Book Series & Periodicals for Kids
Parents often ask for book recommendations for their students, including series and chapter books. There are so many great options out there! If you know of others that didn't make my list, feel free to share. Be sure to scroll all the way down.
Decodable Books
The best place to start with beginning readers is decodable books. Look for texts with simple words that can be sounded out. The more CVC words (consonant-vowel-consonant) the better. Example sentences: "Sam sat." Or "A dog can run." Or "Ben can hop."
- BOB Books
Leveled Readers
Once students have had lots and lots of practice with decodable books, leveled readers are a fun way to step up to something more challenging.
- Step into Reading
- I Can Read
- Ready to Read
- First Little Readers (Scholastic)
- Little Leveled Readers (Scholastic)
Series & Chapter Books
The following books are listed according to their Lexile measure (level of difficulty). But that being said, this isn't a hard and fast rule that defines what your student can or can't read. It's just a nice reference point for parents and teachers because it really does give you a good indication of whether or not a book will be a good match for your student. If you don't know your child's Lexile level, you can skim the list of books below (make sure to scroll all the way to the bottom), find one that you think they'd be comfortable reading, and then go from there. You can also use the following website to look up the Lexile level of other books you're curious about: https://fab.lexile.com/
- Elephant & Piggie (Lexile 180-310)
- Llama Llama (Lexile 240-420)
- Dog Man (Lexile 260-530)
- Fly Guy (Lexile 270-590)
- Pete the Cat (Lexile 330-530)
- Nate the Great (Lexile 340)
- The Princess in Black (Lexile 340-510)
- George and Martha (Lexile 350-530)
- How Do Dinosaurs…? (Lexile 350-570)
- Junie B. Jones (Lexile 380)
- Amulet (Lexile 380-410)
- Whatever After (Lexile 380-500)
- Little Critter (Lexile 380-520)
- Froggy (Lexile 380-590)
- Peppa Pig (Lexile 380-750)
- Magic Tree House (Lexile 380-780)
- Magic Tree House (Merlin Missions) (Lexile 390-590)
- Ready, Freddy! (Lexile 390-660)
- Henry & Mudge (Lexile 400-480)
- Amelia Bedelia (Lexile 400-590)
- Pinkalicious (Lexile 400-640)
- Goosebumps (Lexile 410-600)
- Ordinary People Change the World (Lexile 410-680)
- Geronimo Stilton (Lexile 410-710)
- Fun with Mouse & Friends (If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, etc) (Lexile 430-590)
- LEGO City (Lexile 440-600)
- Wayside School (Sideways Stories, etc) (Lexile 460)
- The Gingerbread Man (Lexile 460-600)
- The Magic School Bus (Lexile 460-600)
- Owl Diaries (Lexile 470-560)
- Black Lagoon Adventures (Lexile 470-700)
- National Geographic Kids (Lexile 470-730)
- Flat Stanley (Lexile 480-620)
- Judy Moody (Lexile 490-600)
- The Baby-Sitters Club Graphix (Graphic Novel) (Lexile 500)
- A-Z Mysteries (Lexile 500-610)
- Fancy Nancy (Lexile 510-530)
- My Weirder School (Lexile 510-640)
- Puppy Pirates Adventures (Lexile 540)
- The Berenstain Bears (Lexile 550-700)
- Dragon Masters (Lexile 560-570)
- Who Would Win? (Lexile 560-780)
- Nancy Drew Clue Book Collection (Lexile 570-620)
- Bad Kitty (Lexile 570-720)
- According to Humphrey (Lexile 570-730)
- The Littles (Lexile 590)
- The Boxcar Children (Lexile 600)
- Hardy Boys Clue Book Collection (Lexile 620-640)
- Jedi Academy (Lexile 620-690)
- Thea Stilton (Lexile 620-810)
- Rainbow Magic (Lexile 640-850)
- Captain Underpants (Lexile 640-890)
- Fashion Fairies (Lexile 710-850)
- Descendants (Lexile 770-780)
- Warriors (Lexile 790)
- The Chronicles of Narnia (Lexile 790-970)
- Where is…? series (Lexile 840-1080)
- Harry Potter (Lexile 880-950)
- American Girl (Lexile 890)
- The Little House by Wilder (Lexile 930-1080)
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Lexile 950)
Periodicals: Magazines Kids Love!
- Ranger Rick Jr.
- National Geographic Little Kids
- High Five Magazine by Highlights