Seconded, certainly for Shirley’s age group. Anything by Astrid Lindgren is very good, and she has books for different age-groups. There’s a good reason she was the writer of Europe’s children’s books for decades.
You’re right, I’d forgotten about some of the more adult themes in there. It was one that my mom read aloud to me and my siblings, and we LOVED it, but now I don’t know how old we were at the time. We eventually read all four. Though each book is long, each chapter can act independently as a short story, so it does break down into manageable chunks.
In the US, the books used to be packaged as:
- All Creatures Great and Small
- All Things Bright and Beautiful
- All Things Wise and Wonderful
- The Lord God Made Them All
OOOOOOOhhhh, my Amazon Wish List is growing bigger, yet again!
Presently, we are reading: Time Cat which I have never heard of by Lloyd Alexander and found at Borders by chance. We are really enjoying it.
We used to look forward to our teacher reading the latest chapter of this book where the kid’s little brother eats his pet turtle…which book was that?
I was a good girl and didn’t spoil the surprise even though I knew what was coming up!
And another vote for The Phantom Tollbooth…it’s so wonderful! I read my favorite part* aloud to a group of friends as adults, as we were going to sleep after Halloween festivities.
*when Milo conducts the sunrise. I see words and numbers and sometimes music as colors so it made a lot of sense! The first shot of lemon yellow sun as the piccolo plays…
The Adventures of Mabel by Harry Thurston Peck.
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson set the gold standard for pirates stories in 1863 and it’s still going strong. You can’t go wrong with Treasure Island.
J.M. Barrie’s novellization of Peter Pan is also a good book to read to kids.
Keep in mind that both books have some violence in them. Pan was far more violent than I expected.
Marc
It sounds like one of the Fudge books by Judy Bloom. I never liked those books much - as the oldest in my family it all seemed too familiar - the youngest gets away with everything, the oldest gets the blame. (I haven’t reread them since I was a kid, so this may not be accurate)
Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing.
If your kids are into the more adventurous stories, I also would recomend the stories from Astrid Lindgren, especially Ronja the robbers daughter, and The brothers Lionheart.
Also mentioned are Jules Verne, my favourites from childhood being 20 000 leagues under water, and Around the world in 80 days. Marvelous stories!
Another book that I happily remember from childhood is Call of the wild by Jack London.
I must also recomend two books because of the really good illustrations in them, one is The muddleheaded wombat by Ruth Park, and the other is The magic pudding by Norman Lindsay.
I must say I envy your kids since you mentioned you are reading the books to them. Is it possible to join, I can bring my own pillow to sit on?
The Earthsea books by Ursula Le Guin almost seem written to be read aloud. I love the original three books and plug them at every opportunity.
Not to continue the hijack or anything, but…
I decided to read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer to my son (now 11yo) a couple of years ago, over the summer. While I am perfectly aware that it is a classic, and that it was written for an era long, long ago, I’m not sure it’s really appropriate for a child that age in the 21st century. Much of the vocabulary is so outdated that I had to interpret a lot of the text for him, and there are so many outdated concepts in the book that I’m not sure he understood many of the major plot themes.
Anne McCaffrey has a great series of Pern books that are good adventures, and that aren’t necessarily above a 6yo’s comprehension level, even if they are meant to be adult books. The Dragonriders of Pern Trilogy (Dragonquest, Dragonflight, and The White Dragon) are fun to read. (More books have been added to the series since then, but they get more complicated from a scientific point of view, and aren’t as much “fun.”
I can’t believe nobody has recommended *Johnny Tremain * by Esther Forbes.
(Note: US children especially.)
I second Where the Red Fern Grows.
Certain books should be read by the children themselves, like any Beverly Cleary book (Ramona, Henry Huggins, The Mouse and the Motorcycle, Dear Mr. Henshaw) or How to Eat Fried Worms, but many books, like The Boxcar Children series, Charlotte’s Web, The Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, The Cricket in Times Square, and many others are fine when read out loud.
What concepts are those? I remember reading and liking Tom Sawyer when I was a kid, though, granted, that was last century. There’s a lot of great stuff in there. Come on—being lost in a cave with a cute girl while there’s a murderer lurking about? Camping out on an island with other boys, then coming back and crashing your own funeral? What’s not to love?
(Then I tried the sequel, Huckleberry Finn, and that was way too much for me at that age!)
A Secret Garden is a goodie.
The Little Princess, more for your daughter, but it’s a nice tale anyway.
There was one book that I loved as a kid, but that I can’t now remember the name of - it involved our protagonist, who wakes up one night and hears the grandfather clock strike 13 (13?!). He (or she, I forget) goes downstairs to a magical world and good adventures. He’s afraid that it’ll never happen again, but lo and behold, it does, some time later. And more adventures. Since it’s got just enough of a magical element, I loved it. Had a red spine. Can’t for the life of me remember the name, but perhaps someone else will.
And Prydain’s awesome.
It could be Tom’s Midnight Garden , tho’ I don’t remember Peter and Hattie. But the title seemed instantly “right,” if you know what I mean.
I am at the library right now and going to look for these books.
I love this place.
I’m glad you remembered it, I was trying to figure it out with no luck. Sounds good!
What, the library, or the SDMB? 
I tried to read Watership Down aloud to my husband a few years ago. I recommend against it. There are thousands of pages of description and the writing isn’t paced for reading out loud. It’s also dark and quite scary.
Has anyone recommended The Dark Is Rising yet?
Sarah, Plain and Tall
The Search for Delicious- Natalie Babbit
Warrior Scarlet- Rosemary Sutcliff (maybe in a year or two, rather than right now)
Ok, I’m late to the party but I’ll throw in some Australian-flavoured suggestions:
(these are all classics)
Snugglepot & Cuddlepie by May Gibbs
The Magic Pudding by Norman Lindsay
the Blinky Bill stories by Dorothy Wall
And some contempory Aussie suggestions:
anything by Paul Jennings
For older readers, try books by John Marsden