Second grade I think. This would have been 1952-3.
Dr. Seuss was the hot item at that point.
And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street
The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins.
McElligot’s Pool
6th grade, The White Mountains, by John Christopher.
I think all of Beverly Cleary’s books about Henry Huggins, Beezus and Ramona, and Otis Spofford.
All of the early Betsy books by Carolyn Haywood.
Some of the Mrs Piggle-Wiggle books by Betty MacDonald.
Some chapters from Mary Poppins around the time the movie came out.
The Mad Scientists’ Club by Bertrand Brinley and Me and Caleb by Franklyn E. Meyer. Both of these in sixth grade, the perfect time to read them.
My favorite was Cinnabar, the One-O’-Clock Fox, by Marguerite Henry.
In 6th grade elementary school, Men of Iron by Howard Pyle.
Forgot Ellen Tebbits. D-oh! :smack:
Same book, same year, I think. Maybe it was the end of third grade, based on what school I was attending. The librarian read it to us. I was kind of horrified.
The only other books I remember a teacher reading to the class were several of the Boxcar Children series, when I was in second grade. Our regular teacher was out for maternity leave for about half of the year, and a couple of “maiden lady” sisters tag-teamed as substitutes. The nice Miss Harrell read books to us. The mean Miss Harrell was the reason for the only time I ever, ever wet myself - wouldn’t let anyone go to the restroom outside of specific times (before lunch and after recess, IIRC,) and then refused to let me call my mother for a change of clothes. Old hag!
Also, my fifth grade teacher read an under-praised writer, who won a Newberry Award with a later book, but still isn;t as well known as she should be, probably because she died young, and her corpus isn’t large, but the book read was called The Tattooed Potato and Other Clues, and the author was Ellen Raskin. It was a mystery, yet I went and bought a copy and reread it several times, along with her Newberry Award winner, The Westing Game. I would actually recommend these to adults on the board. Pretty exciting mysteries.
A movies called The Westing Game was released in the 90s, but it’s nothing like the book. It’s horrible, and everyone involved should be hanging their heads in shame.
I’ll go recent, what I read to my kids. Here are my favorite read-alouds:
Bud, Not Buddy. In 1939, a 10-year-old kid’s mom has been dead for 4 years, he doesn’t know who his dad is. He’s taken from the orphanage to a nastily abusive foster family, runs away, and goes traveling through a racist Depression-era US to look for his dad. And it’s hilarious. And wonderfully-written, and with a fantastic main character, and a lot of insight into history and social issues. If it weren’t so funny it’d be unbearable, but it’s fantastic and a wonderful read-aloud.
The Tale of Despereaux: a mouse falls in love with a human princess; a rat comes up with a diabolical plan. There’s lyrical language, symbolism, complex characters, and, yes, lots of humor. Nearly every time I’ve read this to my students, when I read the final sentence, there’s spontaneous applause.
Holes: A boy is wrongly accused of a crime and sent to a terrible reform camp. How does the curse placed on his family by a gypsy affect the story? It’s a fairly complex story with a significant mystery, at least three different storylines that it bounces between, and once again a lot of humor.
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle: this one is a little dicey for third-graders, given the pivotal murders in the story and the rising sense of dread. But it’s phenomenally suspenseful and is a great character study, as the primary character grows.
I started reading Matilda to my kids a month or so ago, and actually abandoned it: I’m happy reading scary stuff, but Roald Dahl’s funhouse nightmare humor was actually harder for some of my students to deal with than Bud, Not Buddy’s scenes of actual violence. My own seven-year-old adored it, but my read of my class was that Roald Dahl wasn’t right for them.
I talked a teacher into reading one of the Freddie the Pig books, but I don’t remember which one, or if the other kids appreciated it- the series was a bit crazy.
My seventh grade teacher read to us for about half an hour after lunch every day. This was in 1965, and the book she read us at a chapter a day was To Kill a Mockingbird
Pippi Longstocking in third grade. Sounder in fourth grade. Also Holy Bible, till the schools superintendent made her stop. More, I suppose, though probably not much beyond fourth grade.
So, none of these stories were read to you in school?
In grade 4, our teacher read us Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. In grade 5, we were read Superfudge (different teacher, but I assume it was planned - especially since grade 5 is getting a bit old to be read to).
In grade 1, we were read The Herself the Elf Storybook - I mostly remember it because the teacher dumbed down the language a bit (Herself calls one of the other characters her ‘assistant’, the teacher read that as ‘helper’), and I corrected her, having read the book, myself, earlier. (YES I WAS THAT KIND OF KID. And I remained that way all the way through high school.)
I assume we were read to in Kindgergarten, and grades 2 and 3, but I don’t remember any specific books.
My fourth grade teacher would often read to us from these books, and we all had favorite poems from them that we’d shout out for her to read. One of the poems always got her giggling so hard that she could barely finish reading it–The Dancing Pants.
In sixth grade my teacher, Mr. Bradbury, began to read us a chapter a day of The Hobbit. I was sure I wouldn’t like it, but soon enough I couldn’t wait for the next day’s installment. From there I went on the read the LOTR on my own, plus other fantasy and sci-fi.
Mr. Bradbury changed my world I think. later on I read stuff I might not have, and went to places and met people I certainly would not have met, sci-fi conventions for one.
I am glad I had the chance to thank him for that. When he retired I attended his retirement party and spoke with him and he thanked me for the letter to the editor I’d had printed in the paper, about his influence.
When I was in 6th grade my teacher team-taught with another teacher. On Friday afternoons the teachers would take out the movable wall between the classrooms and one of them would read to us. I don’t remember most of the books, but the one I do is *My Side of the Mountain. * I was a dorky kid who never fit in and I thought running away to the woods and living in a hollowed out tree sounded wonderful. Sometimes even now as a still-dorky 40-year-old I want to run away and live in a tree… 
My 3rd grade teacher read this to us. Some of the kids with older siblings said that she read it every year, and she always cried at the end. Sure enough, she did.
I had forgotten this, but one of my teachers (I think 1st grade) read us Charlotte’s Web too.
Judy Blume’s Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and Superfudge also seem like things that were read to me at some point, but I may have read one or both of them on my own.
I remember getting read “Charlotte’s Web”, “Mrs Frisby and the Rats of N.I.M.H” and part of “Brave New World” (!). Not sure how that last one slipped in there…
I wonder how old you guys are who were read to in school. I’m almost 70, and do not remember ever being read to by a teacher. On the other hand, I hate being read to, so maybe I blocked it out.