What are Your Favorite Read-Alouds?

Here are just a few of the books in our read-aloud basket right now.

We are currently reading (and LOVING) James and the Giant Peach but I'm always looking for more books to pick up at the library.

We have also read (and really enjoyed) these books in the past:

The Magic Tree House Series

Junie B. Jones

Mercy Watson

Ramona

anything by Kate Dicamillo

We haven't done Harry Potter yet. Do you think my girls would get it/appreciate it yet?

So...how about it? What are your favorite read-alouds?

xo

S

Comments

[Jennifer Henson]

We loved Mr. Popper's Penguins (100 times better than the movie), and for the Christmas season: The Christmas Mystery-a phenomenal book https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58301.The_Christmas_Mystery . We have loved this for many years and my kids-18 and 15 still read it-still sometimes ask that we read it aloud-a chapter a day like opening an advent calendar. :)) A few other Christmas books: When Santa Fell to the Earth and The Best Christmas Pageant Ever :)

[Ashley]

I think they would be OK with the first Harry Potter, especially H and S, but then they start getting scarier. I've read them all, because I am a nerd. Ava really likes the Warrior series (it's about magical cats!) and the Saddle Club series. She's 8 now. I cannot attest to either because I have not read them.

[Anna K.]

If you like James and the Giant Peach, try the other books by Roald Dahl. Matilda and The Witches are two of my faves. Anything by EB White. The first 2 or 3 Harry Potter books would probably be fine for your girls, but the other books get more adult. The Boxcar Children series is classic. Anything with a Newbery Medal. Ella Enchanted is a great girl power twist on the classic princess story. Have fun!

[Crystal]

I don't have any suggestions, but this post def makes me want to go to the library, and rent James and the Giant Peach and read it with my 8 year old. :)

[laura kate]

My suggestions for read-aloud books your girls might enjoy:

- The Catwings books by Ursula Leguin
- if they already like Roald Dahl then The BFG is a *great* read-aloud (or any Dahl book, really!)
- A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond
- Charlotte's Web and also Stuart Little by E.B. White
- The Narnia series by C.S. Lewis (a bit better for the older ones to the younger ones)
- The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes
- Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski
- Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren
- Coraline by Neil Gaiman (a little dark, but in my experience kids love it).
- The Famous Five series by Enid Blyton
- The Boxcar Children series by Gertrude Chandler Warner
- A Little Princess and The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

I wouldn't recommend starting the Harry Potter books if your littlest girls are listening as well. Perhaps the first book, but they get into darker themes fairly quickly. You know your kids best, of course!

Lately, I've been loving the thematic lists of books put together by A Mighty Girl (http://www.amightygirl.com/books) for girl-positive literature. Very cool, IMO. Might be of interest to you!

I hope this is helpful!

[Jessica]

The BFG and The Witches by Roald Dahl, too. My daughter isn't a fan of reading really, but she loves those two.

[Sonya R]

Have you read the "Captain Underpants" series? Joseph loved those so much, they are full of little boy humor (a bad guy named "Pippy P. Poopypants.")

[Jori]

I LOVE the Betsy, Tacy, & Tib Series by Maud Hart Lovelace. Written in the 1940's I believe, it's along the same lines as the Little House on the Prairie series where the girls in the books grow up through the series.

And of course, all the "shoes" books--Ballet Shoes, etc. Lovely!

It's great to look at the older books, rarely do you have to worry about age inappropriate language or content for the girls.

[Leah]

The Betsy books by Maud Hart Lovelace!

[Angela]

I would also recommend saving Harry Potter for when they are older. They definitely get pretty dark and scary if you have sensitive children.

[Jess]

Mrs. Piggle - Wiggle books are fun! I think the girls would enjoy those. My first grade class really likes The My Father's Dragon Series and A to Z Mysteries too!

[bridget]

The Penderick Books by Jeanne Birdsall. Perfect age. Perfect books. So good.

