These are the books for 5 year olds I’d reach for first. There are over 200 on this shelf, and I’ve picked eight to start with.
At five, most books still get shared. A grown-up reads, a child listens and joins in with the voices. Then one day they’re reading a page back to you, very slowly and very proudly.
So everything here reads well out loud, and six of the eight are free.
Funny books for 5 year olds
Mabel knows exactly how the world should work. Birthdays should come sooner and packed lunches should have chocolate in them. In the first of three stories, she cancels her party, then finds out you only get presents if you have one. Magnificent Mabel and the Very Bad Birthday Party is free, and it’s the most-read book on this shelf.
Magnificent Mabel and the Very Bad Birthday Party
At Wigglesbottom Primary the class are warming up for Sports Day when they notice the school chicken copying their stretches. By the big race it has escaped from its pen and is heading for the finishing line. The Sports Day Chicken is three silly school stories, and important words come in capitals, so there’s plenty to shout.
Wigglesbottom Primary: The Sports Day Chicken
It’s lunchtime at Pirate School. The teachers are shut in a cabin with sausages, fried eggs and about four hundred baked beans. The children get one baked bean each. The Bun Gun is very loud, with CHOMP and BANG all over the page.
Pirate School – The Bun Gun
Books for 5 year olds that love being read aloud
Plop is a baby barn owl, fat and fluffy with very knackety knees. He thinks the dark is nasty and he isn’t going out in it. So his mum sends him down from the nest to find out about it, one meeting a night. The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark is free, and each chapter is a natural place to stop.
The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark
The hen is very small and her egg is humongous. Out pops a chick far too big for the coop, and the other chickens decide he must be an elephant. Then a squirrel. Then a sweater. Your reader will see what he is long before they do. Chicken Big is free.
Chicken Big
Bork, Gork and Nklxwcyz leave home to find planets of their own, with one warning from Mama. Watch out for the Big Bad Robot. The Three Little Aliens and the Big Bad Robot is the three little pigs in space, and the Robot bleeps and meeps and groinks its way from door to door. Also free.
The Three Little Aliens and the Big Bad Robot
If you want more to share across the ages, there’s a list of family read aloud books too.
For when they want a bit more story
Zoe lives at the Rescue Zoo, where her mum is the vet, and she can understand what animals say. Nobody else knows. When Great-Uncle Horace floats in by hot-air balloon with a lion cub who’s too sad to eat, Zoe creeps into the zoo hospital after dark with a torch. The Lonely Lion Cub is book one of a long series. The cub’s family were taken by poachers, which is told, not shown.
Zoe’s Rescue Zoo 1 – The Lonely Lion Cub
Mrs Davis’s canary has vanished from his cage. That evening Ruth Rose’s cat goes missing too, and by the time Dink, Josh and Ruth Rose reach the police station, so have a rabbit and a parrot. The Canary Caper is a first mystery with clues to spot along the way, and it’s free.
A to Z Mysteries – The Canary Caper
The rest of the shelf
Those eight are where I’d start. Every book below has been hand-picked, and there are more Rescue Zoo and A to Z Mysteries books in there too.
For a first taste of Roald Dahl, I’ve written about what age Roald Dahl books are for. And if it’s witches and fairies they’re after, books like Isadora Moon has the next step.
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