This Year 4 reading list is for the 8 and 9 year olds who love nothing more than a Saturday afternoon cosied up with a great book.
My five are Dindy and the Elephant, Hacker, The Beast and the Bethany, The House at the Edge of Magic and Phoenix. One is real history, one is a mystery, one is horrible and funny, one is daft and magic, and one is set in space.
A Year 4 class is a mix of 8 and 9 year olds, depending on birthdays. So these sit across our books for 8 year olds and books for 9 year olds shelves.
What a Year 4 reader is usually after
By Year 4, a keen reader wants a story that lasts more than one night. They want a hero with a proper problem and could probably handle it if it gets a bit dark.
But they do still want to laugh. So the five below aren’t all serious and two of them are very silly indeed.
If they’re only just moving on to longer books, my chapter books for 8 year olds list is an easier start. Chapter books for 9 year olds goes a little longer.
The Year 4 reading list
Dindy and the Elephant by Elizabeth Laird
Dindy and the Elephant
A real-history one.
Dindy is nine, and she’s very good at keeping still and listening. So she’s heard the grown-ups say the British may soon have to leave India. India is the only home she’s ever known.
One hot afternoon, with Mother asleep and Daddy away, she drags her little brother Pog out of the garden gate and down through the tea bushes. Nobody has told her a wild tusker is loose on the plantation.
There’s a snake in the bushes, a trumpeting elephant and a rescue involving a lot of elephant dung, which Pog thinks is brilliant. There are some more mature themes in the book, like the fact that Dindy’s mother drinks too much and says racist things about Indian people. Great for 9.
Hacker by Malorie Blackman
Hacker
A mystery told by a girl who is very pleased with herself.
Vicky finishes her maths exam in half an hour. Then someone breaks into the school computer file holding the answers, signs it Hacker Supreme, and everyone decides it was her.
At home it’s worse. Her dad has been arrested, because more than a million pounds has turned up in his account at the bank where he works. Vicky knows he didn’t put it there. So at two in the morning she creeps downstairs to his computer.
The story is told by Vicky, and her running commentary on her brother Gib is properly funny. She’s in Year 9, so some of the worries are an older child’s, and Gib says something cruel about her being adopted early on. It’s best for 9.
The Beast and the Bethany by Jack Meggitt-Phillips
The Beast and the Bethany
A horrible funny one.
Ebenezer Tweezer looks about twenty and is five hundred and eleven. At the top of his fifteen-storey house lives a beast that sicks up whatever he asks for. Chandeliers, a baby grand piano, and every year the potion that keeps him young.
Then the beast asks for something new. It wants a child. Ebenezer has never had anything to do with children, so he takes a large bag to the zoo and asks them to climb in. It does not go well.
If your reader loved The Twits, this will be their jam. If it sounds wrong for them, it probably is. Revenge of the Beast comes next, and both sit at 8.
The House at the Edge of Magic by Amy Sparkes
The House at the Edge of Magic
A daft magic one.
Nine is a pickpocket. She lives in a damp cellar with a gang of other children and a revolting old man called Pockets. At the market she steals a tiny ornament shaped like a house, taps its door knocker, and it grows. Eleven wonky storeys, squashed into an alley.
Then a troll in a frilly apron drags her inside. There’s Flabberghast, a boy wizard in indigo pyjamas who is VERY proud of being World Hopscotch Champion 1835. There’s a wooden spoon in a kilt with a tiny sword. They’re all under a curse, and they’re sure Nine is the one to break it.
It’s full of jokes, with a sad thread about Nine being found alone in a doorway when she was three. The Bookshop at the Back of Beyond is the second book, also at 8.
Phoenix by S. F. Said
Phoenix
A space one.
Lucky dreams the stars are singing to him, then wakes to find he’s burned a hole right through his sheet. His mum isn’t even surprised. Within minutes she’s packing his kitbag and telling him they have to leave Phoenix, the moon he’s lived on all his life.
His galaxy is at war, Humans against Aliens. So when something starts following them, the only people who might help are the ones he’s been taught to fear. That’s the crew of an Alien starship, with horns, hooves and eyes of fire.
It’s shelved at 9, and a sensitive reader might be happier with it in a year or two. One who loves a big adventure among the stars will be gripped.
Five more for the list
My Life as a Cat is about Leonard, an alien who has waited nearly three hundred years for a month on Earth as a park ranger. He lands as a scruffy black cat instead. Midnight at the Barclay Hotel is a murder mystery in a hotel that’s meant to be haunted, and every guest has a secret.
The Museum of Lost and Found is for anyone whose best friend has drifted off without saying why. Time Travelling with a Hamster opens with the line “My dad died twice”, so it’s funny but not light.
And if it’s powers they’re after, Onyeka and the Academy of the Sun has a London girl whose enormous hair turns out to be one. She’s on my books like Skandar list too.
If they’re racing ahead, or want something shorter
For a Year 4 reader who is already chewing through long books, book series for 10 year olds is the list to try. There’s a whole shelf of books for 10 year olds as well.
If they’d rather have something they can finish in a week, book series for 8 year olds starts a bit younger.
Just so you know…
You can read all ten of these in Little Reads. That’s 3,000+ hand-picked books for children aged 5 to 11. It’s £7.99 a month after a 7-day free trial. Cancel anytime.
Dindy and the Elephant and The Museum of Lost and Found are both among the 100+ free books on a free account.
It isn’t a school app, so nothing in it gets set or marked. It’s for the Year 4 child who would be reading anyway.