My inclination is that they're a little young for HP just because they may not find it compelling/relatable yet.

[bridget]

AND the Penderwick books are about four sisters. No twinsies, sadly, but still! Four sisters! :)

[Kelly Jean]

Fabulous books! I agree with the Mr. Popper's Penguins suggestions. It's one of my favorite books. Also, the Babysitters' Club books are awesome, if your girls aren't too young for that.

[Danielle Barton]

We just read the incredible journey of Edward Tulane and they enjoyed that. We're currently reading the talenof Desperaux but it's a little hardFor my 5 year old to follow :) I'm sure she'll get the gist of it tho! So excited to read this list to get ideas for my girls!!! I second the BFG recommendation! It's sooooo great! I've enjoyed these two booksmsimply because I'd never read them so it was nice to enjoy it for the 1st time together.

[Rukristin]

As I've already blow up your twitter, I thought I would add two more suggestions here :) A Series of Unfortunate Events is pretty great. A little bit dark at times, but the story and the characters are fun and compelling. There's also a lot of them.

Also The Mysterious Benedict Society is pretty great too. :) Hope your girls find some new favorites.

Oh! One more -- I totally agree with the baby-sitters club, but I found that I liked reading those solo more than aloud.

[krys72599]

My all-time favorite, outside the Harry Potter series, is The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster, illustrated by Jules Pfeiffer.

[Deborah]

I would recommend books by Dick King Smith of Babe fame ( the Sheep Pig). Also, the Owl who was afraid of the dark I think it is by Jill Tomlinson. Horrid Henry books and My Naughty Little Sister books....although a bit dated now...still a good read. I agree Paddington Bear...my favourite as a child.
And any tales made up by you. Can't beat telling a story rather than just reading one. Xx

[Brenda]

I would recommend more Roald Dahl books if you like James & the Giant Peach. Also books by EB White are great as is the rest of the Anne & Green Gables series. I would wait on the Harry Potter books as they get scarier and more adult themed as they go. My daughter started the Harry Potter books in 3rd grade and even at that age we did them as read aloud books so that we could explain some of the situations as we went.

[Ashley]

The Little House in the Big Woods series is a favorite in our house and our big girls are close in age. We're currently reading Tuesday Castle.

[tara pakosta]

My list is rather extensive because we have done a LOT of reading!

Trumpet of the Swan
Charlotte's Web
Matilda
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Little House series
The Mandie Collection
My Father's Dragon Trilogy
Harriet the Spy
Mrs. Piggle Wiggle
Anne of Green Gables
Pippi Longstocking
Mr. Popper's Penguin
The Secret Garden
Because of Winn Dixie
Rascal
Island of the Blue Dolphins
The Invention of Hugo Cabret
The Penderwicks Trilogy
The Miraculous Adventures of Edward Tulane
Caddie Woodlawn
Eloise
The Doll People Trilogy
Just so Stories by Rudyard Kipling
Frindle
Julie of the Wolves
Boxcar Children series
The Chocolate Touch
INdian in the Cupboard
The Velveteen Rabbit
Hatchet
Clementine (there are a bunch)
Piper Reed
Ivy & Bean Series
Gooney Bird Greene
Sarah, plain & tall
Strawberry Girl
Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes (sad)
My Side of the Mountain

Those were all read ages 4-10

I will have a whole new list when they are older for you!

have fun! one of the best things ever for us was hopping in the family bed
and reading together!
tara

[N. Naylor]

I did not look at all the other comments so these might be repeats. Heidi and also the whole Boxcar children series. Thanks for this post, got lots of ideas myself!

[Kristine]

Based on the glimpse we get of Sadie's personality on your blog I highly recommend Mrs. Piggle Wiggle as well as Pippi Longstocking!
I second the recommendations for Betsy, Tacy and Tib. Loved those books....there is plenty of time for Harry Potter!
My high readers(7 th grade honors) just did a project on their journey as readers.... Some books that showed up on many projects were Scaredy Squirrel( for humor not literary value,) as well as the invention of Hugo cabret- this book would be great before a trip to Paris!
Also the family under the bridge!

