Ordered chapter book list

Here is a book list I've been making for myself.  These are not necessarily endorsements; some of these books are higher quality than others, or you might find one inappropriate for some reason.  This is just my list of approximate difficulty balanced with the "babyish" factor.  (If you want the rest of the explanation, it's below):

Frog and Toad series and other Arnold Lobel books
Gus and Grandpa series
Amelia Bedelia books 
A Light in the Attic
Flat Stanley series
The Littles series
My Father's Dragon series
Cam Jansen series 
Geronimo Stilton series 
The Imagination Station series 
Magic Tree House series

The Courage of Sarah Noble
Sarah, Plain and Tall
Phoebe the Spy 
The Mouse and the Motorcycle series 
The Chocolate Touch
Encyclopedia Brown series
Socks (by Beverly Cleary) 
Mr. Popper's Penguins
Pippi Longstocking
How God Stopped the Pirates
Doctor Dolittle series
The Cricket in Times Square
King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (by Howard Pyle)

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Stuart Little

Charlotte’s Web
Hank the Cowdog series 
Henry Huggins 
Homer Price

Winnie the Pooh

Little House on the Prairie series
Narnia series

James and the Giant Peach
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The Great Brain series
Frindle
George Washington's Socks

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
Annie Henry series (by Susan Olasky)
Ronia, the Robber's Daughter
Will Northaway series (by Susan Olasky)
The Phantom Tollbooth
Alice in Wonderland

Peter Pan
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
The Sign of the Beaver
The Railway Children
Viking Quest series

Johnny Tremain

The Westing Game
Little Women
Anne of Green Gables series

Great resources exist to help parents find books better than Goosebumps for their kids, resources like Orange Marmalade and Honey for a Child's Heart and Calvary Classical School and The Best Children's Books and Ambleside.  We all have different taste in books, but those are great places to start.

Sometimes the suggested age ranges trip me up a little, though.  When it comes to a book I'm unfamiliar with, I wonder:
   is that book listed at that age because of its academic complexity?
   or because of tricky subject matter (such as Charlotte's death in Charlotte's Web?)
   is it because it seems a bit babyish?
   or just because of its length?

I don't think I could make age recommendations for myself, either.  If I did, later I would wonder:  Did I read it aloud to Michael at seven or did he read it independently at seven?  Even if we read it together, could he have read it alone?  Now I don't know whether to read it to Jake before or after these other two books.


When I've chosen books for Michael and me to read aloud, I've ended up reading some a bit out of order.  Michael and I read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory months before we read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz because I assumed that made the most sense; but it didn't, really.  I'd like to remember that for when I pull out those books for Jake and Olivia in the future.


So I have begun keeping a very unscientific list for myself of what-book-should-come-next.  I'll keep updating the list as I read more books.  And this continuum is just my very subjective gut feeling of which book is trickier as far as vocabulary, syntax, and academic concepts go (including how unfamiliar the setting is), as well as I can remember and judge for each book.  (There are all kinds of formal methods out there that establish a "grade level" for different kinds of texts depending on a lot of factors, but those usually don't take into account how unfamiliar the setting is, which is important to me.)

Additionally, I'm considering "the babyish factor."  Basically, I'm trying to balance how much it could make their brains hurt if read too early, and how offended they'd be if read too late.  :)  Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz rank pretty similarly as far as complexity of language, but somehow the world created in Oz feels younger than that of the chocolate factory, witches factored in and all.  It feels more like a little kid book.  

And where would you rank a technically difficult book about a young boys' collection of stuffed animals (a la Winnie-the-Pooh?).   Tricky!

I'm sure I'll adjust this list as I reread things.   

Anyway, what I'm not factoring in (consciously, at least) are "tough topics," like abusive family members or the death of a main character.  You'll have to pre-read books and judge for yourself.  I'm just thinking more of:  does this include talking stuffed animals?  protagonists that are eleven-years-old or seven-years-old?  etc.  And I'm not necessarily endorsing each book, either.  Peter Pan is on here, listed where I think it falls, but I'm not sure when I'll hand that one over to my kids.  It might be a very, very long time.  There are some things I really like about that book and some things I really dislike about that book.

AND--I put books that are particularly geared toward girls in red and books that are particularly geared toward boys in blue.  If they're neutral or only sort of swing one direction, I left them in a black font.  Of course any kid could read any of the books.

So, with all of those qualifications, that's my ordered reading list of chapter and poetry books!