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Easy fun chapter books for 8 yo boy


cindydanleo
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Hi,

 

My son has had a late start in reading and I would like to get him interested in chapter books on the easy side.  I am going to try Nate the Great and Magic Tree House.  Does anyone else have any recommendations?  He wants to try Diary of a Wimpy Kid but I think the humor will be over his head.  I'm so desperate that I showed him Captain Underpants...but he said it has too much "potty talk".  (Huh???  Surprised me.  I didn't know that was such a concern for him. LOL)

 

He loves adventure and light peril...with clear heros.

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks

 

Cindy

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Another vote for the scholastic branches books. They are specifically designed for emerging readers. My ds was not ready to jump into chapter books even though he could. He has eaten up the Looniverse and Notebook of Doom books. They are series so once they start they want to finish.

 

And Tashi is great too. We bought the Enormous book of Tashi mentioned above, and my boy has started it, but it is still intimidating. It will be a huge deal for him when he completes it. It has many short stories in it and I like that the stories get progressively longer and a little harder. The scaffolding is great for new readers.

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Big list below! :) Similar in length and humor to Nate the Great (but not mysteries) is the Commander Toad series (Yolen).

 

ANIMALS (real)

 

2nd grade reading level

- Billy and Blaze series (Anderson)

- Buddy, the First Seeing Eye Dog (Moore)

- Barry, the Bravest St. Bernard (Hall)

- The Bravest Dog Ever: The True Story of Balto (Standiford)

- Balto and the Great Race (Kimmel)

- Five True Dog Stories (Davidson)

- Seven True Horse Stories (Davidson)

- Nine True Dolphin Stories (Davidson)

- Stone Fox (Gardiner) -- warning! dog dies!

 

2nd/3rd grade reading level

- Animals Do The Strangest Things (Hornblow)

- Birds Do The Strangest Things (Hornblow)

- Insects Do The Strangest Things (Hornblow

- Fish Do The Strangest Things (Hornblow)

- Reptiles Do The Strangest Things (Hornblow)

- Follow My Leader (Garfield)

- Dolphin Adventure; Dolphin Treasure (Grover)

- Horse Heroes (Petty)

- Man O'War: The Best Racehorse Ever (Mckerly)

- Horse Named Seabiscuit (Duvowski)

- Jumbo (Worth) -- famous PT Barnum circus elephant

 

3rd grade reading level

- Dolphin Adventure; Dolphin Treasure (Grover)

- The Bears on Hemlock Mountain (Dalgliesh)

- Christian Liberty Nature Readers

- Dolphin Adventure; Dolphin Treasure; Dolphins and Me (Grover)

 

ANIMALS (talking)

 

2nd/3rd grade reading level

- Catwings  (series)  (LeGuin)

 

3rd grade reading level

- My Father's Dragon (Gannett)

- Mr. Popper's Penguins (Atwater)

- The Cricket in Times Square (Selden)

- Chester Cricket series (Selden)

 

3rd/4th grade reading level

- Charlotte's Web (White)

- Trumpet of the Swan (White)

- The Mouse and the Motorcycle (McCleary)

 

FANTASY

 

2nd grade reading level

- Magic Tree House  (series)  (Osborne)

- Toots and the Upside Down House (Hughes)

- The Littles series (Peterson)

- Catwings series (LeGuin)

 

2nd/3rd grade reading level

- Moongobble and Me  (series)  (Coville)

- Dragonslayer Academy  (series)  (McMullan)

 

3rd grade reading level

- Magic Rainbow Fairy  (series)  (Meadows)

- Flower Fairies Friends  (series)  (Barker)

- Fairy Realm  (series)  (Rodda)

- The Unicorn's Secret  (series)  (Duey)

- The Borrowers (series) (Norton)

- My Father's Dragon (and sequels) (Gannett)

- Charlie & the Chocolate Factory; Great Glass Elevator (Dahl)

 

REAL LIFE

 

2nd/3rd grade reading level

- Billy and Blaze series (Anderson)

- Light at Tern Rock (Sauer)