[Miriam Prantner]

Those are great books and we've done many of them! We have also been reading our way through the Little House series as well as some other Beverly Cleary books (Mouse and the Motorcycle, Socks, etc.) I'm not sure about Harry Potter. I think the first book is no problem, the issue is that the books/story after that gets scarier more tense quickly. I am planning to save those and read them later so we can do them all in a row. I am planning to read The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe with my first grader this year. I want to time it so that we read it just before Easter as I think the story will really help her better understand the Easter story.

[Kristine]

Ok I'm back with more....Summer of the Monkeys.....chasing Vermeer .........
Say what? Hilarious plan by parents to change kids behavior!
Many of my kids also loved Tale of Desperaux!

[Mona]

Hi,

Harry Potter is great, but even the first one is scary, thinking about the ending.

There are a lot of great books, I would recommend for the age of your girls:
All of Astrid Lindgren especially the Lotta books
Momo by Michael Ende
Araminta Spook by Angie Sage
Coraline by Neil Gaiman
When Santa fell to earth by Cornelia Funke and also Igraine the brave and Dragon Rider

Hope that helps!

Mona

[Kristen S]

The BFG ! love love love Roald Dahl .. And have such fond memories of being read James and the Giant Peach too!

It's a little bit older, but if you haven't read WONDER by RJ Palacio! then you have to because I absolutely know that you would love it. I am on a mission to have everyone I know read this book....such great messages about bullying.

[Melissa]

My all time favorite (ALL TIME she shouts) read aloud book as a child was The Pushcart Wars by Jean Merrill (published in 1964). It is a true undiscovered and overlooked gem of a read-aloud book. For the littles, I would recommend Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig, Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton and Martha Matilda O'Toole by Jim Copp. My son just chimed in and he recommends The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden and The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. Have fun!

[Kimber-Leigh]

i've seen lots of our favorites...these are some others we have loved:
The Railway Children
Baby Island
My Side of the Mountain
Ballet Shoes
Chronicles of Narnia
Stuart Little
Milly Molly Mandy
The Bobbsey Twins

[Angela]

Loved reading Tale of Desperaux aloud to my twins, but I can't remember what age they were when we read it. The Winnie the Pooh original stories were also a big hit well into elementary school. As they got older we introduced scarier stories with Spiderwick Chronicles and the Jack Sparrow books (not the movie books, but the kids books). They DID NOT like Lemony Snickett at all -- too scary. Harry Potter actually ended our "read aloud" phase (my twins are now 13 (!!)) because the chapters were SO LONG! I would get hoarse and it would just take forever to finish a chapter before bed. We ended up switching to listening them on CD read by Jim Dale who was incredible! This summer we drove from Cleveland to Columbia, SC with just one stop (8 hr trip!) because no one wanted to take a break and turn off the HP & the Deathly Hallows CD!

[Melissa Dehne]

Mrs. Piggle Wiggle was a hit with my first graders a few years ago. Classic and a little magical!I personally would hold off on Harry Potter for a couple of more years!

[Vicki Parker]

My girls just loved the Sophie books by Dick King-Smith, My Naughty Little Sister, Little House on the Prairie, and Ramona and Beezus. They also loved those classics like Heidi, Anne of Green Gables and The Secret Garden. Another big favourite were any of the Enid Blyton books especially Secret Seven and Famous Five but that's also going back to my childhood. LOL. My girls are now 23 and 21 and still have all those books and they get reread often. :)

[Melissa]

Chronicles of Narnia

[Tiffany M.]

I enjoyed reading The Wizard of Oz and Dorothy and the Wizard to my son. He really enjoyed reading the Mouse and the Motorcycle books as well.

