Please help me find a middle grade chapter book for my son!

Hello,

My 4-year-old and I were given a copy of my father's dragon and its sequels. He absolutely loved it and we got in the habit of reading every night before bed because of it. I think part of the appeal was the content of the book, and part was that almost every page had pictures. I've tried other books that are kind of similar and have not have any luck. I'm wondering if anyone has recommendations for light-hearted adventures that would be appropriate for a toddler, that might have illustrations at least on every other page that he can look at while I read.

So far we've tried: the hobbit (Too many words we had to explain), Inkheart (same, but better, but no pictures), Charlotte's web (too scary with the people wanting to eat the pig, but might work if we try again). I'm hoping to try "The Dragon with a Chocolate Heart" because I think it would work content-wise, but don't remember how many illustrations there were. We have a nice copy of Grimm's fairy tales, but those were too scary. Similar thing happened with a copy of Norse Fairy Tales we have called "A Troll with No Heart in His Body." He liked them, liked the illustrations, but they got him too amped before bed. I'm not sure why "My Father's Dragon" didn't hit the same way, maybe because we know the boy survives to grow up and have a child?

I'm not interested in reading Harry Potter to him.