bits of those to herself so fingers crossed we're getting there.

Romana Quimby series. By Beverly Cleary. Still love them as an adult!

Pippi Long stocking!

Adventure Mice Series
Isadora Moon, Mirabel
My 6yo dd is also really enjoying the Dog Man series (but reading by herself).

Jill Tomlinson's animal books, I can't remember the exact titles now but they're think like The Otter Who Wanted to Know, The Gorilla Who Wantes To Grow Up, there are loads of them.

Gobbolino The Witch's Cat

I had a weird kid who didn't like anything magical or unlikely to happen in real life, but was totally okay with talking animals.

Also liked The Borrowers.

Hannah Sparkes- the land of dragons series, just under 100 pages and we were all very invested!!

Arnold Sobel's Frog And Toad Are Friends is a great one.

Very, very funny stories and she will be able to read them to herself as well. My kids grew up with Frog And Toad, but, we gave them to my neighbour's kids and they quite them to me 5 years on.

Haven't read the whole thread but will put in a suggestion of the Tumtum and Nutmeg books. They are a pair of mice who live in Nutmeg Hall in the walls of Rose Cottage. They should fit with your DD's preferences whilst not making you want to claw your own eyes out I clearly recall the pain of the bastard Rainbow Fairies!

Any of the ‘Daisy’ books, I think I like them as much as my son! We’ve read them all and I’d be happy to reread them! Absolutely hilarious, crying tears funny!

Rabbit and Bear books. Funny and lovely. Or the
Grimwood series.

Rainbow fairies I refused to read, if DD1 wanted to read them she read them herself (and she did, we'd get 10+ out of the library at a time), I would only read out loud things I liked myself. DH was more easy going about what he read to the DC but I think those simplistic early readers are for children to build up their reading stamina (just like Enid Blyton at slightly older ages), not for reading out loud. Reading out loud is more stretch time since you can discuss the book.

Thwre was no criticism, lease don’t think that. I’m just trying to imagine reading Ballet Shoes to my child - I don’t think they’d understand it at all to be honest, so I wondered if mine is hugely behind or if there’s a massive leap at around six (mine turns six in December.)

Have you tried comics? The bunny vs monkey and similar ones were what got my reluctant reader eager to read.

Already been recommended but Isadora Moon (plus the others by this author - there’s a witch series and a mermaid one now I think)

Daisy and the trouble with…

No but that’s a good idea thank you!

I think it depends on the child - my 5 year old can engage with some quite complicated books and language but he can't cope with anything scary, suspenseful, or involving Bad Things happening to the main characters (though he's okay with orphans if they're already orphaned).

I also agree with a PP re. Esio Trot - DS does like it, but I find it incredibly creepy, especially when she marries him never knowing that he's swapped her beloved tortoise and given the original away to a pet shop. We've been enjoying older books like Milly Molly Mandy (which is lovely and gentle) and My Naughty Little Sister. Also all the animal ones by Dick King-Smith as well as the Sophie ones.

In more recent stuff that I didn't read as a child DS likes the Winnie the Witch chapter books.

Did you also read the two Jack Beechwhistle ones? Poor Jack! He is quite neglected.

Oh yes! Mirror Belle is good fun (Julia Donaldson). A lot of kids like that "evil twin" trope. Plus there's a TV version I think?

Yes! It was really sad, luckily my son didn’t understand that he just thought he was so lucky to be allowed to do what he wants!

DD really enjoyed the tv version actually, so these are ones I’ll be looking out for.

I thought it was really clever of Kes Gray to show you the same character from a different POV and make you see things differently. A clever writer and the books are more sophisticated than they seem.

As a teacher, I laughed and laughed at the school trips one, and the unicorns one was comedy gold, especially the posh grandparents. And The Trouble With Giants - all I can say is, her grandad must REALLY love her!

Unipiggle! My DD had similar taste to yours ( I hate those bastard rainbow magic fairy books) and loved unipiggle

Does she like animals? I loved the Animal Ark book series (by Lucy Daniels) when I was that age. They’re lovely books and gentle topic wise.