At Succeed 11-Plus Mocks we believe that children should be encouraged and praised for reading books of their choice. However,  when your child is preparing for their 11-Plus entrance examinations they need to prepare for the sort of language they will face in the comprehension papers. Reading a variety of books will help them with this challenge.

Reading old and modern children’s classics will help your child develop their comprehension skills and expand their vocabulary, which is essential for the Verbal Reasoning tests. Reading good writing will  also help improve your child’s writing style as they will be able identify the use of literary devices e.g. similes and personification etc. in sentences and be able to use these techniques in their own writing. Reading helps improve grammar and spelling too!

The following  is intended to be a guide to books suitable for children in years 4, 5 and 6. It covers a range of genres. Some of the texts will be more difficult to read than others, so care should be taken when choosing a book that your child might enjoy. Reading should not be regarded as homework or a chore, but seen as something pleasurable. If your child is not enjoying the book they are reading then reading extracts from the book and discussing the story with your child is a valuable exercise too.

Happy Reading!

E. Nesbit

Five Children and It

The Railway Children

Frances Hodgson Burnett 

The Secret Garden

C.S. Lewis

The Magician’s Nephew

The Lion the Witch and The Wardrobe

Phillippa Pearce

Tom’s Midnight Garden

Michelle Magorian

Goodnight, Mister Tom

Eva Ibbotson

Journey to the River Sea

Michael Morpurgo

Kensuke’s Kingdom

The Butterfly Lion

Private Peaceful

Lucy Montgomery

Anne of Green Gables

Louise Sachar

Holes

J.R.R Tolkien

The Hobbit

David Almond

Skellig

Mary Poppins

P.L. Travers

Philip Pullman

The Firework-Maker’s Daughter

Northern Lights

Clive King

Stig of the Dump

Ian Serraillier

The Silver Sword

Richard Adams

Watership Down

T.H. White

The Sword in the Stone

J.M. Barrie

Peter Pan

Kenneth Graham

The Wind in The Willows

Michelle Paver

Wolf Brother

Erin Hunter

Warrior Cats

Jack London

White Fang

Call of the Wild

Berlie Doherty

Street Child

Lynne Reid Banks

The Indian in the Cupboard

Penelope Lively

A Stitch in Time

The Ghost of Thomas Kempe

Roger McGough (Edited by)

The Ring of Words (An Anthology of Poetry for Children)

Joan Aitkin

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase

Rudyard Kipling

The Jungle Book

Lewis Carroll

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland