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How to read with your eyes shut: chapter books to read aloud

Chapter books for years 4 - 5

Sharon Creech The ghost of Uncle Arvie
Uncle Arvie wants Danny to make his three wishes come true. The only problem is that Uncle Arvie is a ghost and before he died he had a stroke that mixed up all his words, so how is Danny supposed to find out what the wishes are?
Stephen Elboz Temmi and the flying bears
A quest to rescue a flying bear cub from the terrible Witch Queen.
Anne Fine The chicken gave it to me
The true story of Harrowing Farm as told by a chicken who was there.
The diary of a killer cat.
Ellie is upset every time her cat Tuffy brings a dead mouse or bird into the house. What will happen if he brings in something a bit bigger that doesn't belong to him?
Russell Hoban Trouble on Thunder Mountain
What can the O'Saurus family do when Mr Flatbrain threatens to flatten Thunder Mountain and replace it with a plastic mountain theme park?
Margaret Mahy The horribly haunted school
Monty is allergic to ghosts. If there's an invisible ghost around, he sneezes, and as soon as Monty sets foot in the Brinsly Codd School for Sensible Thought, he's attacked by attishoos.
Michael Morpurgo The butterfly lion
Bertie rescues an orphaned white lion cub from the African veld, but they are separated when Bertie is sent to boarding school in England. But he swears he'll see the white lion again.
K.M. Peyton Poor Badger
Badger is the pony Ros has always dreamed of owning, but he belongs to other people. But she can't just stand by and watch as their neglect of Badger becomes something worse.

Chapter Books for Years 5-6

Theresa Breslin The Dream Master
Cy is about to wake up from an amazing dream set in Ancient Egypt, when he realises that he can control just when he will wake. Sequel: Dream Master nightmare!
Susan Cooper The boggart
When the Boggart is accidentally transported from his remote Scottish castle to Toronto, he can't resist the opportunity to cause a little mischief for his new people, until he begins to pine for home.
Gail Gauthier My life among the aliens
Will and his brother are part of an ordinary family except for one thing - their mother's cooking. It's so extraordinary that it seems to be attracting strange life-forms from other planets. Sequel: Club Earth
Anthony Hill The burnt stick
Nobody asked the Aboriginal children before they took them away…
Margaret Mahy A villain's night out
There's no money left to buy books for the school library, so Miss Rogers decides that everyone will write a book. The only problem is that Formby's villain, Squidgy Moot, comes to life and decides to take control of things.
Philip Pullman I was a rat!, or, The scarlet slippers
Is he a boy? Is he a rat? Maybe, just maybe, he made the mistake of being around when a certain young woman needed to get to a ball.
Paul Shipton Bug Muldoon
'The name's Muldoon. I'm a private investigator. I'm the best sleuth in the whole garden. But right now I'm having a bad day. My legs are aching - all six of them.'
Jacqueline Wilson The mum-minder
Sadie's mum is a child-minder, but when she falls ill, Sadie finds herself being not only a child-minder, but a mum-minder as well.

Chapter Books for Years 7-8

Alan Baillie Wreck!
A devastating cyclone, two children trapped on an abandoned wreck - and something aboard!
Melvin Burgess The baby and Fly Pie
Fly Pie and Sham live on the rubbish Tip, scavenging for Mother Shelly's gang. But one day everything changes when they fin a baby on the Tip - a baby worth 17 million pounds.
Gillian Cross On the edge
Tug has been kidnapped but by people who are behaving as if he is their son, and after a while he's beginning to believe it himself. But meanwhile Jinny is watching the strange family in the old farmhouse and wondering…
Wolf
Cassie is staying with her mother in a squat when she finds out her father is a wanted terrorist
Vince Ford 2much4U
Davin didn't really mean to take the brake off in his mother's car, and he certainly didn't mean to let it roll into the incinerator and explode, but now he has to find a replacement before he can confess to his Mum.
Margaret Peterson Haddix Running out of time
Jessie's mother is desperate for medicine to help the dying children of Clifton, medicine that doesn't exist in 1840, but she tells Jessie the truth - she and her family are living in a historically reconstructed village for tourists to visit and watch. And out in the real world it is 1996, with the medicine that can save them.
Kimberley Willis Holt When Zachary Beaver came to town
Zachary Beaver is billed as the world's biggest boy, but he's trapped by his size in a sideshow caravan. Toby is having problems of his own, but it's Zachary Beaver who turns the little town of Antler upside down, and helps Toby work things out.
Garry Kilworth The electric kid
The rejects of the city live on the dump. Blindboy is the finder, Hotwire is the fixer - between them they find and fix electric junk and sell it on. But then they find themselves caught up in the world of a master criminal who wants to use their peculiar talents…
Geraldine McCaughrean Forever X
What did it mean, this strange sign on the strange house in the middle of nowhere? Who were these weird people? What was an angel doing in a tree? And why have the police arrived?
Christobel Mattingley Escape from Sarajevo
When war comes to Sarajevo, Muris's beloved family flees to Austria and Muris is separated from them, perhaps forever.
No gun for Asmir
A Muslim boy and his family flee the horrors of war-torn Yugoslavia.
Uri Orlev The island on Bird Street
A Jewish boy is left on his own in a ruined house to survive in the war-torn Warsaw Ghetto. Based on a true story of World War Two.
Gary Paulsen The haymeadow
John is going to spend the summer alone, except for two horses, four dogs, and six thousand sheep. It's up to him to take care of them all, and he's only fourteen.
Terry Pratchett Only you can save mankind
Johnny is about to blow the aliens on his new computer game into smithereens when a message suddenly appears on his screen - "We surrender!"
Louis Sachar Holes
Stanley Yelnats has been sent to camp for the summer - but it's not the usual camp; it's a camp for bad boys who are made to dig holes, day after day.
Catherine Sefton The kidnapping of Suzie Q
Suzie Q is taken hostage in a bungled supermarket raid. If that's not bad enough, she soon realizes that she's in a really dangerous situation. Her kidnappers are amateurs, panicking, and liable to do anything.
Jerry Spinelli Wringer
For as long as Palmer can remember he's dreaded the day he turns ten, the day he's suppose to become a wringer.