Looking for books for 7 year olds and not sure where to start? There are hundreds on this page, so I’ve pulled out 22 that I’d go to first.
Seven can be a tricky age for books. Some 7 year olds are still very happy with a picture book at bedtime, and some are racing through a chapter book. And some are somewhere in between (and might switch between the two depending on the day or mood).
So this shelf has a bit of everything. If it’s specifically chapter books they can read on their own, I’ve also written a whole piece on chapter books for 7 year olds.
Funny books for 7 year olds
Izzy and her friends are off on a school trip with an overnight train ride. The bunk beds are TINY, everything is STRANGE, and then their teacher Miss Jones disappears. The Great Crisp Robbery is one of our free books too.
The Great Crisp Robbery
Ra the Mighty is a royal cat in ancient Egypt with a very high opinion of himself. When a jewel thief strikes, he takes on the case with a dung beetle as his sidekick.
Ra the Mighty 1 – Cat Detective
I know that Horrid Henry can be a firm favourite at this age and this is great if you’re wondering what age Horrid Henry is for.
George’s mum goes shopping and leaves him with Grandma, who tells him to eat cabbage with the caterpillars left in. So he makes her a new medicine in an enormous saucepan, with shampoo, a whole tube of toothpaste, shaving foam and flea powder. George’s Marvellous Medicine is free. George is mixing things from round the house and giving them to a person, so I think it suits being read out loud together.
George’s Marvellous Medicine
Mr Gum hates children, animals, fun and corn on the cob. His house is a tip but his garden is immaculate, because if he lets it go an angry fairy turns up in the bath with a frying pan. Then a big golden dog called Jake starts rolling about on the lawn. In You’re a Bad Man, Mr Gum! he plans to poison Jake, and nine year old Polly is not having it. It’s written as farce, and the book never lets you believe he’ll manage it.
You’re a Bad Man, Mr Gum!
Andy and Terry live in a treehouse with thirteen storeys, a see-through swimming pool, a lemonade fountain and a tank full of man-eating sharks. They also have a book due at five o’clock tomorrow and they haven’t made one all year. Then Terry paints the neighbour’s cat yellow to turn it into a canary, and it grows wings and flies away. The 13-Storey Treehouse has short chapters and the jokes come fast.
The 13-Storey Treehouse
A bulletin board falls on Stanley Lambchop in the night and he wakes up half an inch thick. Nobody panics. He slides under closed doors, gets lowered down a drain on a shoelace to fetch his mother’s ring and is posted to California in a brown paper envelope. Later in Flat Stanley, children shout things at him about the way he looks and he cries about it at night. That part is over quickly.
Flat Stanley
Judy Moody has decided, well in advance, that this school year is going to be terrible. Everyone else comes back from the holidays in T-shirts with exciting places printed on them, so she draws a shark on a plain one and writes I ATE A SHARK across it. Judy Moody Was in a Mood is American, so she’s in third grade and has a Mom. If she goes down well, I’ve got books like Judy Moody too.
Judy Moody Was in a Mood
Magical and spooky books for 7 year olds
Bea Black moves to Little Spellshire and her dad accidentally enrols her at the local witch school. Now she has a grumpy class frog to look after and a Halloween Ball coming up. And to make matters worse her dad can’t find out about any of it. That’s Diary of an Accidental Witch by Honor and Perdita Cargill.
Diary of an Accidental Witch
If they’ve already met Mildred Hubble, here’s a whole list of books like The Worst Witch too.
And if they haven’t, The Worst Witch is free. Mildred is in her first year at Miss Cackle’s Academy for Witches, and two days in she crashed her broomstick into the yard wall and snapped it in half. Every other girl is handed a sleek black kitten to train. Mildred gets a scruffy tabby with white paws that falls straight off the end of her broom.
The Worst Witch
In Dial a Ghost by Eva Ibbotson, Fulton Snodde-Brittle wants to hire the most terrifying ghosts to frighten his nephew Oliver. A mix-up sends the kind Wilkinson ghosts instead, and they end up on Oliver’s side. One thing worth knowing is that the uncle’s plan is to scare Oliver to death so it is a little dark in places…
Dial a Ghost
Ted Hughes wrote The Iron Woman, and it’s probably more of a read-aloud and discuss book as the tone is a little serious. The rivers and seas have been polluted, the water creatures are dying painful deaths, and the Iron Woman has come for revenge. Lucy wants to save the creatures and her town, so she calls on Hogarth and the Iron Man.
