Good Books suggestions pls?

[kerryla77]

Hi, my son is going to be 6 next month. He is on the Gifted & Talented Register for his literacy skills. He reads at age 9-10 & his infant school is struggling to give him reading books appropriate for his abilities. His teacher is allowing me to provide books from home, however- it is very difficult to find books that suit his abilities but are also appropriate in content for his age! Does anybody have any suggestions please? Many thanks

We are having this problem to as the content is too adult. A couple of friends have suggested Roald Dahl - pick and choose which ones as some are a bit too much.
I've taken to going into Waterstones and looking through all their books or going to the library and borrowing different books to see what DD is liking at the moment.
I find it fun to have a read through and see what i'm enjoying and whether I think she likes it or not.

There is quite a few books about with themes running through them like animals or wizards.

There was a film out recently about sons of Gods etc with Pierce Brosnan in it, it is taken from a group of books. Sorry useless with the names.

One teacher suggested finding subjects and picking non-fiction books to read more of so the child is learning about other stuff to, ideal chance to find out what type of things the child likes and might like but doesn't know yet.

Good luck.

Depends on what you understand by appropriate content. Dd was very taken with the Lord of the Rings at age 6, but maybe I should have banned it as too violent.

Antony Horowitz
BeastQuest
Jeremy Strong
Astrosaurs
Lemony Snicket
Percy Jackson

HTH

Personally, I don't think Anthony Horowitz, Lemony Snicket or Percy Jackson are good bets for a just 6 year old - my 8 year old has enjoyed Percy Jackson this year and Lemony Snicket last year at 7.5. He still doesn't want to read Anthony Horowitz, because it's about a teenager - as is Percy Jackson.

BeastQust and Astrosaurs are much easier and much more fun for a 6 year old. Jeremy Strong is good but mine found him a bit hit and miss.

Anything written before about 1970 is good for advanced young readers - Paddington, for example. How about Stig of the Dump or the Flat Stanley stories if he hasn't already read them? Dick King-Smith is very good if he likes animals.Roald Dahl has already been mentioned but a lot of that is good too.

How about "The Famous Five" and "Secret Seven"?
Bee

Also Professor Branestawm.

I asked a similar question a couple of weeks ago about my DS. He has just turned 6 but reads above his chronological age (we are in Wales though so no g&t).

Does he like Mr Gum? It isn't enormously challenging, but is also fairly harmless.

DS2 has started reading the Chronicles of Narnia, but I think he found bits of it a bit scary so we have put them away for a little while.

He loves Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton, although I know some parents aren't too keen on them!

Thankyou so much for all your replies

I've copied lots of your ideas down to my amazon list...going to get him a nice new selection.

Thank goodness for Mumsnet !

Has he read Roddy Doyle's series 'The Giggler Treatment'? Again, they're not terribly difficult but very witty and both my boys loved them.

I would second Roddy Doyles books, my daughter loved them, just a shame he didn't write more.

Another set she is loving at the moment are the Nelly the Monster Sitter books by Kes Gray.

Books don't last long is this house, so we're always looking for new inspiration

The Iron Man by Ted Hughes and Mr Stink by David Walliams have been well received by ds (7 yo). He also loved Mr Gum and some of the shorter Roald Dahl books.

Another thought is poetry books - ds loves Benjamin Zepphaniah's 'Talking Turkey' and Spike Milligan's poems for children.

Contact your local secondary school and ask what books they use for Y7. This info might even be on their website. If your 6 year old is really streaks ahead with his reading then he should enjoy them and you can be (fairly) sure they won't be toooo age inappropriate.

Also, take him to the local library and let him choose some for himself?

Not all of Anthony Horowitz is teenage - the Diamond Brothers ones (mysteries) are not, and my DS loved the Groosham Grange ones and Granny.

No one has mentioned Harry Potter yet - my DS read the first five by the time he was six and a half and loved them - we went through a huge HP obsessive phase. I was a little worried by the content (deaths etc) of number 5, but he did not seem disturbed by it.

A lot of the Eva Ibbotson ones are good for bright kids this age - reasonably challenging vocabulary and plots, but nothing too inappropriate in terms of content - I'm thinking of Secret of Platform 13, Dial a Ghost, Island of the Aunts etc, rather than her more recent ones which are aimed mainly at older girls.

