Guidance: About the Year 3 Booklist

Reading for pleasure in Year 3 can provide entertainment and delight as well as opening up a host of new worlds to children. Books provide children of this age group with opportunities to stretch the imagination as well as to consider what life might be like in a myriad of different settings and situations. Stories about the lives of others can help children to develop empathy and understand emotions, while at the same time increasing children’s language skills and vocabulary. Furthermore, research shows that reading for pleasure in childhood is a more powerful indicator of future educational attainment than parental socioeconomic status. In order to facilitate the enjoyment of reading, getting the right book into the right child’s hands at the right time is the key. At the age of 7-8, many children have learned to read short books by themselves and begin to exercise greater freedom of choice over their independent reads at school and home. Funny books are very popular with this age group, as are short chapter books with illustrated elements and visually appealing non-fiction texts. In addition to independent reading, story time with adults remains important and treasured in Year 3, too – both at home and in the classroom.

With these factors in mind, our team has carefully selected a range of books especially picked for encouraging reading for pleasure in Year 3, both as independent book choices and for texts to be read aloud by an adult. Some of the stories in the collection will be especially appealing to children looking for an illustrated chapterbook series, such as the Nothing to See Here Hotel series, the giggle-worthy SAM WU series and the very popular 13-Storey Treehouse books, which all have memorable characters and frequent visual elements to break up the text. A number of stories in the collection are brilliant choices for making children laugh out loud, like the storytime favourite Charlie Changes into a Chicken.

Other stories chosen for our Year 3 booklist are more tender-hearted and thought-provoking. We love Andy Shepherd’s story The Boy Who Grew Dragons, all about a young boy who finds a baby dragon hatching from a ‘dragon-fruit’ tree in the garden, or Peter Brown’s popular storytime choice The Wild Robot, which explores themes of technology and nature. Animal lovers will be drawn towards the feline world of Varjak Paw or to Michael Morpurgo’s poignant story of life-changing animal-to-human friendship in The Puffin Keeper. Not all of the stories on the list are longer reads – for excellent picturebook choices suitable for Year 3, we recommend the completely magical Leon and the Place Between or the stunningly-illustrated Oceans Meets Sky .

If you are looking for classic stories, you’ll find on our list some real favourites suitable for children aged 7-8, like Ted Hughes’ thrilling and mysterious story of The Iron Man or the poignant farmyard tale of friendship, courage and loss in Charlotte’s Web. Other stories in the collection are brand new for 2022, such as the eco-mystery in which we find STEM-loving Leonora Bolt, or Jo Clarke’s macaron-filled mystery Libby and the Parisian Puzzle.

You’ll find a variety of genres and formats included on our recommended Year 3 reading list, from poetry collections like Joshua Seigal’s giggle-worthy Yapping Away to the impressive nature poetry anthology Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright, which contains a poem for every day of the year. We’ve also included some graphic novel-style stories, such as Arthur and the Golden Rope and Agent Moose. If you are looking for a short chapter book for an ideal first step into independent reading, try Holly Webb’s sausage-dog seaside story The Beach Puppy or Jion Sheibani ’s The Worries or for more ideas, be sure to check out our separate booklist listing recommended First Chapter Books.

We have also selected a handful of illustrated non-fiction texts that are particularly well-suited to readers aged 7 and 8,  from the comic-style fact book Caveman, a Queen and Everything In Between (which was voted Lower KS2 winner in our Books of the Year Award), to DK’s inspiring Encyclopedia of Very Important Sport, to Yuval Zommer’s beautifully illustrated The Street Beneath My Feet, which provides a real wow-factor to shared reading experiences with its 2.5 metre fold-out spread. If you are looking for books themed around a particular topic, head over to our KS2 topic booklists.

You can find out more about the process of collating our Recommended Reads booklists here.

Where to Purchase:

• Click on the individual book covers to purchase via Amazon.

• Purchase individual titles from this booklist via the BooksForTopics page on BookShop.Org.

• To buy the full book pack, contact our schools’ book supplier.

Printable Posters & Checklists: