30 Chapter Books to Read Aloud to Preschoolers
Since the launch of Raising Readers, the question I get most often (aside from “is my child old enough to start audiobooks?“) is “I think I’m ready to start reading chapter books to my child – what’s the right age and what books should I start with?”
It depends, of course, on your child. Some three-year-olds might be ready to start and others might be nearer to five when they can handle a longer book.
There’s no gold star for reading chapter books instead of picture books, so if your child is struggling to listen to a chapter book, keep on keeping on with the picture books – you want reading to be fun, not something they dread.
In our case, I started reading chapter books to Ella just after she turned three, but I felt like she didn’t REALLY get the hang of it until she was about 3.5. And age four was when it really got fun and she would just beg and beg for another chapter.
Ani started listening in to chapter books around the time she turned three, and around four is when she really caught the bug as well.
Also, last year, I wrote a post with some tips for reading aloud chapter books, so if you’re looking for a little more guidance in making the jump, these might help you out!
Once you ARE ready, here are 30 books that I’ve found to be really good for that 3-6 crowd – hopefully one or ten of them will be big hits at your house too!
This is the perfect introductory series, with full-color illustrations and about 80 pages each (for reference, a standard picture book is 40 pages long). Plus, they’re just so darn funny.
The first one is the best, but we read all three and they are all excellent, about three beloved toys who live with a little girl. They’re around 150 pages with a lot of illustrations, so they’re a nice place to start with chapter books.
I love all his books, but this is the best. Ella fell asleep during the last chapter on a road trip, and Bart asked me to finish reading it. I need to read this one to Ani now!
I mean, you just can’t go wrong with Roald Dahl. This one has his trademark silliness, plus a plot that moves right along.
I have to admit that I found these a little too wacky as a child (I was basically born 50 years old), but my sisters were obsessed with them, and my girls have loved them too, about a school where instead of being one story with 30 classrooms, it’s 30 stories high with one classroom on each level. Of course, on the 13th level, things are always pretty crazy! I think Ella has listened to these on audio at least 5 times.
I read this to Ella when she was in kindergarten and we thoroughly enjoyed the first three. I actually like Farmer Boy the best!
I read this when I was little and I still remember it so clearly – the idea of everything you touched turning into chocolate is so exciting. Ella loved it too.
This one is a classic, but I’d never read it until Ella and I read it together when she was four. It’s sweet and little old-fashioned. And it has illustrations by Garth Williams, so of course I was all in.
This was one of my FAVORITE series as a child, and one of the reasons I hoped for all girls (never mind the fact that they eventually get a brother after five girls). Reading it to Ella was a dream come true – it’s so charming and makes me want to hide pennies for my girls to dust for.
The mysteries in this are very episodic, which makes them great for reading here and there, rather than having to get all the way through. And my girls love trying to solve the mystery without reading the answers in the back.
For me, this one is just a leeeeeettle on the verge of too weird, but if anyone can pull it off, it’s Roald Dahl. We read this one while we were in Europe, but then we went back and listened to the audio this year, and I liked it better with a professional reading it to me.
This is probably my #1 read-aloud series. I just LOVE Ramona (especially after Ramona the Pest, when I find her a little too obnoxious). We’ve listened to this series on several road trips and I love the narrator a lot. I just think Beverly Cleary is a masterful writer of ordinary children’s lives – decades later and they are still so honest and real feeling. (We love love loved Mitch and Amy too).
I love Avi, but this series was new to me when I read it to Ella a couple of years ago. It’s got all your classic story elements – a brave little mouse, a scary owl, and a journey only a hero can make.
I’d read this one as a child, but couldn’t remember a darn thing about it except that he gets a penguin in the mail. It was so fun to watch this story play out when none of us knew how it was going to turn out.
Have I mentioned that I love Beverly Cleary? This one is just as good as any of her other books, but totally different, with a little mouse who meets a boy staying at his hotel and starts riding his toy motorcycle.
I have to admit this one is not my favorite (I didn’t read it until I read it aloud to Ella and I found it SO PAINFULLY BORING), but I’m including it here because it’s a total classic and many many people are rabid fans.
I read these aloud to Ella and then she went back and listened to the audio versions at least a dozen times in the past three years. Note that these books have very long chapters and sometimes we broke them in half so I wasn’t reading until nine o clock at night.
These are laugh-until-you-cry funny and I HIGHLY recommend the audio versions. I think Ella has listened to at least 50 of them.
This was our first read-aloud and you better believe I sobbed through the whole last 15 pages.
This is actually my very favorite E.B. White book and I’m pretty sure I read it at least five times as a child.
