So, what is everyone currently reading aloud to their kids? Or what did you just finish? For the purposes of this thread, let’s stick with chapter books that take more than one session to read. Please state the age(s) of your child(ren), and what you think of your choice. I hope for plenty of neat ideas!
We have a 3-yo girl (and a baby). We’re now reading Twig, by Elizabeth Orton Jones, which dates from about 1942 and was recommended in the Chinaberry catalog (does anyone else just go through that catalog and request all the titles at the library?). It features a little girl, an elf, and a fairy queen, and is written at a good level for a 3-to-5 yo. DangerGirl is loving it, but we’re starting to look forward to the end–it’s 150+ pages long and is starting to get to us, now that we’re on page 120.
Before that we read Pippi, which was a bit over her head in places but fun. She got a Pippi doll for Christmas, so that sparked us.
Sorry to break the rules so early on, but we’re not on chapter books yet. My little girls are just 2 and 2 + 9 months, so we read Boynton mostly. It’s been “Pajama Time!” every night for months. We also read some Barney and a few other random 10-pagers. I can’t wait until we move on to longer stories–I picked up the 1st four Harry Potter books and the complete Hobbit + Lord of the Rings while I was in China (in Chinese, of course) and I’m hoping my vocabulary will be up to reading those when they’re old enough to be interested.
Hehe, my hubby reads his nine year old daughter and five year old son Terry Pratchett novels, believe it or not, complete with funny voices. They may not “get” all the sarcasm and jokes, but boy, do they love the voices.
Banjo is eight, and we just finished A Wrinkle in Time, which was a huge hit. “This story is very exciting,” he said.
I followed it up with Jacques Futrelle’s short story “The Problem of Cell 13,” in hopes of getting him into mysteries. Pianola (now thirteen) never developed a taste for them, so I’m afraid of missing out on reading Sherlock Holmes aloud.
Previous chapter book was The Twenty-One Balloons, which was popular but not as big a success as Wrinkle.
For the record, Banjo’s now reading Eragon all by himself. The bedtime reading-aloud is just a nice tradition…I still do it with Pianola once in a while.
Three is pretty young for chapter books; I think we stuck mainly with picture books at that age. When they got up to five or six, I think I sprung Charlotte’s Web on 'em , followed by Half Magic and the other Edward Eager novels.
I don’t have a kid old enough to read chapter books to, yet, but I remember when I was in 4th grade (9 years old) my teacher read *Where the Red Fern Grows * to us. I love this book. There are some sad parts (think Ol’ Yeller), so it’s probably not appropriate for a 3 year old, but as your children get older, you should try this one. It might be especially good if they’re dealing with bullying or death issues.
My daughter is nine. We are currently reading King of the Wind. We alternate between reading a chapter herself and me reading one aloud.
She is reading it for her Accelerated Reading program (AR). We tackled The Upstairs Room last 9 weeks, which I thought might be a little bit over her head but she assured me she wanted to read it. She read it and got a perfect score!
Where the Red Fern Grows is next on my list, C3. I remember very vividly reading that one myself in 6th grade. It had quite an impact on me.
My problem is my son’s instance on finishing the book, that night. He normally gets 3-4 shorts books or stories, plus additional “stories in the dark”, which are after lights out and are typically just us telling the Shibblets about what it was like when we were growing up. I’ll more normally do the reading (good with strange voices and reading Seuss at mach speed) and Mama ShibbOleth, who grew up until 10 years old in Thailand, tells story in the dark about her childhood.
We did have good success with Iron Giant and the Mouse and the Motorcycle lately, which are both long enough chapters and sufficient squeezed in them that we didn’t get complaints. I think I’ll try a few that you all list here.
Just started reading to my little girl (she’s 7 going on 8) the Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket, replet with various voices, She likes it so much she insisted on getting the calendar.
I’ve been working my way through the Little House series with my kids. We’ve done Little House in the Big Woods, Little House on the Prarie and Farmer Boy. We’re now about 2/3 of the way through On the Banks of Plum Creek.
[off topic]
I am way to young to even think about kids but I still must ask:
Does it actually hurt kids if you read books to them that are on a college level while they are still not young enough to understand or would there be any benefits of it?
Well, my mom used to read Dr. Spock’s baby book to me when I was little and I turned out okay! (I think )
Seriously, it had a picture of a baby on the cover, so I always thought it was a story about a baby. I requested it every night and was always a little disappointed when my mom would read to me about the developmental stages of babies. What a bore!
I don’t think that there’s any harm in reading stuff that’s too advanced. I just think that most kids would get bored with it and maybe get turned off from the thrill of reading a really good story. On the other hand, when they’re really little, it could actually be beneficial. My baby book recommends reading aloud to very small babies (0-12 months) from whatever book or magazine you happen to be reading. They have no clue what your talking about, but they are witnessing someone enjoy books and that’s a positive thing.
We try to take our son to the bookstore once a week, and let him buy whatever he wants. My wife gets a little antsy over letting him buy so many books, but I’d rather give him carte blanche at the bookstore than the toy store.
He’s currently on a big truck/trains/construction kick, with some interest in pirates, so the latest books have included The Big Book of Things That Go and I Spy Pirate Adventure. If anyone has recommendations for pirate-related books for a four-year-old, bounce 'em this way.
I loved Twig when I was a child. This is the first time I’ve ever heard anyone mention it.
I just finished reading my 3 year old The Little House in the Big Woods. My sister was telling me of her friend’s theory about that series: The first book is definately for little children (about Laura’s age) and they get progressively “older”. She suggested that by the time you get to The Long Winter it’s almost like a psychological thriller!
Overall, I’d say no, but I do think it’s better to read them something that they can understand at least 80% of. (With the exception of babies. Read them anything.) A part of enjoying reading aloud is really getting into the story, and seeing it in your head, which is hard to do if you’re tuning out a lot. A child might thoroughly enjoy just hearing the language, especially of poetry–but OTOH might think for years that, say, Little Women is boring and hard to understand. It probably depends on the kid.
And anyway, once they’re 5 or so, there’s so much out there that they can understand, even though they can’t read the actual books yet. I can’t wait.
I suppose 3 is a little young for chapter books, but DangerGirl has really enjoyed it so far, and looks forward to the next installment. She understood Charlotte’s web pretty well. Twig has been a huge hit, as have the Elmer and the dragon stories. We read a lot of picture books too, don’t worry!
Ok, I’m ashamed to say I’m not reading anything aloud to my 10 yo daughter…but she’s a pretty good reader on her own and I just suggest books I think she’d enjoy and she reads them…then we discuss them.
Having said that, I’m a 5th grade teacher and I do read aloud to my students. I just finished the last book in the Joey Pigza series. I love these books…Joey is a kid with ADHD and he lives in a completely dysfunctional family. I guess the message is a kid can be more “together” than his parents. The author is Jack Gantos, BTW.
I am going to read the new Newbery winner Despareaux by Kate Dicamillo. to my students next. My daughter read it and really enjoyed it. It’s fairy tale about a little mouse.
Thanks. I’m still trying to nudge my mind around the notion of turning looting/raping/pillaging pirates into tot-friendly fare. Which, IIRC, was the same objection Walt Disney had for the proposed “Pirates of the Carribean” ride…
I’m not sure what my kids’ are reading right now (being, unfortunately, 10000 km from them for a few weeks), but I am half-way through reading The Hobbit to them. They are quite anxious to get to the part about Smaug.
One of them (they are nine-year-old twins) started to read Lord of the Rings, but he got distracted by the appendices after a dozen or so pages.
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