But also at that age DS spent ages poring over non-fiction books on whatever his latest obsession was - the Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness series are great for this, and places like the Red House and the Book People often have very good sets of non-fiction books.

DS, now 7, has been a huge fan of Michael Morpurgo for the last year or so. Many of the books are based in particular periods of history and have a factual feel to the story. He also read a couple of books by Lucy and Stephen Hawking last year, called George's Secret Key to the Universe and George's Cosmic Treaure Hunt, which he really enjoyed.
He has just finished reading a series of books called Roman Mysteries, which we got from the Book People, and is now going through the Harry Potter books.

I second the suggestion of Enid Blyton books. I developed quickly at reading and started reading The Secret Seven and Famous Five aged about six. I still enjoy them now actually.

I agree with suggestions of Enid Blyton and Michael Morpugo.......very good.

All the titles above plus C.S.Lewis and for myself a very good reader at this age I loved abridged childrens versions of Charles Dickens I had read the full range by the time I was 11.

I have the same problem with DD.

We are doing Diana Wynne Jones, Joan Aiken and the Paddington books.

She also liked A Little Princess but that is not so good for a boy!

Try E Nesbit's stuff, I loved the Phoenix and the Carpet at that age.

Any Jennings book is also quite amusing.

Dorling Kindersley are doing an excellent series of factual books: Mathemagicians, Show me the money, Evolution Revolution, Can you Feel the Force? (and others) which DD has enjoyed as well.

dd2 (6) is reading ds1(8)'s percy jackson series at the mo and loves them. dd1 read hp at 7, but decided not to read the last one as she felt it was too grown up.

these days i set a limit and take them to the book shop. they choose their own and i vet them before paying. not once have they ever come back empty handed - it's more often that they come back with a pile that i then have to help them decide... invariably spending more than i meant to.

i find girl's books dreadful tbh. really pink and princessy - i grit my teeth and let it go until they past that awful rainbow fairies glittery unicorn phase and then keep my fingers crossed that they read everything else that litters the house. urgh. in fact, now she's reading percy jackson, i am free to dispose of the frilly pinkery gathering dust on her shelves - yay!

i assume he's already read the equivalent of the rainbow fairies for boys? (urk. beast quest. bleugh. apparently it's a necessary evil.)

DS (nearly 6) is loving the Horrible Science books at the moment - he's struggling with a lot of the words but your DS would presumably find them easier - your local library probably has loads of them and they're not quite as gruesome as the Horrible Histories books.

I would second Professor Branestawn for now and Percy Jackson for next year if not this.

The Hobbit would be an excellent challenge for him.

My son (age 6) loves all the Dragon books by Cressida Cowell (How to train your dragon/How to be a Pirate/How to speak Dragonese etc)

They are great, funny and good vocabulary and I don't mind reading bits to him from time to time.

The other books he adores and simply pores over and which I find tedious are the Club Penguin range. He loves the ones that you can choose your own path (The Inventor's Apprentice/Stowaway/Star Reporter)but he'll ready anything with a Club Penguin logo on it.

We both like all the Paddington books.

He recently brought home a very battered looking copy of 'The Better Brown Stories' by Alan Ahlberg which I think is fairly advanced for a 6-year old so I'm reading it to him as a bedtime story. It's a unusual story, about a family called the Browns who
get fed up with the boring stories their 'writer' writes about them, so they demand more excitement. Each story is the writer's attempt to spice up their lives, it's an eccentric sort of book.

I second the suggestion of Stig of the Dump - I hated it as a child, but maybe it's a boy thing, my son adored it.

The other set of books that are totally brilliant are the Dragon Detective Agency series. I read them to my son at 5, not sure if he'd tackle them himself - possibly. But a 7/8/9 year old would love them, equally good for girls and boys. By Gareth P Jones. The first book is called 'The case of the missing cats.'

Steve Cole who wrote Astrosaurs also has another series, Cows In Action. Both series are great and got my DD (aged 6) back into reading fiction when I couldn't persuade her to read anything other than factual books.

If you're using Amazon, check out the 'other people who bought this also bought...' bit at the bottom on the page and I'm sure it'll throw up some new ideas.

How about the Beano comic, aimed at 10 year old boys and pretty good fun with sometimes quite complex jokes and language used. we got this for years. I quite miss it now DS is at secondary school, and he is unusually a teenage boy who still loves reading.