Andrew Clements is just a master of the school story, and this is his most popular one, about a boy who wants to get his whole school calling pens “frindles.”
I think this is his best one. It was the first book where Ella was just on the edge of her seat, and I loved every magical, crazy second of it. It was just as good the second time, when I read it to Ani.
We tried this one as a read-aloud a few years ago, but it somehow didn’t click. This year, we listened to the audiobooks and our whole family was completely absorbed.
This series was WILDLY popular at my elementary school libraries and when I finally read it to Ella, she was just as absorbed as they had been. Ani, at 3, found them too scary, but Ella at 5 was delighted.
This was the first book where Ella was actively asking me to read one more chapter. They’re just so sweet and old-fashioned.
I always love a good series for this age – you can read the first one together and then let them loose with the audiobooks.
I’m pretty sure Kate DiCamillo is a miracle worker. This book, with gorgeous illustrations, is a perfect classic story about a beloved china rabbit who, as sometimes happens to even the most loved toys, gets lost.
This is the same author as Pippi Longstocking, but it doesn’t have that same wild exuberance – it’s funny and sweet, but much more toned down, and we loved every chapter.
Bart read this one aloud to Ella when she was about four and a half, and they both loved it. It was one of my childhood favorites too, but Bart had never read it, so it was fun to watch him experience it for the first time.
We only read the first one together, back when Ella was about 3.5, and they really are better I think for more like 4 or 5. Super delightful and old-fashioned.
I’d love to hear about your favorite read-alouds! What titles have been popular for your preschooler or kindergartener?
I, too, loved the Ramona series. I loved reading them aloud to my kids (both girls and boys). Classic books about growing up.
My boys are 4 and 5. We have been going through the magic treehouse book series! They love them and we can generally finish a book in 3-4 nights because they are short and engaging. They love the drawings in each chapter. There are people on youtube that read them as well as a nice intro to audiobooks.
Thank you so much for this list! I’ve started going through it and reading with my 4 yr old daughter. We’ve read about 6 of the recommended books , plus the series of it was part of one. She’s already asking me to re-read a couple of them!
I love Frog and Toad! They are such great friends even though they are so different.
Thank you so much for the list. My daughter is only 4 months old but I’ve been reading for her since before she was born. When I’m in the car I pop on an Audiobook and she loves listening to it she starts kicking and moving excitedly especially when I put on My Father’s Dragon. It has helped me get through errands a few times already, since she just hates her car seat.
Lovely list. I would add Understood Betsy, by Dorothy Canfield Fisher. A big favorite with both my kids when they were young.
Thank you for sharing your list of literary delights for young listeners. You and each of the commenters: a neighborhood of likemindeds.
A note about saving some books for ‘later’—
Once upon a time in 1986 I phoned Baltimore’s best children’s bookshop to ask for a copy of Mrs. Pigglewiggle to read to my 5-yr-old. The wise owner Joanne F. declined to sell me this paperback. She had not met me but on the phone she urged “Please—don’t spoil the happy fun that your child will experience if you WAIT and let him read it to himself at age 7.”
True also for the merriment in the Wayside School series—which brought joy and hysterics to my child as a 7-yr-old reader [per those Paul Simon lyrics “I fall on the floor and I laughing”].
Since you mentioned Frindle, I thought you would be excited to hear that there is a new Frindle book being published posthumously:
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/543980/the-frindle-files-by-andrew-clements/
I’m just finding this list, but I want you to know I truly appreciate it.
I usually enjoy your recommendations, but I would definitely not read many of these titles to preschoolers–especially not “The BFG” and “The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.” Have you actually read “The BFG” yourself? I listened to an unabridged audio version, and I can tell you, my grandchildren would have had nightmares if they had listened to it or heard it read aloud by a parent. The main character certainly proves to be a friendly giant, but the other giants? The descriptions of them snatching small children out of their beds at night and eating them by the scores are ghastly! And “The Miraculous Journey…” contains a lot of awful content as well. I’m not saying the titles have no redeeming qualities, but they are definitely not for a sensitive child, especially a younger one.
I have indeed read The BFG (multiple times!) and I read it to my daughter when she was four and she thoroughly enjoyed it. Obviously every child is different and for some it’ll definitely be too scary.
We LOVED the character books by Thornton Burgess. We read and loved them all but our very favorite was The Adventures of Billy Mink
I loved seeing “B Is For Betsy” on your list. I think that series may have been one of the very first chapter books I read. In fact, I bought the collection for my oldest niece when she was ready for chapter books. I didn’t know they still available. I will definitely check the availability out for my great granddaughters.