The Iron Woman
Kitty’s mum has catlike superpowers and slips out over the rooftops every night to help anyone in trouble. Kitty wants to be like her, but she’s scared of the dark. Then a black cat called Figaro scratches at her window with an emergency at the clock tower, and he decides she must be a real superhero. Kitty and the Moonlight Rescue is six chapters long.
Kitty and the Moonlight Rescue
Eric falls asleep in his treehouse and wakes in the dark to see something pale and limping come through the blackberry canes, with a horn growing out of its forehead. A girl called Allegra has moved into his grandmother’s old farmhouse, and her mother is a vet who lets it into her barn. Eric holds the rope while she treats its hoof, and there’s pus and a bit of blood in that scene. The Unicorn in the Barn is free.
The Unicorn in the Barn
Animal books for 7 year olds
Babe is an orphaned piglet won at a fair by Farmer Hogget and taken under the wing of Fly the sheepdog. He knows he can’t be a sheepdog. But maybe he could be a sheep-pig. (Yes, The Sheep-Pig is the book the film Babe came from.)
The Sheep-Pig
Jasmine’s mum is a large-animal vet, and when a lonely llama follows Jasmine home she decides he’d make a brilliant guard llama for the newborn lambs. Then a fox turns up. A Llama Called Lightning is another one of our free books.
A Llama Called Lightning
Oliver and the Seawigs by Philip Reeve sends Oliver off to find his missing parents with a grumpy albatross, a short-sighted mermaid and a friendly island called Cliff. Lovely and uplifting with some beautiful illustrations too.
Oliver and the Seawigs
Atticus Grammaticus Cattypuss Claw is a tabby cat who steals for a living. A gang of magpies wants him to burgle the houses of Littleton-on-Sea, and they’re paying in sardines, six per job. He needs somewhere to stay, so he follows two children home. Their dad is the town’s new police inspector and he can’t stand cats. That’s Atticus Claw Breaks the Law.
Atticus Claw Breaks the Law
The Wombles live under Wimbledon Common and tidy up after Human Beings. Every Womble picks a name from Great Uncle Bulgaria’s enormous old atlas, and young Bungo shut his eyes and pointed. Each chapter is its own little adventure. In one, Orinoco opens a big black umbrella in a gale and gets blown right up into the sky. The Wombles is the book where they began.
The Wombles
Harry is a young centipede with forty-two legs and a best friend called George. One night he pokes his head out of a tunnel without checking first, and a boy catches him for his collection. He ends up in a pickle jar on a shelf, next to a yellow scorpion and a hungry tarantula. Harry the Poisonous Centipede’s Big Adventure is free. Some of the creatures in the jars die, and the centipedes call it stopping.
Harry the Poisonous Centipede’s Big Adventure
Adventure books for 7 year olds
Tom is a blacksmith’s boy who practises sword fighting on a sack of hay with a poker. When a wheat field near his village burns to black stubble in minutes, he goes to the king and learns that the Beasts from the old bedtime stories are real. He’s given a sword, a plain wooden shield and a black horse called Storm. Ferno the Fire Dragon is the first Beast Quest, and its opening pages are fierce. For after the series, I’ve got books like Beast Quest.
Beast Quest 1 – Ferno the Fire Dragon
Jack and Annie have a magic tree house in the woods. Point at a picture in one of its books, make a wish, and you are there. On a rainy day Annie wishes them onto a beach with a palm tree and a green parrot, and then Jack sees a black flag on a ship. Pirates Past Noon is book four in the series, with very short chapters. The pirates are menacing, and they shut the children in a cabin on the ship.
Pirates Past Noon
There’s no milk for the cereal, so Dad goes to the corner shop and is gone for ages. When he gets back he has an explanation. Green globby people pulled him up into a silver disc, pirates fished him out of the sea, and a stegosaurus in a hot air balloon rescued him. The children keep interrupting to point out what’s wrong with his story. Fortunately, The Milk is by Neil Gaiman, and it’s free.
Fortunately, The Milk
More books for 7 year olds
These 22 are probably just a starting point, but the full shelf is just below. Every book on it has been hand-picked.
For bedtime, there’s a list of short chapter books for bedtime. And if a book just isn’t working out, I’ve written about whether a child should finish every book they start.
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