As a former elementary teacher and homeschool mom of five, I’ve seen many beginner chapter books – and honestly, there are a lot of awful ones. A lot of early chapter books are kind of boring, have terrible illustrations, or the content of the book is pretty worthless. To save you from the trouble of sorting through books to find the good ones, I’ve put together a big list of the best beginner chapter books for early readers.
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Best beginner chapter books
When it comes to beginner chapter books, here’s what I’m looking for:
- no potty humor
- wholesome and engaging storyline
- does not go against our Christian values
- high quality illustrations are a huge plus
Very early chapter books
When your kids are just getting past those very early readers with three and four letter words, and they’re beginning to read longer books, I like the I Can Read series – with a huge disclaimer. I don’t like most of the modern I Can Read books. Most of them are based on movie or cartoon characters or the ones that are just junk stories like “My Weird School.” (insert eye roll)
But I love the older I Can Read books published before the year 2000 (I often find them at thrift stores or get used on Amazon/Thrift Books) or the non-fiction History I Can Read books that were published later. I also like the non-fiction books from the Step into Reading series.
Some of the I Can Read books I like:
- Adventures of Little Bear
- Bread and Jam for Frances
- Owl at Home
- Mouse Tales
- Mouse Soup
- Arthur’s Honey Bear (and other books in this series) by Lillian Hoban
Beginner chapter books
- Cornbread and Poppy by Matthew Cordell- this series is funny and sweet, and I love the illustrations
- Nate the Great by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat
- Amelia Bedelia series by Peggy Parish – I recommend the original series; there is a newer version that I haven’t read
- Miss Mallard Mystery series by Robert Quackenbush (the Dig to Disaster book in this series reminds me a little of the old Scooby Doo cartoon, where they look for a “ghost” that turns out to be a person in disguise, but they do call it a “demon”)
- Cam Jansen series by David A. Adler
- Little House early chapter book series
- Berenstain Bears beginner books
- Read with Usborne books – these have both fiction and non-fiction
- Tales from Maple Ridge series by Grace Gilmore – this series is a FAVE in our house. With a bit of a Little House vibe, it’s the first chapter book series that a couple of my boys read, and one of them loved it so much he read all six books within a week!
- Mercy Watson series by Kate DiCamillo – super fun and engaging series about a pig
- Cobble Street Cousins series by Cynthia Rylant – Cynthia Rylant writes some of my favorite picture books, and this series is no different! It’s so sweet.
- The Secret of the Hidden Scrolls by M.J. Thomas – this is a Christian series
- Fizz and the Police Dog Tryouts by Lesley Gibbs (series) – the illustrations in these feel a little bit like a comic book style sketch and the story appeals to kids who might be more interested in graphic novel type books
- Marco Polo Brave Explorer by Cynthia Lord – this is the only book we’ve read in this 4 book Book Buddies series, so I can’t vouch for the other ones
- The Adventures of Sophie Mouse by Poppy Green – I’ll be honest that my boys don’t get into this one much, but it’s perfect for girls!
- Little Glass Lake series by Jenny Phillips (The Good and the Beautiful) – I honestly don’t really love these books from TGATB, because I don’t feel like they’re the highest quality stories. But I like that I can count on their books to be clean and appropriate, and my kids enjoy them well enough.
- My Father’s Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett
- Ranger in Time by Kate Messner – this is a fun series about a dog that goes back in time; some of my kids have been ready for this series right away, and others have enjoyed it in later elementary years. But even my middle schoolers still like this series!
- The Berenstain Bears chapter books – if your kids liked the Berenstain Bear series, they will love the chapter books too! You’ll know these are the chapter books by the Little Apple symbol in the top left corner of the cover.
I’m adding these two series that commonly come up when early chapter books are mentioned, so I can mention some specifics about the books. I don’t necessarily recommend them, but they are worth mentioning since they come up often.
The Kingdom of Wrenly by Jordan Quinn
Dragon Masters by Tracey West
My kids enjoyed them, but I wouldn’t call them “quality” books. I also will point out some details that might be important to you, especially if you are a Christian family.
A couple other things to note about these books:
- they have “light” magic – dragons and magical kingdoms, but nothing dark. Some books do have witches/wizards which may bother you.
- in a later book of the Dragon Masters series (book 22, which we never got to – my boys quickly bored of this series) they introduce a non-binary character
You can find many more book lists here:
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