Books for an 8 y/o

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Katie1723 said:
I posted this in the popular media forum and someone suggested I post here also…book recommendations for an above average 8 y/o grand daughter who wants to read “chapter books”

Thanks,
Kathy
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The Bible
The Catechism (or the Compedium of the Catechism)
Theology for Beginners
A book on Latin for children

It’s never too early to study the Faith, theology, and the language of the Church 😉
 
Nickkname said:
The Bible
The Catechism (or the Compedium of the Catechism)
Theology for Beginners
A book on Latin for children

It’s never too early to study the Faith, theology, and the language of the Church 😉
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My goodness!! I want her to read…I don’t want to scare her! :rolleyes:

Kathy
 
Judy Parrish wrote some great books that I enjoyed very much at that age (in addition to Narnia and Little House as listed above.) I know one of them was named “The Key to the Treasure.” They are just nice books about normal kids who have fairly ordinary but exciting to eight-year-old adventures. I liked them so well that a few years ago I bought them for our library just in case a child joins our family, lol.

I also loved the Beezus and Ramona books.
 
Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I just figured that I would encourage something she could enjoy her entire life.“Oh the places she’ll go”!!

Kathy
 
Katie1723 said:
Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I just figured that I would encourage something she could enjoy her entire life.“Oh the places she’ll go”!!

Kathy
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Good for you grandma! 🙂 I am a firm believer that encouraging a child to read is a HUGE factor in their future academic success.

Actually there are 8 Anne of Green Gables books. 😃 And L.M. Montgomery wrote many other novels and series, like Emily of New Moon and Jane of Lantern Hill. They are all great. Is your granddaughter a “girly girl” or does she like adventure/fantasy stories?

I wouldn’t give an 8 year old the (adult) Catechism…that might be a bit much. A children’s book on the lives of the saints would be an excellent idea, though. And much of the “classic” children’s literature, like Little House on the Prairie, has good Christian values.
 
The Railway Children by E. Nesbit was highly recommended to me by a friend and her kids.
 
Claymont79 said:
In addition to the above, The Boxcar Children and the Elsie Dinsmore Series (can be gotten on Vision Forum) which are very faith oriented. My 9yo dd loves them.
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You can Elsie for free on gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page. Simply go to the site, adjust the font size to whatever it is you think is best for an eight year old, and print it off.

I would however, caution anybody about reading the tales of poor, beknighted Elsie, who is very evangelical in her late 19th/ early 20th century outlook.
 
Let me look at Meg and Daisy’s pack of books from the library:

Junie B. Jones (Easy to read yet a chapter book, but sometimes I wish Junie B.'s parents would paddle her behind.)
Three Stories You Can Read To Your Cat (One cat did sit still for this.)
Utterly Me and Don’t Look Now by Lauren Child
Thunder From The Sea
Geronimo Stilton: A Cheese-Colored Camper
 
The Secret Garden and A Little Princess were some of my favorites to read at that age. My daughter loved them just as much.

Oh, and let me add a few more:

The Island of the Blue Dolphins
The Headless Cupid
The Egypt Game
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
The House of Sixty Fathers
 
Katie1723 said:
My goodness!! I want her to read…I don’t want to scare her! :rolleyes:

Kathy
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I’m not sure about the other books, but my son always has said that the Bible is his favorite book to read. I used to read the Bible with him in his bed every night, and so he associated the Bible with my maternal love and attention…besides, its a great book.

He also loves “The Classics”. They have series of classic novels that have been simplified and editted. They are 100 pages long, and have one picture for each page of text. He has read everyone of them from The Old Man in the Sea, Wuthering Heights, The Count of Montechristo, The Odysse, Frankenstein, Ben Hur, King Arthur, etc, etc, etc… By the time he has to read these books in school, he will already know the story, and the basic themes. I really recommend these books, they are great!
 
Here’s a list of the Newbery Award winning books going back to 1922.

I found the list on my county library website. Try your library and see if they have a copy of the summer reading list available.
 
My daughter, who just turned 9, really likes the Black Stallion books. Its a huge series, won’t get through them in a summer anyway.

We usually go to the library and just pull books for her to read and put them in a basket. She reads them & puts them in another basket to go back to the library. We set out some books on the Olympics, since there will be some visual help this year.

I remember my third grade teacher reading the Hardy Boys mysteries to us as a class to calm us down after recess. It was nice to have books that everyone enjoyed (even the boys 😛 ).

You can always read to your grand daughter too. My husband read The Hobbit to my daughter last year and I’m amazed at how much she retained. I read an article on brain development that said parents should continue to read to their children even after they can read well on their own (until 4th or 5th grade). That their brains still benefit from hearing a story read.
 
You can purchase the entire set of Faith and Freedom Readers from Seton Home School. Or just buy the ones for your daughter’s age/grade level and up. They have a lot of excerpts from classics and they can be used as a springboard to reading the entire books.

My 14-year-old son seconds the “Hank the Cowdog” recommendations, saying he LOVED them when he was 8 (and between you and me and the fencepost, I think he still pulls them out once in a while and re-reads them!)
 
I second the “Witch of Blackbird Pond” and also wanted to suggest E.B White (“Trumpet of the Swan” and “Stuart Little”). I also second the old Nancy Drew books if you can find them. The newer ones (from when I was a kid in the 90s) were a bit, well, more modern. I can’t remember if there was anything racy or what, but since I enjoyed them so much, I’m guessing there was more romance or something than in the old ones from the 60s. :o

You may try a saint bio like the “Encounter the Saints” series, which are set up in chapter book format and suitable for all ages.

Oh, also, I remember teachers reading us Roald Dahl books quite often and I read them on my own later (“James and the Giant Peach,” “The Witches,” and “George’s Magic Medicine”)…I don’t remember them too clearly, but they were full of crazy imaginative tales. I think there may have been a bit of gross-out humor for the boys, but I can’t remember anything objectionable.
 
wisdom_3_5 said:
My daughter, who just turned 9, really likes the Black Stallion books. Its a huge series, won’t get through them in a summer anyway.
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I used to love those books. I remember saving my allowance to buy them. I’ll second that recommendation.
 
Lots of great suggestions. My son just finished first grade and Magic Tree House was all the rage.

But we just started a new series called The A to Z Mysteries. The “A” book is The Absent Author. Cute story with kid detectives. Wholesome. Decent twist at the end.

Another mystery style book with a female protagonist would be The Cam Jansen series, the chapter books, not the early readers.

My friends with daughters have shared their misgivings about the tone of some Junie B Jones books to, so heads up I guess.
 
She will love anything by Eric Drachman!!!

His books are GREAT!!!

A-Z mysteries are great too!
 
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