Do you have any children between the ages of 6 and 8 that are advanced readers?
By advanced, I mean that they are ready to read chapter books.
I had children like that. Both of mine learned to read early and got interested in chapter books at an early age.
This was both wonderful and difficult. Wonderful because they were such good readers. Difficult because it isn’t always easy to find suitable chapter books for young readers.
My youngest loved The Hobbit. I read it to her and her sister when they were around 7 and 8. She wanted MORE by that author. I told her the other books by Tolkien would be too difficult for her.
I should have known better.
Telling her that only served to make her MORE determined to read Tolkien’s books.
Later that year, after she turned 8, she snuck a copy of The Lord of Rings off of my mother’s bookshelf.
She loved it.
I was impressed.
But I knew that I’d have to find her and her sister other chapter books to read and that they’d have to be “safe.” Not that Tolkien isn’t safe. His books are amazing. But there were other chapter books out at the time that had content that I didn’t deem appropriate for young minds.
Thus began my hunt for safe chapter books.
This all happened more than 10 years ago, but I still remember most of the books I found back then for my girls to read. I thought I’d share with you a list of some of those books so that you can share them with your kids.
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Safe Chapter Books
The Oz series by L. Frank Baum
Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White
The Magic Tree House series by Mary Pope Osborne
The Raggedy Ann and Andy books by Johnny Gruelle
Heidi by Johanna Spyri
The Encyclopedia Brown series by Donald J. Sobol
The Pippi Longstocking series by Astrid Lindgren
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
My Father’s Dragon series by Ruth Stiles Gannett
Mary Poppins by P. L. Travers
The Littles series by John Peterson
The Borrowers series by Mary Norton
The Boxcar Children series by Gertrude Chandler Warner
The Frog and Toad books by Arnold Lobel
Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie
The Tales of Magic series by Edward Eager
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis
I hope your children enjoy these books.
If you know of others who need chapter books for their young readers, feel free to share this list with them.