Need Some Help

[MySerenity]

Hi, as you can see I'm pretty new around here and I need some help. My son who just turned five is fairly advanced for his age. He's reading at a third grade level and I'm having problems finding decent material for him to read. He's an avid reader. He can easily read The Magic Tree House series. He can easily get through a few Star Wars books that are for children. And various other books (The Worst Witch, Lego novels, etc) give him no problem. But we're getting to the point where we're running out of books! It's hard to find ones that he can read and understand the material. And he's always asking me for more books. (He even picked up Plato's Republic and asked if he could read it. I think he figured since he knew who Plato was it would be alright for him to read it as well. :eek: ) Any book suggestions for him would be great!

[chai]

I highly recommend nonfiction books at this point. There are lots of books with subject matter written for kids and you usually don't have to worry about content. I had my dd reading books about animals, plants, history, etc. It was a great transition point.

It's been awhile since we were at that age, but have you looked at the 1000 Good Books list? There are lots of age-appropriate books on this list.

http://www.classical-homeschooling.org/celoop/1000.html#contents

[pixelroper]

I'm not sure about the kind of books you are looking for, I'm picky about quality, prefer Christian moral/virtue, challenging but level appropriate

Nothing New Press has 'All Through the Ages"- a huge list of history books 'living fiction' organized by reading level and topic.

Yesterday's Classics- a publishing co. with great books such as "Fifty Famous Stories Retold"

McGuffy Readers

general handy reference "The Reading Teacher's Book of Lists" has lists of books and all sorts of handy things

does that help?

[WendyK]

Check out the chapter book section of your local library. They usually have a lot to pick from. Also, I have had good luck with Scholastic. If your son still likes a lot of pictures, many picture books are written at a level more advanced than a reader just starting out could handle. There are also a lot of classic books written at "easier" reading levels.

[Quad Shot Academy]

Here are the books my son read after The Magic Treehouse series:

Cam Jansen
Poppleton

Flat Foot Fox
The Courage of Sarah Noble
King-smith books (author)
Encyclopedia Brown
Sebastian Super Sleuth
Mathstart

Buttons for General Washington

Cooper Kids Adventure Series
Stuart Little by E.B. White
The Tale of Desperaux by Dicamillo
Nancy Drew Mysteries



He spent about 6 months on the Nancy Drew Mysteries. He only likes the older series though. I also agree Donelda on getting him enjoying non-fiction now, before it is too late!

[nmoira]

Dick King-Smith is a godsend for children at that reading level.

Jill Tomlinson (her books about animals, including the wonderful The Ow; Who was Afraid of the Dark)
Joanna Hurwitz (esp. the Riverside Kids series, starting with Rip-Roaring Russell)
Beverly Cleary
Judy Blume's Fudge books
Time Warp Trio series (a step up from Magic Treehouse)
Encyclopedia Brown
Roald Dahl (probably starting with The Enormous Crocodile, The Twits, and Fantastic Mr. Fox)

[beansprouts]

My daughter was reading at a 6th grade level by the time she was six years old. This was a challenge because much of the literature written for 9 - 12 year olds just wasn't right for her. I stopped trying to supply her with material that was at her reading level and just let her enjoy the huge variety of children's literature written for her age: Beverly Cleary, Roald Dahl, The Little House Books, Kate DiCamillo... I can't think of any more of her favorites right now (it is 2am...)

I have used guides to children's literature to help in choosing books for her. My favorite is Honey For a Child's Heart, and many people also like The Read-Aloud Handbook.

[LisaTheresa]

They have lots of great book suggestions.

Lisa

[Laura in China]

Also recommending Beverly Cleary and Dick King-Smith.

After that, Roald Dahl, Charlotte's Web, The Trumpet of the Swan, A Cricket in Times Square (and sequels), the Michael Bond Paddington books, Half Magic (and sequels).

Then on to the Moomintroll books, The Doctor Dolittle books, Wizard of Oz (and sequels), Swallows and Amazons (and eleven sequels), the Narnia books, E. Nesbit, The Little White Horse, Redwall (and ever-increasing sequels) ........

So much fun to be had!

Best wishes

Laura

[MySerenity]

Thank you everyone. All the suggestions have been wonderful. I'm sure he'll enjoy reading some of these.

[Cadam]

We like the Bobbsey Twin books right now

[ddandgirls]

I will second many of the recommendations mentioned so far. We had the same situation with my dd when she was five. The 1000 good books on the web and the All through the ages book by the same person.

We also read a lot of older books. Someone mentioned the bobbsey twins. When my dd was that age she read all of the little house, american adventure, Boxcar children series (love the work ethic and cooperation and sibling relationships displayed) and American girl. But when she turned 7 we moved to Portland OR for a few years and found Powell's bookstore. I think it's the countries largest bookstore. Anyway they have a huge selection of books dating back to late 1800's/early 1900's. She fell in love with older books and their vocabulary. You can find them online and browse the used books section.

Our library has the Freddy the Pig Series as well as the Curly Tops series and Trixie Belden (similar to Nancy Drew). I loved the older books and we didn't worry too much about content since they had different standards long ago. We let her read just about anything written before 1960.

HTH

[Nissi]

Check out the books recommended in the "Five In A Row " Curriculum. My sons loved these at that age.
Nissi