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developmentally appropriate chapter books for 6 year old - Page 4  

post #61 of 78
12/13/06 at 4:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Flor View Post
I loved Zilphia Keatly Snyder's books as a child, though there is usally a supernatural element in each one.
I LOVED LOVED LOVED The Egypt Game!!!! Shortly after reading it, I had a very involved burial ritual for a goldfish that involved melted butter and marigolds....
post #62 of 78
12/13/06 at 4:10pm
That was one of my very favorite books as a kid! Egypt Game has a very scary attempted kidnapping by a child-murderer, but The Changeling, also by Zilpha Keatley Snyder, is just wonderful and should be fine for a six-year-old.
post #63 of 78
12/13/06 at 7:10pm
How about The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster? The adventure is very gentle and you never really feel that the main characters are in dire peril. The focus is the language and it is frankly hilarious. My 4.5 year old reads this one over and over and laughs like crazy. She did need help with several of the bigger words, but that was part of the fun. If your dc likes puns at all, this is a great choice.
post #64 of 78
12/13/06 at 7:43pm
The Book of Dragons, Wet Magic The Magic City all by E. Nesbit are extremely well written and are good, imaginative stories. Our 5 yo really liked them. Nesbit has others, too, that we have not read but I bet are just as good. We also like the Old Mother West Wind stories by Thorton Burgess, all though nearly all his animal characters are male. Also, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH is a nice story about mice. Most of my recomendations have been mentioned already!
post #65 of 78
12/13/06 at 9:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Thalia the Muse View Post
That was one of my very favorite books as a kid! Egypt Game has a very scary attempted kidnapping by a child-murderer, but The Changeling, also by Zilpha Keatley Snyder, is just wonderful and should be fine for a six-year-old.

http://www.amazon.com/s/104-7997694-...atley%20Snyder

I read almost all of these as a child. I just made dss write his book report on the Witches of Worm. I read them as a 6 year old, but some have scary elements. I loved the Changeling. I thought I was a changeling!
post #66 of 78
12/13/06 at 9:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Monkeypants View Post
[Also, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH is a nice story about mice.
One of my all-time favorite kid books, and dd LOVED it at age 5.....but I am chuckling at the "nice story about mice". There is also the abduction, medical testing, electrocution, and attempted poisoning of some rats involved Oh, and of course, the father mouse has been eaten by the cat .
post #67 of 78
12/14/06 at 12:31am

maybe not exactly what the OP was looking for but...

for those who have kids who love "unsupervised kids" books try The Boxcar Children series.

I was fascinated by this as a kid and reread it many time. 4 kids are orphaned and make a home for themselves in an abandoned boxcar. I loved it !


Does anyone remember an article in Mothering (the mag) a few years ago by Peter Neumeyer? He listed several pages of great reads sorted by age appropriateness and he seemed to have very stringent criteria. I meant to keep the article but swooshed it out in some aggressive decluttering and have not been able to relocate it online or otherwise...
post #68 of 78
12/14/06 at 2:54am
My 6 yo dd LOVED Trumpet of the Swan. She loved it much more than Stuart Little.
post #69 of 78
12/14/06 at 9:44am
Oh, and Five Children and It. Love that one.
post #70 of 78
12/14/06 at 10:21am
I am currently reading "The Indian in the Cupboard" series to my 6 yo. We are both enjoying them. ("One more chapter, Mommy! Please -- don't stop reading!") I had forgotten how well written they are, and what deep concepts they address.

We also reading "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" in honor of the season. He loves it. "Sha-Zam!"
post #71 of 78
12/14/06 at 10:47am
I haven't read all the replies, so maybe this has been mentioned and dismissed, but have you read Ramona books to your daughter? I am not sure that I would call them poetic, but they are certainly full of real emotion. My daughter, who is almost five, has loved them for several years.

I'd also recommend the Betsy books by Carolyn Haywood. Again, they are not poetic, but they are lovely and sweet.