- Follow My Leader (Garfield)

 

3rd grade reading level

- Understood Betsy (Fisher)

- B is for Betsy (Haywood)

- Betsy and Tacy series (Lovelace)

- The Moffats series (Estes)

- Grandma's Attic series (Richardson)

- The Robinson Crusoe Reader (Cowles) -- our DSs loved this one

- The Toothpaste Millionaire (Merrill)

- Henry Huggins (series) (McCleary)

 

DETECTIVE

 

2nd/3rd grade reading level

- Jigsaw Jones series (Prellar)

- Cam Jansen series (Adler)

- Third Grade Detective series (Stanley)

- A to Z Mysteries(Roy)

- High Rise Private Eyes series (Rylant)

 

3rd grade reading level

- Invisible Inc. series (Levy)

- Einstein Anderson series (Simon)

- Encyclopedia Brown series (Sobol)

- Boxcar Children series (Warner)

 

MYTH / FAIRYTALE

 

2nd/3rd grade reading level

- The Blind Men and the Elephant (Backstein/Mitra)

- Sim-Chung and the River Dragon (Schecter)

- The Warrior Maiden (Schecter)

- A Grain of Rice (Pittman)

- Aladdin (Mistry)

 

3rd grade reading level

- Tales of Robin Hood (Claybourne)

 

3rd/4th grade reading level

- Mermaid Tales from Around the World (Osborne)

- Beauty and the Beast (Osborne)

- Tenggren's Golden Tales from the Arabian Nights (Tenggren)

- Tales from the Ballet (Barber)

- The Tall Book of Christmas (Smith)

- Jan Brett's Christmas Treasury (Brett)

- The World's Best Fairy Tales (Sideman) -- a Reader's Digest Anthology

 

 

FUN TALL TALE

 

2nd grade reading level

- riddle series by Eisenberg and Hall (Ribbit Riddles, Bunny Riddles, Puppy Riddles…)

 

2nd/3rd grade reading level

- Flat Stanley series (Brown) 

- The Bears on Hemlock Mountain (Dalgliesh)

- The Whipping Boy (Fleischman)

- McBroom's Wonderful One-Acre Farm (Fleischman)

 

3rd grade reading level

- Pippi Longstockings; Pippi in the South Seas (Astrid)

- Ben and Me; Mr. Revere and I (Lawson)

 

HISTORY ADVENTURE

 

2nd/3rd grade reading level

- Viking Adventure (Bulla)

- The Sword in the Tree (Bulla) -- Medieval England

- The Minstrel in the Tower (Skurzynski) -- Medieval England

- A Lion to Guard Us (Bulla) -- Colonial US

- Phoebe the Spy (Griffin) --American Revolution - true story

- The Secret Valley (Bulla) -- Gold Rush/pioneers

- Riding the Pony Express (Bulla) -- Pony Express, 1861

 

3rd grade reading level

- Robin Hood: Tale of the Great Outlaw Hero (Bull)

- Robinson Crusoe Reader (Cowles) -- adaptation of the classic story

- Marco Polo (Graves)

- The Courage of Sarah Noble (Dalgliesh) -- Colonial US

- Sarah Plain and Tall; Skylark; Caleb's Story (MacLachlan) -- US - pioneer times

- Hannah (Whelan) -- blind pioneer girl

- Silver (Whelan) -- daughter of an Alaskan "musher" gets a sled dog puppy

- Pioneer Cat (Hooks) -- pioneer girl and her cat travel west in a wagon train

- The Little Riders (Shemin) -- WWII occupied Europe

 

3rd/4th grade reading level

- The Kite Fighters (Park) -- 1400s Korea

- The Cabin Faced West (Fritz) -- pioneer times US

- Twenty and Ten (Bishop) -- WWII French children hide Jewish children

 

BIOGRAPHY

 

2nd/3rd grade reading level

- The Story of Thomas Alva Edison (Davidson)

- Helen Keller (Davidson)

- Helen Keller's Teacher (Davidson)

