Personally, by eight I would have been insulted if my dad read to me. Books were private worlds for me and I could live in them perfectly well by myself. At bedtime my dad used to tell us our own stories, starring me and my sister. If we really liked one he would make it into a little picture book (he's a painter) to keep. They were cool. By the by, back to the books.
His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman.
It's fantastic, great for either a boy or a girl (one of each in the story), talks about philosophy and religion or can be read as a straight adventure. The individual books are called: Northern Lights, The Amber Spyglass (longlisted for the Booker) and The Subtle Knife. They really are wonderful, the sort of books that they will remember forever and re-read as adults. Continuing on the philosophy theme, Sophie's World by Jostein Gaardner is also fabulous.
As a child I particularly remember liking kids poetry like
There's an Awful Lot of Weirdos in our Neighbourhood and
The Sausage is a Cunning Bird. Some story books that stuck ( apart from LOTR of course) follow
Carrie's War--Nina Bawden
Goodnight Mr Tom--Michelle Magorian
Tom's Midnight Garden--Phillipa Pearce
Stig of the Dump--Dick King Smith
Matilda (hmm, might you have guessed that one
, anything by Roald Dahl is good though, The Witches, BFG, George's Marvellous Medicine etc)
Red Shift, Elidor, The Weirdstone of Brisingaman--Alan Garner
A Wizard of Earthsea--Ursula LeGuin
FUNGUS THE BOGEYMAN!! but they may be a little old for that one, have a look at this
http://www.coldfusionvideo.com/book/fungusbogeyman.html and decide.
