Chapter books with no "bad" parts

2988 Views 83 Replies 42 Participants Last post by ChristaN, Apr 18, 2006

MamaMonica

Discussion Starter · Apr 11, 2006

I'd love to compile a list of chapter books for a 6 yo that have no bad parts- as in people dying in a traumatic way.

My 6 yo dd is a voracious reader and so many of the books that are interesting also have stuff in them that is not appropriate for her age.

Here's what we have so far on the good list:
-Boxcar children
-American Girl (there was a one where the best friend died of cholera so that was bad but I prescreened some others after dd came to me crying

).
- Little House Books
- Dimwood Forest books by Avi (even though Ragweed gets eaten by an owl she was OK with that).

Any suggestions appreciated!

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1 - 20 of 84 Posts

ABand3

· #2 · Apr 11, 2006

My almost 6 yo DS is currently devouring the Magic Tree House series by Mary Pope Osborne... the few I've read seem to be very age appropriate.

Daffodil

· #3 · Apr 11, 2006

How about:
- the Mary Poppins books (there are 4 of them)
- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
- Peter Pan
- maybe The Secret Garden (the girl's parents die at the beginning, but it happens sort of in the background and probably wouldn't bother a lot of kids)
- The Borrowers (there are several books)

SilverMaple

· #4 · Apr 11, 2006

Trumpet of the swan, Mr. Popper's penguins, the Ralph & the Motorcyle books.

suziek

· #5 · Apr 11, 2006

Homer Price by Robert Mccloskey
The Enormous Egg
the four Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books (her husband dies long before the action in the book but sometimes she does refer to him but only in passing and in an appreciative way) This are very funny and wonderful books about an old woman who cures children of bad habits such as not truth telling and slowpokedness.
Charlie and the Chocolate factory--although it is a bit intense and maybe scary to a super sensitive child. There is a great poem in there about how awful tv is that we love
Winnie the Pooh, House at Pooh Corner

dharmamama

· #6 · Apr 11, 2006

Ramona books
Betsy Books by Carolyn Haywood (also books about Eddie and Billy)
Magic Treehouse
Uncle Wiggily by Howard Garis
Mother West Wind by Thornton Burgess
Pippi Longstocking
All of a Kind Family by Sydney Taylor
The Moffats series by Eleanor Estes

That's all I can come up with off the top of my head.

Namaste!

EmsMom

· #7 · Apr 11, 2006

The Trolley Car Family
The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew
The Cobble Street Cousins (series of 6 books by Cynthia Rylant)
Katie John (and its sequels, although they may be more appropriate for slightly older children because the main character of Katie John starts to grow in maturity)

I loved reading all these books, too (and most of what has already been listed!)

3momkmb

· #8 · Apr 11, 2006

Watch out for Peter Pan, there are some pretty brutal parts in the original and then there's the whole Tinkerbell drinking the poison thing.

Ravin

· #9 · Apr 11, 2006

Watch out for some of the Little House books. Some pretty scary stuff happens in them...like the portrayal of encounters with Indians when they were squatting in OK territory, for example. And in one of the late ones I think Laura loses a baby. You might want to pre-screen them.

Hmm. A Little Princess and The Secret Garden are good. The little girl's parents die at the beginning of Secret Garden, but they're not exactly sympathy-inviting characters.

I usually recommend the Hobbit, but I don't think your DD would care much for the Battle of Five Armies...

4evermom

· #10 · Apr 11, 2006

My mom recommends the earlier books in the Betsy, Tacy, Tib series by Maud Hart Lovelace. The girls grow up in each progressive book, so the later ones will be better when dd is older. There is a baby dying (miscarriage, I think) at some point but I don't think in the first book. My mom was trying to find the same kinds of books (non-scary) for her granddaughters and came to the conclusion that all chapter books have something that a very sensitive child would find disturbing. I've been steering clear of Peter Pan because my ds is very disturbed by mother/child separation, but my ds is younger than your dd.

dharmamama

· #11 · Apr 11, 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by EmsMom
Katie John

OMG! That's it! For literally YEARS I have been trying to think of what this book is. All I could remember was that there was a great big house on the cover. I talked to every librarian in the entire universe and no one knew what I was talking about. I just looked it up on Amazon, and THAT'S IT!

