Angie Yeow

Our English Chapter Book Shelf

We have just decluttered our books in the early years. Now the recent copies of chapter books strewn all over the house finally have a home.

My kids had done a bilingual top 3 reviews of Chinese and English books a few years back. It ranged from picture to comic and chapter books. You can view them here.

This time round, only my younger ones did the book reviews. I respect my tween’s wish to not participate. They did an updated list of top 3 English Chapter books that we had accumulated in the recent years or the books that were good enough for them to re-read a dozen times and they refused to give away.

I was pleased that the kids had done their reviews independently but I had to raise the issue on plagiarism. They had lifted a few phrases from the back page of the book review for certain parts of the review without acknowledgement. Other than that, which I helped them include the quotation marks, I did not change any of their paraphrasing or words. I hope this would also encourage them to know their contribution is greatly valued and appreciated.

Tian’s Top 3 Reviews by order of preference (age 9 )

1. My BFF Is An Alien By Vivian Teo

My BFF Is An Alien is about a thirteen-year-old girl called Abriana. Octavia, Abriana’s best friend, comes from the planet of Viridis. The best friends “need to find the anteris, a precious element that powers Octavia’s family spaceship”, but during school time, especially at camp, their mean classmates got in the way in their searching of the anteris. Their quest was extra hard as they face a hard time with Naomi, Abriana’s former BFF.

The below is my review. Do check out her Instagram @vivianteowriter. Sabotage is Vivian’s sequel. We’re eagerly waiting for her third book!

2. Emma Catwalks And Cupcakes! By CoCo Simon (Cupcake Dairies)

Emma Taylor goes for an audition for a new modelling job, her BFF, Katie comes along to keep her company. But it turns out all wanted Katie to model instead of Emma even though she has a way better sense of fashion then Katie. “At first, Emma is happy for her friend, but after a while she realizes sharing the spotlight isn’t much fun, even if it is with your BFF!” (This is the only book we don’t own)

3. Thea Stilton The Magic Of The Mirror By Thea Stilton

The Thea Sisters are ready for another adventure, this time Will Mystery is not waiting for them. They are heading on the most important mission they have ever been given. “A powerful magic mirror has been found, and someone wants to use it for evil” purposes. They have to travel from kingdom to kingdom to find the eight Harmonies before “the mirror has the power to turn all the fantasy kingdoms into dry deserts.”

Bao’s Top 3 Reviews by order of preference (age 11)

  1. Ender’s Game By Orson Scott Card

“Once again, the Earth is under attack. An alien species is” preparing for their final attack. The survival of all humankind depends on a small child named Ender Wiggin. He is brilliant, ‘ruthless’ and ‘cunning’. All the qualities needed to be a great commander. “Recruited for military training by the world government”, also known as the I.F, Ender’s childhood ends when he steps into his new home – Battle School. Among other young elite recruits, Ender trains to be a soldier. Everyone looks down on him as something scrawny and useless, especially Bonzo Madrid, a mean Brazilian boy who is the commander of Salamander Army. “But, Ender proves himself to be a genius among geniuses. He excels in simulated war games” and knows how to get himself out of tricky situations. “But is the pressure and loneliness taking a toll on him?” In Battle School, Ender has to battle against the bullies, Bonzo and most importantly, his feelings. Can Ender deal with all his problems while still training to be a commander? Luckily, he has many friends who are willing to help him to get through this long and hard journey.

This is his sequel.

2. Artemis Fowl By Eoin Colfer

“Artemis Fowl is a ruthless criminal mastermind, and he is twelve years old. And he has just discovered that fairies are real. But these are not the gentle creatures in fairy tales. They are armed and extremely dangerous.” Artemis is determined to be the first human who has ever set his hands on fairy gold. He tricks a fairy and forces her to give him a copy of The Book which is the fairies’ sacred book that tells them what is forbidden and what is allowed. Artemis manages to decipher The Book and now knows all the fairies’ secrets. Artemis devises a plan and kidnaps elf Captain Holly Short in an attempt to ransom her for fairy gold. Holly is incredibly dangerous and is not too happy about the kidnapping. The fairies try to fight back but every time Artemis outsmarts them. The fairies even send in a troll – the most dangerous animal ever, only to be defeated by Butler, Artemis’s faithful bodyguard. As a final resort, the fairies decide to activate a time stop on the Fowl Manor. Once a time stop is activated, it will immediately vaporise all living things within its radius, and not affect a single non-living thing at all. Artemis somehow finds a way to escape the time field and save him and his family and friends.

