In our house, we love books.
Most mornings are spent curled up on the couch, the boys playing on iPads while I read aloud to them. It’s just one of the many things that we’ve been able to reclaim since we started unschooling–the time to read together. When the boys were in school they were gone for so many hours of the day, and when they were home they had a myriad of other things on their to-do list. Nowadays, I can spend hours reading aloud to them. And I often do!
While they are given the freedom to read whatever they want on their own (which currently consists mostly of graphic novels and comics), read-aloud time is Mommy’s choice. I’m the one reading it, after all! This allows me to introduce great stories that are beyond their reading level while exposing them to diverse characters, settings, and genres that they may be totally unaware of.
This past year, we entered the worlds of fantasy and historical fiction, animals
There are those who might consider some of these choices “inappropriate” for my 8 and 10-year-old boys, but I choose my books the way I try to parent: with freedom and relationship, not with fear.
So without further ado, here’s my eclectic 2018 list of read-aloud books, roughly in the order I read them.
How to Train Your Dragon series – Cressida Cowell
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon – Grace Lin
The One and Only Ivan – Katherine Applegate
The Master Puppeteer – Katherine Paterson
The Watsons Go to Birmingham – Christopher Paul Curtis
Inkheart, Inkspell – Cornelia Funke
Dumpling Days – Grace Lin
The Ruins of Gorlan (Ranger’s Apprentice) – John Flanagan
Alcatraz vs. The Evil Librarians – Brandon Sanderson
The Giver – Lois Lowry
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry – Mildred D. Taylor
The Saturdays – Elizabeth Enright
And Then There Were None – Agatha Christie
Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard series – Rick Riordan
The Alchemyst (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel Book 1) – Michael Scott
War Horse – Michael Morpurgo
A Series of Unfortunate Events #1: The Bad Beginning – Lemony Snicket
The Green Ember series – S.D. Smith
Ender’s Game – Orson Scott Card
Johnny Tremain – Esther Forbes
A Tale Dark and Grimm – Adam Gidwitz
Peiling and the Chicken-Fried Christmas – Pauline Chen
A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
Jack Blank and The Imagine Nation – Matt Myklusch
I can’t wait to see what worlds we’ll visit next year!
Leave a comment and let me know what you’ve been reading with your kids!
5 Responses
Sounds fun! I only sometimes enjoy reading aloud; hoping to get where you are with that, eventually!
I can’t wait until my kids can understand The Giver and Ender’s Game. Those are two of the books I think back to pretty often…
We read through all of the Percy Jackson series and my kids enjoyed it.
How do you get your kids to sit through read alouds? I have a 2, 6, 9 and 11 year old, and they all get bored!
I approach read alouds with zero agenda, meaning I don’t expect my kids to sit quietly and pay attention. They are often doing other things while I’m reading. If they want me to stop, I’ll stop. If they want me to go on, I’ll keep reading. If none of us are digging the story, I’ll choose a new book. I read aloud as much as for my own enjoyment as theirs!
Sorry, just seeing this! My kids are always doing something else while I read to them (playing online, drawing, etc.). Rarely are they just sitting there listening raptly to me, and I don’t expect them to. I read aloud to them because we all enjoy it, but I don’t require them to “pay attention.” I would recommend just asking them if it’s ok to read to them while they’re doing something else, like crafting or gaming. Listening to audiobooks together is also great because they can still listen when they’re on the move.