Best books of 2025: Chapter books for an advanced 1st grader

When your child has listened to over 400 hours of audiobooks during the year, has listened as you’ve read aloud some awesome books, and has finally started to read independently, the result is a giant booklist full of several gems. I asked my son to tell me his favorite for the year, and it was excruciatingly hard for him to narrow it down to these 17. We’ve got some classics as well as books you’ve probably never heard of! Our list contains books appropriate for beginning chapter book readers to advanced elementary readers or listeners, and a few are even geared towards middle school, so preview and use your judgement for your own family. I’ll show you several series, some stand-alone books, and then finally the countdown of his top 5 for the year. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKTnuZRuDrw

Book Series

The Questioneers series (Iggy Peck and the Mysterious Mansion) by Andrea Beaty – We got introduced to this series through the related picture books which are also really fun. The books expose kids to different careers through fun storylines about a group of kids solving practical life issues through their specialized knowledge. A variety of kids in this series aspire to be an architect, engineer, scientist, illustrator, and even a politician.

Wait! WHAT? series by Dan Gutman – A fun biography series that introduces itself by complaining that typical biographies “always leave out the cool stuff. The Strange stuff.” The book then declares that it will focus on those facts. The titles speak for themselves with Amelia Earhart is on the Moon? Or Muhammad Ali was a Chicken? Check them out. Your kids will love them.

Zoe and Sassafras series by Asia Citro – This series combines fantasy and science, teaching about various biology topics through the main character, Zoe, taking care of magical animals that come to her for help. My son is a science enthusiast who normally doesn’t like fantasy, but he has loved these for years. It would also be great for kids who love fantasy but just can’t get into science!

The Boxcar Children series by Gertrude Chandler Warner – These are classic mystery books for kids that need no introduction. My son got so addicted to these that he listened to all 150+. They are even better via audiobook, and I remember enjoying long car rides as a kid while listening to the Yellow House Mystery on cassette tape. Go check out a few for free on Hoopla! If you’ve never heard of Hoopla, then go watch my video here that shares all the free places we get our audiobooks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3468zSNhFo

Encyclopedia Brown by Donal J. Sobel – If there is a classic example in literature of an extremely intelligent kid who frequently makes connections that the adults around him overlook, it’s Encyclopedia Brown. My favorite thing about this series is that each book contains several short stories that end by asking the reader to solve the mystery on their own and then checking their solution against the real one in the back of the book. These are great audiobooks for family car rides since the stories are short and you can debate as a family how Encyclopedia solved the case!

Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales by Nathan Hale – This is a graphic novel series teaching rarely discussed portions of history, and our gateway to the series was Big Bad Ironclad. The hilarious narrative keeps kids engaged while still doling out some often tedious details of history. Many of the books deal with difficult content, and by keeping the tone light, I feel like this content can be accessed by our more sensitive kids as well. Parental warning: some of the topics like the cannibalism of the Donner Party may be inappropriate for the younger elementary crowd, so be sure to glance through the graphics and content before letting your kid read each book.

Who Was ____? – An amazing biography series that recounts the lives of dozens of people throughout history in an engaging way. The series even has science and civics topics, but my son’s favorites may have been the legends of the Loch Ness Monster or the Bermuda Triangle.

Elephant and Piggy by Mo Williams – After Dr. Suess books, early readers probably love these books most. I would routinely find my son reading them aloud to my preschooler, and they are just such a delight for me to read aloud too. 

Stand Alone Books

I don’t know much about these stand alone books other than what the description says, but my son REALLY loved them and they’ve been recommended by a few sources. I’ll do my best to tell you what I do know.

American Moonshot Young Readers Edition by Douglas Brinkley – My son is obsessed with everything space and engineering, so this account of our race to the moon by a bestselling author was an audiobook he just couldn’t push pause on.

The Boy who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba – This memoir recounts a young boy’s experience in a village in Malawi as he learns science and engineering on his own initiative to save his family. Through research in the local library, he teaches himself how to build a windmill that will pump water into his family’s fields so that they can survive. This was one of the first books my son thought of when I told him to tell me his favorites from the year.

DK the Bacteria Book or DK It can't Be True! Poo! – We love a good DK book in our family, and two of their nonfiction books made it to my son’s lists. He listened to the audiobooks on Libby, but the books themselves look spectacular as DK books always do. He loved the Bacteria Book and the one with cool facts about Poo.

I promised the top 5, so here we go!!

Count Down of the top 5

#5 I Survived series By Lauren Tarshish – A historical fiction series showcasing various disasters throughout time. These come in either early reader chapter books or middle school graphic novels, and my son has enjoyed both. Probably his all time favorite was the Great Molasses Flood!

#4 History Smashers by Kate Messner – This amazing author who is well known for her “over and under” books on nature writes these books about history. Kate’s premise is to smash history myths by telling the true account of what happened. Our introduction to the series was through the Titanic book, and the entire family enjoyed that engaging account of an iconic moment in history.

#3 The Secret Explorer series by SJ King – A DK fiction series that teaches science through a story about a group of kids saving the day. Each kid in the secret explorer society has a specialty, and they team up when missions come into headquarters that need their expertise. From helping guide a pod of whales back onto their migration path to rescuing a kid stranded in the middle of a volcano eruption, the adventures thrill the readers while they immerse themselves into these living books of really cool science.

#2 National Park Mystery Series  by Aaron Johnson – I stumbled across this series quite by accident on my search for audiobooks for my son. We listened to the first one based in Rocky Mountain National Park as a family, and then have enjoyed the next two as family read alouds. Each book follows the hiking adventures of three 13 year old kids whose families are camping together through 8 national parks. Jake, the main character, has inherited a mystery to solve from his grandfather who planned this trip before his death and then has left clues with various allies to help Jake and his friends solve a mystery that’s over a century old. Through the books, the readers learn about the National Parks as well as various survival skills as the kids in the book learn from their parents and rangers. There are flashbacks to times in the past to help develop the mystery even further. The author is still writing the series, so it’s going to be one that we will probably be pre-ordering!

#1 Science Comics series published by First Second – My son is REALLY into science, so a graphic novel series about science of course would take his top spot. I’ve read a couple of these books too and was very impressed with the depth to which they talk about a subject. The one on engineering skyscrapers explained tension forces, designing for wind, and the importance of the materials selected. The books do not shy away from technical words, but they present the content in quirky ways that keep the kids engaged and wanting more. The series covers animals, earth science, engineering, physics, biology, and more!

That’s our list. Interested in more chapter books for advanced readers/listeners? I’ve complied a huge list from many other parents and sources, putting them all in an EPIC Booklist for your reference. Download it for free in my store!