Moving on from picture books for 5 year old?

[EverybodyWantsTo]

DC5 has recently enjoyed me reading 'My Naughty Little Sister' - for anyone who's not familiar, it's a collection of short stories, with a couple of illustrations per story but more of a normal book than a picture book.

It went down really well and I've been asked for more 'grown up' books like this instead of the picture books we've been reading up until now. Has anyone got any good recommendations? Could be either a short story collection about the same characters, or perhaps a simple chapter book?

I'd be particularly interested in recommendations that have female main characters but open to anything!

My DD is soon to be 5.
She has enjoyed
The Owl who was Afraid of the dark
George's Marvellous Medicine (though I do change some of the language - for example I call grandma an old lady or old woman not old hag as Roald Dahl wrote)
She's really keen on Enid Blyton's books targeting younger readers like the Wishing Chair and the Enchanted Wood stories. Only problem with those is gender stereotypes, so I do a bit of swapping the names so Frannie and Beth get to fly aeroplanes and protect the boys and Joe sometimes plays with dolls.

Rainbow fairy books and Isadora Moon.

Thanks. I was thinking about Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton but I wasn't sure if they're just too of their time now and too much changing of language required? Good to hear that current DCs are enjoying them though.

The only other one I could remember from my childhood is the Worst Witch but I wasn't sure if that's too old.

We had worst witch audio book for the car and she wasn't quite ready for it yet. Didn't help she was really nervous about starting school and some the teachers are really scary!

My DD who still reads lots of picture books but loved the My Naughty Little Sister stories also loved the Sophie stories by Dick King Smith, great strong female lead too.

DD really enjoyed having the Faraway Tree read to her, they are a bit of their time but it's still a great story.

She also enjoyed the Claude Books.

Definitely recommend Dick King Smith books, lots are based on animals. My DD loved them. The Hodgeheg was one of her favourites.

I think we moved on from picture books with My Naughty Little Sister too. After them I think we read the Milly Molly Mandy books. The Paddington ones are quite nice. The Faraway Tree. The Wishing Chair. And then my daughter moved onto Animal Ark books which are quite nice (about the daughter of vets and there's always a different animal at the centre of each book) but there seem to be hundreds of them so I got a bit sick of reading them!

My 6 year old received one of the Zoe's Rescue Zoo books for her birthday. We've now read three or four of them.

The Paddington Books read by Stephen Fry are wonderful. He adds a whole new dimension to my love of those books

I think of Milly Molly Mandy as quite similar to My Naughty Little Sister. Phyllis Arkle wrote some nice younger chapter books; I'd recommend The Railway Cat.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I remember loving DKS as a child too, and it's also great to have lots I've never heard of.

Will be checking out the library to see which ones they have to get us started.

DD(5) really likes the Mummy Fairy set of books. Isadora Moon is good. Hotel Flamingo.

Hotel Flamingo are good.