Best SFF children's book.

[Jev]

I read 'A Wrinkle In Time' around 7 or 8, although the book is pitched to older readers. It's a great book, and the following series (multiple series) are mostly well worth it, too.

LeGuin's 'Earthsea' series (although it gets fairly mature-in-a-conceptual-way as the series goes on) and Lloyd Alexander's 'Prydain' series (and 'Westmark' series, for older/tween readers) also belong here.

[deaconllq]

Excellent choices. I too read Earthsea when younger. How could I have overlooked it?!

[Urlik]

Originally Posted by manephelien

Fairy tales in their original form (uncorrupted by Disney) are hardly fare for modern children, at least not very young ones, filled as they are with stories of murder and mayhem, evil stepmothers and stepfathers, fattening kids up in order to eat them etc.

I disagree. 7 and 8 year olds can easily cope with the original fairy tales.
and more importantly, the fairy tales teach them those basic survival rules like "don't talk to strangers" and "don't accept gifts from strangers" (Little Red Riding Hood and Snow White respectively)
yes there is murder and mayhem but children are actually quite bloodthirsty and fairy tales always have a happy ending where the bad guys get what they deserve and the hero/heroine gets the reward.
there is also a great opportunity for the adult reading to the child to ask loaded questions at appropriate points in the story to get the child to think about what the hero did wrong to get into a tricky situation and what the hero did right to get out of it and what the villan did that justified his grisly end.

one of my favourites when I was about that age (possibly a bit younger) was Jack the Giant Killer which is a pretty good introduction into fantasy.
other stories that I had read to me when I was about that age were from mythology (you just have to love a grandmother who will sit down and tell a 7 year old about Jason and the Argonaughts and Hercules and Beowolf and King Arthur etc.)

[deaconllq]

Mythology, unlike the fairy tales you mentioned, does not always end happily. (Not that everything must. To discover life a child sometimes must discover that things don't always end happily) Also, many times the "heroes" of mythology are motivated by some of the darker places of the soul.

[shadowbox]

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.

[daveac]

Best Science Fiction books for young kids - Stig of the Dump

Where Barney befriends a Caveman.

It's been made into a TV series

Cheers, daveac

[Contrary Mary]

Way back in 1958, I read "The Space Ship Under the Apple Tree " by Louis Slobodkin. I re-read it as an adult. A bit basic, for a good first book for age 7 or 8.

Also, "The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet" by Eleanor Cameron. There are sequals to that.

And, Yes, Theresa Seuss's "The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins"==read in second grande and still recall it after all these years!

[JRV]

I think I read my first Terry Brooks book, Sword of Shannara, at 10 or 11. I find it an easy read for any age. In fact, the story line is so straightforward that a 7 or 8 year-old could easily comprehend it's content these days.

[ratsy]

I remember really enjoying the Princess and the Goblin by George Macdonald, I think. Don't recall too much about it just that my mom read it too my brother and I, and we ate it up