How about My Father's Dragon (and the succeeding two books)? How about Rabbit Hill? The Moffats (Eleanor Estes)? All-of-a-Kind Family (Sydney Taylor)? The Five Little Peppers series? Miss Hickory? OH! I know! How about the Catwings series by Ursula K. LeGuin? Pippi Longstocking? The Wind in the Willows? Just-So Stories? The Jungle Book? The Secret Garden? Caddie Woodlawn? Plain Girl by Virginia Sorensen (one of my childhood favorites, about an Amish girl whose brother decides to leave the Amish)? Trina by Patricia Miles Martin (another childhood favorite)? My dad used to read me a fantastic book called Indian Tales for Little Folks (does anyone else remember the Terrible Old Ulagoo?). We just watched the movie Ella Enchanted. We haven't read the book, but the movie was fantastic. What about some of the colored fairy books, like The Blue Fairy Book or The Yellow Fairy Book? Maybe you could check out Ambleside's reading list. They have a lot of older books on their lists.

ETA: Your daughter might really enjoy Sarah, Plain and Tall and its sequels, Skylark and Caleb's Story. Anna and Caleb's mother had died before the story starts, and it is mentioned that she died in childbirth, but it doesn't happen in the story itself.

Also, I heartily second some suggestions I saw that I hadn't thought of: Mr. Popper's Penguins, A Cricket in Times Square, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, and Trumpet of the Swan, and Old Mother West Wind stories by Thorton Burgess. My dd thoroughly enjoyed all of these books.

Additonally, I understand your hesitation with the Magic Treehouse books. They are by no means great literature. However, my kids have learned vast amounts of history from them and the books have been a steppingstone to further and more in-depth study of many of the topics we first encountered with Jack and Annie: rainforests, Egypt, Greek myths, India, etc.

Namaste!
post #72 of 78
12/14/06 at 11:32am
Probably already posted, I didn't read all tenthousand posts...
But I suggest Charlotte's Web. My son LOVED it at 6.
post #73 of 78
12/14/06 at 2:07pm
Dharma, is Indian Tales for Little Folks Indian-Indian or Native American? If it's the former, I've got to track down a copy -- my daughter likes watching Bollywood movies with me, I think she'd love that!
post #74 of 78
12/14/06 at 2:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Thalia the Muse View Post
Dharma, is Indian Tales for Little Folks Indian-Indian or Native American? If it's the former, I've got to track down a copy -- my daughter likes watching Bollywood movies with me, I think she'd love that!
It's Native American. It was written by a white man who, for reasons I don't recall, had spent many years living with Native Americans. It was written in the first decade or so of the 1900s. I don't remember the name of the author and there are several books by that name on Amazon, but I will ask my dad because she still owns the book.

Namaste!
post #75 of 78
12/14/06 at 3:58pm
This thread inspired me to blog about our family's favorite books.

Namaste!
post #76 of 78
12/14/06 at 4:33pm

Not an actual chapter book but...

Ds got a series of small books (about 20-30minutes each to read aloud) called The Saga Of Noggin The Nog. These are amazing, beautifully written, and exciting stories full of dragons, bad guys, and magic...Yet it's all very un-scary. The writing is very poetic. For example, every book starts the same way...

"In the Lands of the North where the black rocks stand guard against the cold sea, in the dark night that is very long, the men of the Northlands sit by their great log fires and they tell a tale. They tell a tale of..."

Ds was 2 when he got these, and he was enthralled. At almost 5, we've read the series of 12 books dozens of times and he's still delightfully enchanted by them. They are expensive, though, and had they not been a very generous gift, he'd never have gotten them. I think they are geared more for 4-7 year olds than 2 year olds, though.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sagas-Noggin-Nog/dp/1903708222
post #77 of 78
12/14/06 at 5:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by maya44 View Post
Coblestone Cousins
I had trouble finding this until I found out that it's actually Cobble Street Cousins. The author is Cynthia Rylant.

Thanks for the idea!

Namaste!
post #78 of 78
12/14/06 at 10:12pm
I didn't have time to read the whole thread but my daughters favorite chapter book so far (and my own to read with her) was Despereaux. It meets all of your criteria other than being a little dark in parts.

http://www.amazon.com/Tale-Despereau...e=UTF8&s=books
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