Looking for some wholesome reading, can be outright religious or just not something like Captain underpants.
magic tree house, anything else on that level?????? around second or third grade.
I"ve always just let my kids pick things from the library that they enjoy but i'm seeing way too much OOk and Glook and Diary of a wimpy kid, and pokemon junk. I've lilke to suggest some other things.
Chronicles of Narnia
Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little, The Trumpet of the Swan
Anything by Beverly Cleary (Beezus and Ramona, etc.)
Anything by Roald Dahl (James and Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, etc.)
The Shiloh trilogy
Little House on the Prairie series
Anne of Green Gables
The Secret Garden
Where the Red Fern Grows
All of the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder.
I started reading them in 3rd grade.
Anne of Green Gables Series
Heidi
They might be a challlenge, and were for my daughter when she started them a couple years ago, but we tackled it with her reading a page and I reading a page.
For boys: Encyclopedia Brown series - he's a gradeschool detective.
Judy Blume: Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Superfudge, Fudge-A-Mania,
Double Fudge.
Charlotte's Web
Swiss Family Robinson
The Narnia books MamaMay suggested are really awesome.
I am reading my kidergatener the narnia books...
I can give you some ideas of vintage books (my kids are grown). Look for the MY FATHER'S DRAGON series by Gannett and Gannett. Read the LITTLE HOUSE books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Read NARNIA; the books are much better than the movies. Look for the RAMONA series by Beverly Cleary. See if you can find some of the GRANDMA'S ATTIC books. They all loved Lloyd Alexander's PRYDAIN CHRONICLES (fantasy, but not super-weird, and with good lessons). All my kids loved the ENCYCLOPEDIA BROWN books. Gordon Korman's BRUNO AND BOOTS books were also a big hit, if you can find them. I don't know if they're still in print.
Many of these suggested are more advanced than your children's grade level - which means you will read the books to them, or just file the ideas away for later. Actually, children tend to enjoy older-level stories, even though they can't read them for themselves.
I just sent a granddaughter a five-book series by (I think) Sarah Pennypacker. It's about a girl named Clementine who is creative, intelligent, and wiggly. She's not terrifically excited about being named after a fruit, so she calls her little brother Brussel Sprout or Onion or any vegetable name that comes into her head. I read them first and loved them. They're second or third grade level.
Go to a Christian bookstore. They have lots of series books that are wholesome.
About what age? When I was about 10 or 11 I was VERY into Jeanette Oke books. She is a Canadian writer whose setting is usually frontier life in Canada, and has strong, Christian heroines.
Do you think they are ready for CS Lewis' children's books? I started reading to them and then they took over.
I'm not sure what the grade level is but I remember reading the Mandi series for years by Lois Gladys Leppard (http://mandie.com/).
I loved her books and read practically every one of them. I know several of the books have been turned into movies and you can find them at your local Christian book store.
I also liked the books Ellie's People by Mary Christner Borntrager. Again I'm not sure on the grade level. My grandmother gave me and my sisters the books right around 3rd gradish or 4th grade. But I read those books for years and still like to read them. They are about Amish families/Mennonites.
The 2 things that come to the top of my mind are there are some Arthur and Berenstein Bears chapter books. I am not sure if they are in print though, we found a ton of them in a used bookstore. I have seen them used on Amazon & Ebay.
ETA: It does look like the Arthur ones are still in print but not the Berenstein Bears.
"Suzie Bitner Was Afraid of the Drain" by Barbara Vance is a super (and really fun) book of children's poetry and is probably best for boys and girls in grades 1-5.
"This Time, Tempe Wick?" by Patricia Gauche is about a strong girl in colonial times -- for grades 3 or 4.
The "Frog and Toad" books by Arnold Lobel are great for early readers, maybe up to grade 2.
The Wally McDougall books. They're a series, and they're usually titled something like "My Life As .... [then some kind of adjective] " . Very wholesome, but funny and moral and entertaining.