[CJ]

Some great choices here. As well as Paddington, Michael Bond also wrote some books about a guinea pig called Olga da Polga which are great. Iron Man by Ted Hughes is a good book, and mine have really enjoyed the Roman Mysteries by Caroline Lawrence. Might be fun to read them while you're living in Italy.

[Leone cabban]

Being an ex teacher of younger children I would recommend the Tashi series, starting with he first one. They would always remember where we were up to , and someone would have to retell the story before we went on. great for recall skills, and comprehension skills. Then children in my class would love to draw and paint Tashi and different scenes from the stories. I love younger children's paintings. Leone

[tara pakosta]

so funny because I thought of Sadie when I recommended those and Piper Reed and CLementine too! LOL!

[Emma]

Hi Steph, are you familiar with this website? http://www.amightygirl.com

Some great stuff on it.

[Lisa]

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, the My Weird School, My Weirder School and My Weird School Daze are great. The Land of Elyon series is fabulous!!!

[Rita]

My all-time favorite....The Boxcar Children

[Jennifer]

If they love animals as much as my daughter, then The Puppy Place series is great! Such sweet stories. She's 10, but we read them aloud because my 6 yo adores them too!

[Nancy]

Ida B., The Secret of Zoom, Holes and Maniac McGee are also fun read aloud! The State of Florida has a program called Young Sunshine State Readers Awards where they choose 10-12 books every school year. Then at the end of the year the kids vote on the best book!! There are some fabulous books on this list every year. Check it out here:
http://www.floridamedia.org/?page=ssyrahome

[Angie]

I read aloud the first two Harry books to my boys when in 1st and 3rd grade. My 3rd grader at the time continued reading on his own and read the rest until the last bk, too old for him to understand. He's a great reader. When younger we loves magic treehouse, piffle wiggle, miss strawberry, Ralph a mouse and the mouse and the motorcycle bks. Have fun!

[Pam]

Tara's list above is awesome. I would recommend all of those. Also, BFG and all of Roald Dahl's books. Beverly Cleary, Judy Blume, E.B. White, & Kate Dicamillo books are all fabulous. My nieces loved the Junie B. Jones series by Barbara Parks at about kindergarten age. Speaking as someone in elementary education, I applaud your dedication to reading to the girls. The love of reading is one of the best gifts we can give our children.

[Shawn]

I don't think I saw this but my son and I went to the library this morning and got Hugo Cabret so far it is awesome! Page turner!

[Amanda S.]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Nancy Drew yet! I loved those when I was Harper's age! Mrs. Pigglewiggle is equally awesome as are all the other books mentioned here!! Happy reading :)

[Kim Stewart]

Charlotte's Web
Sarah, Plain and Tall
Indian in the Cupboard
Moody Judy
Junie B. Jones
God bless you for instilling the love of reading!

[Kayci]

There is a series and the authors last name is Howe. One of the books is Bunnicula. Hilarious!! Hank the Cow Dog and Joey Pigza are awesome and so funny!! I have a hard time reading aloud because they are so funny!! Amanda B is also a huge Joey Pigza fan.

[Rukristin]

My twitter suggestions :)

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler was always one of my favs. bit.ly/205cSY

and if your girls like James and the Giant Peach, then Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Matilda are also fun

Harry Potter is the epic of all epic read-alouds -- and I think your girls would definitely get the first 3 -- and by the time you're done with those three they'll probably be old enough for the next, and so on and so forth :)

[Jenni Hufford]

we have been reading the magic treehouse FORRREVVVVEERRRRRR. i think there are like 50 books in the series. ugh. we have started Charlotte's Web, the kids love it. Also planning on the Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe. :)

[Alison]

BFG by Dahl. It's especially good if you use a different voice for each giant. The Secret Garden and Anne of Green Gables were big hits here.

[Sarah Martina]

Don't forget the BFG!

