Recommended Reading for Year 3 (age 7-8)
Written by: Xuan
(Updated on 19 February 2026)
The recommended reading list aims to help parents choose books that are most appropriate for their children’s reading levels at the time.
To do this, books have been organised by:
• reading difficulty (sentence lengths, word lengths, vocabulary complexity)
• length (based upon average reading speed to choose a book that suits your child’s current stamina)
Year 3 (age 7-8)
| Title | Author | Difficulty | Length |
| Monster Story-Teller | Jacqueline Wilson | Easy | 15m |
| Ivy and Bean series | Annie Barrows | Easy | 1h |
| Horrid Henry series | Francesca Simon | Easy | 47m |
| Diary of a Killer Cat | Anne Fine | Easy | 28m |
| Wayside School | Louis Sachar | Easy | 3h 40m |
| The Boy Who Climbed into the Moon | David Almond | Easy | 1h 43m |
| The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark | Jill Tomlinson | Medium | 1h 16m |
| The Giggler Treatment | Roddy Doyle | Medium | 1h 5m |
| The Legend of Spud Murphy | Eoin Colfer | Medium | 52m |
| Angel of Nitshill Road | Anne Fine | Medium | 1h 6m |
| George Speaks | Dick King-Smith | Medium | 49m |
| Ms Wiz series | Terence Blacker | Medium | 41m |
| Fantastic Mr Fox | Roald Dahl | Medium | 1h 23m |
| Flat Stanley | Jeff Brown | Medium | 4h 4m |
| Bill’s New Frock | Anne Fine | Hard | 1h 23m |
| Gangsta Granny | David Walliams | Hard | 4h 30m |
| The Twits | Roald Dahl | Hard | 1h 3m |
| Marble Crusher | Michael Morpurgo | Hard | 1h 8m |
| Max and the Millions | Ross Montgomery | Hard | 5h 55m |
| Astrosaurs series | Steve Cole | Hard | 1h 24m |
| Grk series | Joshua Doder | Hard | 5h 3m |
| Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf | Catherine Storr | Hard | 2h 6m |
| The Butterfly Lion | Michael Morpurgo | Hard | 1h 49m |
| Winnie-the-Pooh | A. A. Milne | Hard | 2h 54m |
| Magical Children series | Sally Gardner | Hard | 1h 23m |
| Beast Quest series | Adam Blade | Hard | 1h 48m |
| 100 Mile an Hour Dog series | Jeremy Strong | Hard | 1h 36m |
| Little Wolf | Ian Whybrow | Hard | 1h 32m |
| The Roman Mysteries | Caroline Lawrence | Hard | 8h 20m |
| Charlie Bone | Jenny Nimmo | Hard | 8h 20m |
| Groosham Grange | Anthony Horowitz | Hard | 3h 49m |
| Seriously Silly series | Laurence Anholt | Advanced | 13m |
| My Naughty Little Sister series | Dorothy Edwards | Advanced | 2h 12m |
| Matilda | Roald Dahl | Advanced | 5h 7m |
| Captain Underpants | Dav Pilkey | Advanced | 2h 18m |
| Urgum the Axeman | Kjartan Poskitt | Advanced | 5h 39m |
| The Great Food Bank Heist | Onjali Q. Raúf | Advanced | 1h 25m |
| Pippi Longstocking | Astrid Lindgren | Advanced | 3h 19m |
| Clarice Bean series | Lauren Child | Advanced | 2h 35m |
| Mr Gum series | Andy Stanton | Advanced | 1h 35m |
| The Sheep Pig | Dick King-Smith | Advanced | 2h 12m |
| Olga da Polga | Michael Bond | Advanced | 2h 19m |
| Spy Dog series | Andrew Cope | Advanced | 3h 14m |
| The Voyage of QV66 | Penelope Lively | Advanced | 6h 12m |
| A Dog So Small | Philippa Pearce | Advanced | 4h 30m |
| Monster Mission | Eva Ibbotson | Advanced | 7h 24m |
| Grubtown Tales | Philip Ardagh | Guided Reading | 1h 44m |
| Paddington series | Michael Bond | Guided Reading | 3h 9m |
| Stuart Little | E. B. White | Guided Reading | 2h 24m |
| The Mysterious Benedict Society | Trenton Lee Stewart | Guided Reading | 12h 4m |
| The Animals of Farthing Wood | Colin Dann | Guided Reading | 10h 8m |
| Worst Witch series | Jill Murphy | Guided Reading | 2h 29m |
| Mission to Marathon | Geoffrey Trease | Guided Reading | 1h 15m |
| Chitty Chitty Bang Bang | Frank Cottrell-Boyce | Guided Reading | 2h 59m |
| How to Train Your Dragon | Cressida Cowell | Guided Reading | 3h 56m |
| The Happy Prince | Oscar Wilde | Guided Reading | 26m |
| The Dribblesome Teapots | Norman Hunter | Guided Reading | 5h 11m |
| Peter Pan | J. M. Barrie | Guided Reading | 6h 1m |
| King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table | Roger Lancelyn Green | Guided Reading | 8h 5m |
| The Wind in the Willows | Kenneth Grahame | Guided Reading | 7h 29m |