You have solved one of my great riddles of the universe, and I am forever in your debt!

Namaste!

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Mirzam

· #12 · Apr 11, 2006

The Faraway Tree series by Enid Blyton.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/140...Fencoding=UTF8

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beanma

· #13 · Apr 11, 2006

you might like to check out http://www.gutenberg.org/ . tons of howard r garis's unclw wiggly stories are up there. some of them are a little scary for my super sensitive 5 yr old. she doesn't like any with a "bad" character, but nobody ever dies. sometimes there's a bad bear or woozy wolf or fuzzy fox or skeezix or pipsissiwah, but your dd might be okay with that. my dd loves the audio version jim weiss does which has no bad characters in those selected stories, but we have to pick and choose our way through the other ones.

suziek

· #14 · Apr 11, 2006

Katie John was a favorite of mine when I was a girl. I had completely forgotten. What a nice memory.

ohwoohwo

· #15 · Apr 11, 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ravin
Watch out for some of the Little House books. Some pretty scary stuff happens in them...like the portrayal of encounters with Indians when they were squatting in OK territory, for example. And in one of the late ones I think Laura loses a baby. You might want to pre-screen them.

I was going to point out the same thing. There is one in which a couple boys are wisked off by a tornado and one was found dead. Sorry I can't remember which book it was. If you read these books to your child, it is easy to skip over these parts.

Daffodil

· #16 · Apr 11, 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ravin
Hmm. A Little Princess and The Secret Garden are good. The little girl's parents die at the beginning of Secret Garden, but they're not exactly sympathy-inviting characters.

And the girl's father dies in A Little Princess, and he IS a sympathetic character. He dies "off-screen," but it might still be too sad for some kids.

Some other suggestions:
Half Magic
Five Children and It
the Moomintroll books by Tove Jansson

USAmma

· #17 · Apr 11, 2006

Magic Tree House books seem pretty tame from what I have read with dd so far.

For a younger level of reading, my dd *loves* the Frog and Toad books, Mouse Soup, Owl-- they are all by Arnold Lobel I believe. The "I can read" books.

"Ramona" books, by Beverly Cleary, are good from what I can remember as a child. Also Ribsey and Socks by the same author.

ohwoohwo

· #18 · Apr 11, 2006

My requirements for chapter books are stricter, so these will certainly fit your criteria. I gave up trying to find chapter books that are age appropriate. I agree with the other posters mom, that none exist. I try to steer my kids toward nonfiction. I find vocabulary increases best with nonfiction. I have them read fiction that is lower than their reading level but it is just as valuable reading. Here is my list:
Amelia Bedelia series by Parish
Nate the great series
cam Jansen series by Adler
Pet sitters club series
Mr. poppers penguins
the phantom toll booth (6th - 7th grade level)

fromscatteredtribe

· #19 · Apr 11, 2006

my 8yo reads so well that he can tackle cs lewis and harry potter but i like hime to have some less intense stuff. any psuedo-harry-potter and rip-off cs lewis can't come close. they put intense stuff in just to compete and according to what i have seen and my son's evaluation of books like star wars for kids, they are TERRIBLY porrly written.

we love littel house books too, although I don't like some of the really un-PC stuff.

we started reading more and more biographies of albert einstein, thomas edison, benjamin franklin, famous inventors so far i guess mostly....it is SO tough when they read well and don't want to read mature stuff

ds2 (age 6 tomorrow) LOVES to be read magic treehouse anything. he got five more books for his birthday

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Mirzam

· #20 · Apr 11, 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daffodil
And the girl's father dies in A Little Princess, and he IS a sympathetic character. He dies "off-screen," but it might still be too sad for some kids.

He actually doesn't die. He is "missing" presumed dead. Of course father and daughter are reunited in the end.

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