Books for 6 Year Olds

Why it worksIt is structured as school years - Year One flying, Year Two roaring - with Zog earning a gold star each time, so a child starting school recognises the shape of it. Princess Pearl refusing to be rescued and becoming a doctor is the twist that makes parents keep it in the pile.

Worth knowingPublished in the US as A Gold Star for Zog, so US buyers searching the UK title will not find it.

Why it worksThe list pages - 'the towering icebergs and far-off lands' - are the most vocabulary-dense thing Donaldson wrote, and a five-year-old will start using words like 'shimmering' after a few readings. The snail's tiny trail message saving the whale gives small children a competence fantasy that actually pays off.

Worth knowingLonger and more descriptive than the Gruffalo, with less refrain to hang on to; under-threes tend to drift in the middle.

Why it worksEach animal loses something, finds it, and asks 'Is there room on the broom for a dog like me?' - four times, with the same closing rhyme, so children join in on the question and then supply 'Yes!' before the witch does. The dragon chase gives it a real third act, which most rhyming picture books lack.

Why it works'I'm Stick Man, I'm Stick Man, I'M STICK MAN, that's me!' comes back every time he is mistaken for a twig, and the misunderstanding is one a four-year-old can spot before the characters do - dog fetches him, a child uses him as a flag, and the reader is in on it every time.

Worth knowingStick Man spends most of the book separated from his family and nearly burnt on a fire; some children find the middle stretch genuinely upsetting.

Why it worksThe mouse's description of the gruffalo is recited twice - once as a lie, once with the real gruffalo standing there - so a child who has heard it once can chant 'terrible tusks, and terrible claws' with you, and gets the joke of the second telling. The couplets are metrically tight enough that a stumble is obvious, which is why it survives the fortieth reading.

Worth knowingThe gruffalo reveal is genuinely startling for sensitive two- and three-year-olds; the reassurance only arrives several pages later.

Why it worksIt takes a child's rage seriously, gives it an island to run around on for three wordless spreads, and then brings him home to supper that is still hot - which is the only ending an angry four-year-old actually wants. The wild rumpus pages are where you put the book down and let them roar.

Worth knowingThe monsters frighten a good number of under-fours, and Max being sent to bed without supper reads as harsh to modern parents.

Why it worksJasper Rabbit is stalked by the carrots he has been pulling up, and the book is staged like a black-and-white thriller - orange is the only colour on the page, so the carrots find your eye before you read a word. The twist ending flips who the victim is, and a five-year-old will want to go straight back to the start.

Worth knowingThe one on this list that can genuinely frighten. The shadows-at-the-window and shapes-in-the-bedroom spreads are built to unsettle, and under-fives sometimes will not have it a second time. For a sensitive three-year-old, choose almost anything else here.

Why it worksClomp, clomp. Wiggle, wiggle. Shake, shake. The little old lady is followed home by shoes, trousers, a shirt, gloves, a hat and a pumpkin head, and every noise stacks on top of the last, so the final page is the child performing six sounds in sequence from memory. Her solution - give the scarecrow a job - is why nobody ends up frightened.

Worth knowingThe chase through the dark wood is the only tense stretch, and it resolves into a scarecrow, but a three-year-old who is already wary of the dark may need the ending explained before you start.

Why it worksA mouse dentist treats a fox with toothache knowing he may well be eaten for it, and beats him with glue - so the child spends the book worrying about the dentist's safety instead of their own. Every instrument and procedure is shown matter-of-factly on the way past, which does the desensitising invisibly.

Worth knowingThe vocabulary is genuinely hard (extracted, unbearable, morsel) and the fox openly plans to eat the De Sotos. It suits five and six far more than three.

Why it worksIt is The Enormous Turnip with a witch, a ghost, a vampire and a mummy pulling, and each one arrives boasting 'I'm bigger than you' and fails anyway. The refrain repeats verbatim four times, so by the third character the child is reciting the whole thing, and the bat who actually solves it is the smallest one there.

Worth knowingA vampire and a mummy appear, but they are queuing politely and end up eating pie together - the tone is folk tale, not fright. Long for a two-year-old at nearly 700 words.

Why it worksLilly is magnificently, unapologetically horrible about the new baby - she tells him the alphabet is wrong on purpose - and only defends him when a cousin insults him. Older siblings recognise that exact contradiction in themselves and laugh instead of being told off.

Worth knowingLilly's behaviour is funny rather than punished; some parents would rather not hand a four-year-old the material.

Why it worksTaylor's block tower is knocked down and every animal offers the wrong thing - shout about it, fix it, laugh it off - until the rabbit does nothing but stay. It gives a small child the language for 'I don't want to talk yet' and it is short enough to read in the middle of the upset.

Why it worksFive separate short chapters, so you can read one and stop - the natural bridge between picture books and chapter books. 'The Letter', where Frog sends Toad a letter by snail and they wait four days for it, is the one children ask for.

Worth knowingThe longest book in this set - over twenty minutes end to end - and gentle where children who want jokes and volume find it flat next to Elephant & Piggie. Read one chapter, not five.

Why it worksBuilt from a 236-word list on purpose, so the anapaestic bounce never outruns what a new reader can decode - and the fish's nagging gives a child someone to disagree with. The tension of whether the house gets tidied before mother returns holds a five-year-old for the full fifteen minutes.

Worth knowingOne of the two longest books here at around fifteen minutes. It is a whole bedtime on its own and too much for a tired four-year-old.

Why it worksThe longest book in this set by a distance, and the argument it makes - Christmas came without packages, boxes or bags - is one a five-year-old can actually hold and repeat. Seuss front-loads the villainy so the first half is funny rather than moral, which is why children sit through 1,355 words of it. Secular.

Worth knowingAt 1,355 words this is a twelve-minute read and it will not fit into a rushed bedtime - split it at the sleigh going up the mountain. Cindy-Lou Who being lied to by an adult upsets a small number of children more than the theft does.

Why it worksTwo speech bubbles a page, colour-coded per character, so a new reader can carry Piggie's lines while you do Gerald's - it turns decoding into acting. The escalation from one bird to a nest of birds gets the same belly laugh on the fifteenth read.

Why it worksGerald's 'GROAN!' gets bigger on every page until it fills the spread, so a child who cannot yet read still knows exactly how loud to be - and the wordless starfield payoff at the end lands even when they have seen it before.

Why it worksFifty words in the entire book, all of them short, and every new location is added to a growing list the child recites with you - a box, a fox, a house, a mouse. A five-year-old can genuinely read this one aloud themselves within a few weeks of starting.

Worth knowingLong for its reading level; it is 60-plus pages and the repetition tires adults first.