As they embark upon Year 3, your 7 or 8 year old child will surely take delight in any number of the books in our selection, from The Railway Cat to Horrible Histories.
Superfudge, Judy Blume
When Fudge discovers that his new baby sister can’t play with him, he tries to sell her. When that doesn’t work, he tries giving her away. And on his first day at school he kicks his teacher and calls her Rat Face. Can his big brother help him out this time?
(256 pages)
Birney Friendship According To Humphrey, Betty G. Birney
When Og the Frog came to live in Room 26, I felt a little jealous. Still, I tried to be welcoming but I soon discovered that it’s HARD-HARD-HARD to make friends with a lumpy, bumpy frog!
(192 pages)
Monster Mission, Eva Ibbotson
Three children are stolen and taken to a bizarre island, which is home to some extraordinary creatures – including mermaids, selkies and the legendary kraken. The island is the base for a very mysterious mission. But the magical adventure is cut short when the island is suddenly under siege. Can the children save themselves and their new friends?
(256 pages)
Atticus Claw Lends a Paw, Jennifer Gray
Atticus Grammatticus Cattypuss Claw, the world’s greatest police cat, is back. When the kittens at the local cats’ home are wrongly suspected of a knitting crime spree, Inspector Cheddar is baffled. Atticus must step in to find the real culprits. In an adventure that takes him from Littleton-on-Sea to the sands of the Egyptian desert, Atticus has to use all his tabby talents to keep one paw ahead of Ginger Biscuit and Jimmy Magpie and his gang. Can Atticus reach the lost city of cats and save the priceless treasure from the villains before it’s too late?
(224 pages)
The Charlie Moon Collection, Shirley Hughes
Charlie gets into all sorts of sticky situations when his seaside summer holiday turns into a missing jewellery mystery. Detective Charlie finds himself in the middle of a muddle once again when a gang of bungling burglars threatens to spoil the Big Library Bonanza . . .
(272 pages)
The Grunts All at Sea, Philip Ardagh
Mr Grunt’s a man with a mission. He has to get a Person of Great Importance (or POGI) to someone called Mrs Bayliss by the twenty-fifth. Alive and well. And he can’t tell anyone more than that, not even his lovely wife, Mrs Grunt, because there will be people trying to snatch the POGI and so the POGI must be transported in secret. It’s an exciting adventure, but what interests Mr Grunt most are the silver coins he’s been promised at the end of it.
(272 pages)
The Railway Cat, Phyllis Arkle
When Felix arrived at Yorkshire’s Huddersfield Train Station as an eight-week-old kitten, no one knew just how important this little ball of fluff would become. Although she has a vital job to do as ‘Senior Pest Controller’, Felix is much more than just an employee of TransPennine Express. Felix changes lives in surprising ways…
(272 pages)
Stig of the Dump, Clive King
Barney is a solitary little boy, given to wandering off by himself. One day he is lying on the edge of a disused chalk-pit when it gives way and he lands in a sort of cave. Here he meets ‘somebody with a lot of shaggy hair and two bright black eyes’ wearing a rabbit skin and speaking in grunts. He names him Stig. Of course nobody believes Barney when he tells his family all about Stig, but for Barney cave-man Stig is totally real. They become great friends, learning each others ways and embarking on a series of unforgettable adventures.
(272 pages)
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, C S Lewis
Four adventurous siblings – Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie – step through a wardrobe door and into the land of Narnia, a land frozen in eternal winter and enslaved by the power of the White Witch. But when almost all hope is lost, the return of the Great Lion, Aslan, signals a great change . . . and a great sacrifice.
(208 pages)
Matilda, Roald Dahl
Matilda’s strong young mind continued to grow, nurtured by the voices of all those authors who had sent their books out into the world like ships on the sea. These books gave Matilda a hopeful and comforting message: You are not alone.
(256 pages)
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, Kate DiCamillo
The magical story of the adventures of a lost toy rabbit from a New York Times bestselling author, twice winner of the Newbery Medal. Abilene loves her blue china rabbit, but Edward Tulane is extremely vain and only loves himself. On a voyage from New York to London, Edward falls overboard and from there finds himself on an amazing journey. He travels with tramps, works as a scarecrow, comforts a dying child … and finally learns what it is to truly love.
(208 pages)
Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
The quintessential adventure story that first established pirates in the popular imagination. When a mysterious sailor dies in sinister circumstances at the Admiral Benbow inn, young Jim Hawkins stumbles across a treasure map among the dead man’s possessions. But Jim soon becomes only too aware that he is not the only one who knows of the map’s existence, and his bravery and cunning are tested to the full when he sets sail in the Hispaniola to track down the treasure… It was first published in 1883 and has retained its place as one of the greatest of all adventure stories.
(209 pages)
Horrible Histories, Terry Deary
All the foul favourites from the Horrible Histories series presented in a blood-curdling box with flip-top lid. Contains twenty books and includes the Rotten Romans, Terrible Tudors and Awesome Egyptians.
(2880 pages in a box set of 20 books)