Recommend me a non picture book for me to read at bed time to my 5 year old

[Mypopcornface]

So, dd is 5 and still struggling with phonics and reading. I'm the only one reading to her and with her as everybody else from the family isn't interested. It is really sad as my accent is atrocious and even tough I can read very well for myself I have to make a big effort and pronounce very careful land slowly to not say the words wrong. Anyway, picture books are fun but I want to start reading a longer story to her, maybe one chapter each night? I'm thinking the wizard of oz or the secret garden, what do you think? Please reply with your suggestions. Thanks.

Agree with the suggestion of audiobooks.

I'm not saying your accent isn't "good enough": I'm not sure it matters as much as you think it does. Maybe it does matter, I don't know.

But it sounds like reading aloud in the way you feel you ought to do is tiring and is a bit of a chore for you. It might be more relaxing and pleasant to snuggle up together in bed or on the sofa and both listen to an audiobook. And if it's fun for both you and your daughter, it will happen more.

By the way, if you are interested in older "classics" you can download audio versions of many classics for free from librivox.org. It's a voluntary project where people record audio files of books for which the copyright has expired.

It is a bit tiring because I have to be aware of the right pronunciation for her but not for me because when I read to myself I'm not worried about pronouncing each word but just their meaning. Also sometimes it is a struggle when I come across a new word that I don't know the meaning or I know the meaning in my head but it is hard to explain or come up with a synounimous so I have to keep a dictionary too. It is not a chore per se but it takes a bit longer for us than would probably take for a native speaker. As I work full time and cook fresh dinner from scratch every night plus do all the housework by myself and still have to help with homework, and make her practice spelling and phonics every day, as was doing short easy stories but now I will start on the chapter books because I want to know them myself too.

The other thing you could do is get the same book on audio and book form. Then you could read some and listen to some, and look at any pictures. You would have to make sure you got an unabridged audio though!

The Anna Hibiscus books by Atinuke are fabulous.

Would also second (or third) the worst witch books, the magic faraway tree books and the suggestion of story tapes. I am dyslexic and as a child I used to listen to story tapes every night before I went to bed (although my mother also used to read to me and I have the most wonderful memories of her bedtime stories). As such, I was never deprived the wonderful world of stories and fiction, and grew up to do an English literature degree :)

Also, you could try the Book People. We got four of the Anna Hibiscus books there for the price of one (my daughter was too impatient to wait for the library copies to come in).

I started reading The Magic Far Away Tree today, when on the second page my daughter said she wish ot had more pictures...I read a bit more and she said she didn't want it...I told her to hold on and listen until the chapter finish so she did...tomorrow we will read the 2nd chapter and it sounds more exciting so hopefully she will be more interested...fingers cross.
I think the fact her daddy was at home and the wanted to play with the ipad relax together didn't help...I just wish he would red for her too, he tried yesterday with a picture book but gave up haf way becaue HE found it boring...I certainly don't want my daughter to be like this..

We started a Moomin book- the one about the big flood- couple days ago. DS seems really keen so far, although he keeps losing track of whats happening and I'm having to miss out a few bits to keep it simple!

Mrs Pepperpot is good. Mine liked it around this age.