- Helen Keller: Courage in the Dark (Hurwitz)

- Louis Braille (Davidson)

- Brendan the Navigator (Fritz)

 

3rd grade reading level

- Joan of Arc (Corey)

- Eric the Red and Leif the Lucky

- The Secret Soldier: The Story Of Deborah Sampson (McGovern)

- The Daring Escape of Ellen Craft (Moore)

- The Wright Brothers (Reynolds)

- Robert Fulton, Boy Craftsman (Henry)

- Dinosaur Hunter (Alphin)

- The Great Houdini: World Famous Magician (Kulling)

 

3rd/4th grade reading level

- Can't You Make Them Behave, King George? (Fritz)

- What's the Big Idea, Ben Franklin? (Fritz)

- And Then What Happened, Paul Revere? (Fritz)

- Paul Revere's Ride (Corey)

- Sybil Ludington's Midnight Ride (Amstel)

- Eat My Dust! Henry Ford's First Race (Kulling)

 

HISTORICAL FICTION

 

2nd/3rd grade reading level

- The Trojan Horse: How the Greeks Won the War (Little)

- The Trojan Horse: The World's Greatest Adventure (Davies)

- The Arrow and the Apple (Buff)

- Minstrel in the Tower (Skurzynski)

- Brendan the Navigator (Fritz)

 

3rd grade reading level

- Eric the Red and Leif the Lucky

- Tales of Robin Hood (Claybourne)

- Days of the Knights: A Tale of Castles and Battles (Maynard)

- Pirates: Raiders of the High Seas (Maynard)

- Antarctic Adventure: Exploring the Frozen Continent (Martin)

- The Wright Brothers (Reynolds)

 

3rd/4th grade reading level

- Archimedes and the Door of Science (Bendick)

- Along Came Galileo (Bendick)

- Escape North! Story of Harriet Tubman (Kulling)

 

NON-FICTION

- Pompeii... Buried Alive! (Davis)

- Ice Mummy: Discovery of a 3,000 year old Man (Dubowski)

- The Titanic: Lost and Found (Donnelly)

- Tut's Mummy: Lost and Found (Donnelly)

- To The Top! Climbing the World's Highest Mountain (Kramer)

- Mountain Climbing: Scaling the World's Highest Peaks (Martin)

- Civil War Sub: Mystery of the Hunley (Jerome)

- USS Monitor: Iron Warship That Changed the World (Thompson)

- Race Into Space (Arnold)

- Moonwalk (Donnelly)

- Finding the Titanic (Ballard)

 

SCIENCE

- Magic School Bus chapter book series

- Greg's Microscope (Selsam)

- Hill of Fire (Lewis)

- The Animal Rescue Club (Himmelman)

- Dinosaur Hunter (Alphin) -- 1880s dino hunters

- Dinosaur Hunters (McMullan) -- modern day

- Giant Squid: Mystery of the Deep (Dussling)

- Tentacles! Tales of the Giant Squid (Redmond)

- True Tales, chapter book series on non-fiction science/animals

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The Henry Huggins series

The Ralph S. Mouse series

Stuart Little

Carolyn Haywood's Eddie series

Matt Christopher's Soccer Cats series

Bob and Anthony (http://www.amazon.com/Bob-Anthony-Gail-C-Atlas/dp/1502821559/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1430050820&sr=8-3&keywords=Bob+and+anthony -- written by a former homeschooling mom, mildly Christian but not preachy)

 

My now 10yo son loved all of the above between the ages of 7 and 9.

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My nearly 6 year old is reading Hey Jack, Zac Power test drive and spy camp, animal crackers books by orchard, fancy Nancy and some other stuff. They are mostly early chapter books but just below magic treehouse, magic school bus, boxcar kids and A to Z mysteries. The calendar mysteries by the A to Z author may be in between though.

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DS8 is reading the Roscoe Riley series. I am excited to look through all of these suggestions. A lot of the books I suggest he will only read a chapter or two or won't try at all. It's good to have lots of ideas!

 

ETA: typo, my phone hates me

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