Alternative to Happy Families books

[WinterStepThisWay]

5yo DD in Y1 and in white level loves the 'Happy Families' books but had read them all. She's a little put off by chapter books because they don't have colourful pictures - well, I think that's the reason anyway. She has the corgi pups collection and rainbow fairies. She can read them just fine but she's not keen. Are there any other collections similar to Happy Families but perhaps a little more challenging? Thank you

My DD (also y1) has only just started reading Rainbow fairies after saying she didn't want to read them. But she loved the Tiara Club books, they aren't colourful pictures but they have less words on a page which seems to scare them less! Or any Usborne books have lovely coloured pictures

DS loved these books too when he was in yr1 ( he will still re- read them now and he is in yr3).

Books he loved in yr1 after the Happy Families books were the seriously silly stories books: Little Red Riding Wolf, Snow White and the 7 Aliens, Eco Wolf and the 3 Pigs and there is another one but I can't remember it

We've been borrowing some early readers from the library - there's a whole bookshelf aimed at this stage in our library.

DD(y1) has loved the first fairy tales by Margaret Mayo; the Titchy Witch series; Poppy and Max series;some of the Usbourne books like the sorcerers apprentice as well as reading longer picture books independently.

Claude... series by Alex T Wood (I think) was popular with my DS when he first wanted to read longer books. Lots of pictures, slightly silly names which he thought were great.

My dd also liked mr men at that stage & my ds moved on from this stage pretty quick because he fell in love with horrid henry! You could also try mr Gumm, or some of the early Michael morpurgos/the worst witch/Jacqueline Wilson or lauren child's. Sometimes it's just a matter of finding the right series to turn them on to chapter books!

The Gaskitt books, also by Allan Ahlberg were a big hit with my DD (6). Chapter books but largish print and lots of illustrations. There are four in the series, the first is "The Man who wore all his clothes".

The Frog and Toad books are also good.

There are various young colour puffins- The Witch's Dog, The Witch's Dog and the Ice Cream Van or something- Frank Rodgers series. The seriously silly are good, Usborne Young Readers series one, lots of books. Blue Bananas and Red Bananas. Horrid Henry easy readers/Horrid Henry per se- is that the boy equivalent of Rainbow Fairies I wonder! Try your library, it took me a while to find the right place to look for the easy readers but I've found them now and there is always lots to choose from at this level- some chapter books/some colour and not.

Tgger - I think beast quest is perhaps the boy equivalent to rainbow fairies (ds has even more of those than dd has rainbow fairies) but horrid Henry does seem to bridge the gap better between early readers & chapter books & is slightly shorted/easier than beast quest. I'd say Beast quest is definitely the series that turned ds on to true prolific reading, but horrid Henry definitely played its part.

I have a Yr 1 dd who has recently enjoyed reading the Katie Morag books. There is one which is slightly longer with chapters but still lots of nice pen illustrations. It's a tough age to find books for because I'm finding too much needs explaining with certain books so you lose your flow.

We also like the Usbourne Young Readers which are more challenging with chapters and Princess Mirrorbelle by Julia Donaldson was also a hit with dd. I'm also going to try some of the suggestions above but can't stand those fairy books!!