Young readers list for British parents in France

Getting the reading habit isn’t just important for children’s academic progress or, far more importantly, one of the most exciting things that will ever happen to them. What you have read is also part of your national-cultural identity and for British kids growing up in France really to feel British, especially if they go back to the UK, they need to have read the same books (yes, OK, and watched the same tv programmes) as their compatriots.

So, here’s a selection of classic and modern literature from the current UK school reading lists - books they should have read; books that are a joy to read.

Primary pupils:

reading age 5-7

The Cat in the Hat by Dr Seuss;
A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond;
Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy by Lynley Dodd;
We’re going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen;
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

7-8
Charlotte’s Web by E B White;
The Hundred Mile an Hour Dog by Jeremey Strong;
The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks;
Fungus the Bogeyman by Raymond Briggs;
Mr Majeika by Humphrey Carpenter;
One thousand and One Arabian Nights by Geraldine Mccaughrean;
Ivan the Terrible by Anne Fine

8-9
Alice’s adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll;
The Butterfly Lion by Michael Morpurgo;
Beowulf by Kevin Crossley-Holland;
Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kastner;
The firework-makers Daughter by Philip Pullman;
Harriet The Spy by Louise Fitzhugh;
Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder;
Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupéry;
Stig of the Dump by Clive King;
Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome;
War Boy by Michael Foreman

9-10
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens;
Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper;
Conor’s Eco Den by Pippa Goodheart;
The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliffe;
Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz;
Watership Down by Richard Adams;
The Red Necklace by Sally Gardner