Good books in French for 4 to 7 year olds
Here are some books my children ( and us as parents) really enjoyed for our children, when they were between 4 and 7 years old.
Apart from books we got a lot of great stories, quality illustrations and writing from magazines (which look like soft cover books really) published by Bayard Presse, a France-based publisher that sells worldwide.
For 3- 5 year olds who are smart enough to read or have someone who can read to them , the magazines are: Pomme d’Api and Belles Histoires. They are available only by subscription, although Bayard Editions eventually publishes book versions of the stories.
For 3-5 year olds:
- For a great look into French society today and really fun text and illustrations, there’s a collection of fine hard cover books from Bayard Editions with the following titles:
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- ‘Des Grands Parents, quelle aventure‘, by Roser Capdevilla, A-L Fournier-le Ray – (’ Grands Parents, what an adventure‘)
- ‘Un Bébé, quelle aventure‘, by Gaudrat Ma ( ‘ A baby, what an adventure’ )
- ‘Une maman, quelle aventure‘, by Roser Capdevilla, A-L Fournier-le Ray ( ‘ A mom, what an adventure’)
- ‘Un papa, quelle aventure‘ , by Roser Capdevilla, M-Agnès Gaudrat ( ‘ A dad, what an adventure‘)
The kids love to read them over and over as they depict tens of everyday situations they really relate to, in a fun way.
- Other charactersfound in book series for this age group:
- Tchoupi: a cute little bear, a boy symbol
- Martine: Martine is a little girl probably about 7 years old. She does babysitting, etc…
- Caroline: Caroline is a cute 7 to 9 year old girl who seems to live with a ménagerie of animals, all very human-like in their behaviour, so that the little ones can find an interest in her adventures. A typical French culture story is ‘Caroline et la Galette des rois’: Around the Epiphany, on January 6th, called ‘ la fete des Rois’ in France, traditionnaly a ‘galette’, a French pastry, is eaten with a ‘ fève’ in it, that designates the queen or the king. Here the event is full of surprises as one of Caroline’s pets eats the ‘ féve’…
- Léon le Bourdon, Mireille l’Abeille, and other animals series: A cute series with very original illustrations that I liked a little less because it had some mean, sarcastic elements in some of its stories.
For 5 to 7 year olds:
Nathan publishing, a French publisher, a collection of books called Première Lune ( ‘ First Moon’ ), in high quality, hard cover forma, with text that’s nice and large in size and many illustrations on its pagSome titles in the series we enjoyed are:
- Je le dirai à ma mère, by Béatrice Rouer ( ‘ I’ll tell on you to my mom ‘)
Is about two girl friends who quibble and involve their mothers in their fighting. The mothers first react agressively with each other and then find a way to make things fine again.
Searching for it on Amazon.com it says its out of print, but there’s another book in the same collection by Beatrice Rouer: Le Pestacle et Les Pétards, which looks fun too.
- Calamity Mamie, by Arnaud Alméras (’ Calamity Grandma‘)
There is a series of ‘ adventures ‘ involving Calamity Mamie, a forgetful, disorganized and ‘unny grandmother who gets maried again, puts makeup all over her face by mistake, etc… If you know a grand mother like that among your family circle, you’re sure to enjoy this reading with your children.
- >Petite Librairie online bookstore has some of these titles and others