The other series.

3. Heroes Of Olympus: The Lost Hero By Rick Riordan

Jason, a powerful demigod with amnesia, has a quest to complete. Luckily, he has the help of two other demigods, Leo and Piper. Jason can fly and shoot lightning. Leo can summon fire and fix things easily. Piper can charmspeak. Together, these three demigods must find Hera, a goddess, who has been imprisoned by a giant and free her. In this dangerous journey, the trio battle countless of monsters and evil people, and also make some friends. On the way, Jason are saved from a vicious wolf pack by Thalia Grace and her Hunters, a group of female warriors who are faithful to the goddess Artemis. Thalia Grace is actually Jason’s sister, and so Jason finds out a little more about his past. Jason and his friends fight Enceladus and defeat him, also freeing Piper’s father, Tristan Mclean. After that, they travel to the Wolf House and free Hera while fighting many monsters. They battle the giant king, Porphyrion and also defeat him wth the help of Jason’s father, Zeus.

Here are the rest of the books in photos for your reference.

Interestingly, I observed my tween never gets tired of Sherlock Sam series. He likes to re read his Sherlock Sam series and he has borrowed all the series since young. Thanks to @ AJ Low writers, I won their latest giveaway! My eldest was the most excited and read it twice in a row!
My middle tween Bao enjoys James Patterson series for a period too.
Stash of interesting books. Highlight: The Van Gogh Deception is one of our favs where all agreed it was an exciting story and I did a brief review on Instagram below.

This series is an all time classic favourite mystery cum adventure plot. You can judge the book by the tattered and torn cover.

This is Bao’s personal stash.

I hope this list of photos help spread the love of reading to your kids as much as they have to mine! There are many other great books but for different reasons, my kids are not drawn to sci-fi genre. So, do make sure you check them out at the library before you get them for your kids.

If you have any more chapter book recommendations pls comment and let me know! I would love to check them out together with my kids. Have a blessed Christmas and a fresh New year! Thank you for journeying with us! You’re one Big reason this blog is still alive.

For more posts on English Learning

  1. Rib-tickling Creative Doddling Games
  2. Read to Me Campaign
  3. The Write Connection
  4. Current Affairs
  5. Preschool English Lapbooking

For more posts on Chinese Learning

  1. Top 3 English and Chinese Reading Choices by my Three kids
  2. Spark Joy in Chinese Learning through Audio Books (Ximalaya)
  3. Free printable: Chinese Characters Illustrations Series 1
  4. Free printable: Chinese Characters Illustrations Series 2
  5. Free printable: Chinese Characters Illustrations Series 3
  6. Learn Chinese with inspiring biographoes, comical chickens and more
  7. Nightly Routine of reading Chinese Chapter books
  8. Our Favourite Chinese Picture Books
  9. Review of Chinese Comics, Chapter Books and More
  10. Resourceful Ways to Help Children Learn Chinese (四五快读 and More)
  11. Chinese Learning Video Series
  12. 47 Chinese Qns to ask instead of How was your day?
  13. Learning Chinese through a Chinese Translating App
  14. Chinese Copy Cat 1
  15. Growing In Touch with being a Chinese

For more posts on Learning

  1. Home-based Learning Loving & Home-based loving learning
  2. Process of education starts from the heart of our home
  3. For what is worth in our academic pursuits?
  4. New Routine: Interest based 1 to 1 and chinese reading habits
  5. Teach the art of learning to learn?
  6. How do I maintain creativity in kids?
  7. Moving Minds, Heartening Hearts
  8. A loss nothing compared to gains in Sept Hols
  9. The heArt of growth mindset
  10. The heArt of growth mindset: I can learn anything!
  11. Smile it’s Exams! Great time to grow and glow!
  12. Raising motivated kids
  13. Small spaces for 3 growing hearts
  14. Younger Peek-a-day! Routine

For posts on PSLE thoughts

  1. Papa shares his staycation time with our 12yo son
  2. How to help our Post PSLE son transit to teenagehood?
  3. Counting up blessings to PSLE

If you enjoyed the post, help share this post and follow our journey at

Blog|Instagram | Facebook

8 comments

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s