[Meggan]

The Phantom Tollboth is great - the title doesn't do it justice. It's a great story with wonderful word usage and plays on words. My 7 year old was mesmerized by this book on tape. My kids also love the Boxcar series and Harriet the Spy is a classic.

[kate]

We have got some wonderful read out loud Dutch authors, Paul van Loon, about a small boy called Dolfje, who turns into a werewolf from time to time. Dummie a real Egyptian mummy of a little boy, on his way to a museum and brought back to his stinking and decaying little self by thunder and lightening. Ends up with a boy and his father, pretending to be an ordinary Egyptian relative, who has been heavily burnt. Must seem quite upsetting to you, but actually quite hilarious. Megs , my then 10 year old, won the local reading contest twice because of this book. It's fun to read on your own, but so much better to read out loud. (author Tosca Menten) and Fox& Hare, for beginning readers, a varied typefont and fun to read out loud (by Hanna Kraan). Some of these books have been translated into English, and you can always try Dutch as a next stop, after Italian, that is. Still reading out loud, now in English, to the aforementioned Megs, she loves Kate di Camillo, hand-picked it herself in an English bookstore in Berlin. Feel good books, and not to complicated. Loads of modern books too, the new Roald Dahl: David Walliams... could go on for ages, you really triggered something!

[kate]

dummy the mummy has been or is going to be translated into Italian (not in English), nice challenge!

[Carol in the Land of Oz]

Purple Green and Yellow by Robert Munch--all about markers & my kids most memorable other than Harry Potter. I was a grade school librarian (love all the suggestions so far) and I cannot tell you how many kids come up to me still (most are college or high school age now) and say they remember me reading Purple, Green and Yellow. Yours are a bit young yet for HP, but soon you can read the first book--which I might add my kids said the first time I read the ending they remember me saying--its about a scrapbook!!! I actually remember reading it to them on a vacation in the car, my husband even got into it. I have one none reader but teachers always told me that they could tell he had been read to because he knew there was something interesting going to happen and would hang in there although he struggled. He is a college grad now!

[Linda E]

I agree with many of the others who thought Harry Potter was too intense for your girls. I read it aloud to my son when he was in 4th grade. My daughter, who was in first grade at the time, had no interest in it. Also, it's a tough read-aloud. Some of the words just don't flow off the tongue that easily at 8:30 p.m. after a long day. KWIM? By about halfway through, my son took over and started reading it -- and the rest of the series - by himself. Other recommendations include Judy Moody and Katie Kazoo series (Harper may even be ready for these on her own!) Little Women (how perfect, a story about 4 sisters!) and my favorite children's book: From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

[Ogee]

I would definitely add Johnny Texas by Carol Hoff. Excellent readaloud and Texas history.

[Heather R.]

Flat Stanley books are cute too:)))

[sigrun campbell]

Oh my I love books. My kids are not old enough for Harry Potter but we love:
The Giving Tree,
Millies Marvellous Hat http://www.amazon.co.uk/Millies-Marvellous-Hat-Satoshi-Kitamura/dp/1842709240/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1383677439&sr=1-2&keywords=marvelous+hat,

Sun Bread
Who's There (for younger ones)
any Julia Donaldson ones are great too!!!

[Kate]

My twins wil turn 13 in December, and right now they're listening to .... Harry Potter on audio cd and loving it, even though they already read all books, watched all DVDs and Blu rays!

[Summer]

I LOVE this post! My babies are too small for most of these books, but reading through all the titles is like reliving my childhood and rediscovering all of my old friends. Most of my favorites are on your list, but here are two I didn't see: Mandy, another delightful classic by Julie Andrews, and The Lion's Paw by Robb White, an adventure tale originally written 60 years ago and republished by the author's son.

[Kees Groenewoud]

Dummy the mummy has been translated in English and will be published by Penguin Australia at the end of April... He is called Dummie the mummy.