The Best Resources for Family Read Aloud Books
Our family spends a lot of time reading, but read aloud time is my favorite. Gathering the kids together and captivating them with a chapter or two of a wonderful book–that’s what memories are made of!
When you share a book together, it creates a common literary language.
Over the years, my kids have mentioned things from books we’ve read recently, or even a long time back — connecting things we’ve read with everyday experiences. The more we read, the more connections are made, and these snippets of common understanding bring us closer to each other.
We have too many favorite family read loud books to list. From the time they were born, reading aloud nightly has been a routine for us. We often gather on the floor at the foot of my son’s bed, let our bird out of her cage to join us, and snuggle in for an hour or more of reading.
How to build your list
The number one criteria for choosing a good family read aloud is that it is a quality book that stands the test of time. Second, it should be a book that all ages will enjoy, like the Little House books, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit, The Tale of Despereaux, Bunnicula, and anything by Eleanor Estes, E. B. White, Roald Dahl, and Beverly Cleary. And the early books in the Harry Potter series, the Percy Jackson series, and classics like The Jungle Book, Pippi Longstocking, and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Like I said, there are way too many for me to list, and every family has its own preferences.
So, how do you choose a good, quality read aloud? Looking at a list of Newbery winners is a good starting point. In fact, we’ve been reading through all of them for the past several years. We’ve only been disappointed once or twice with the choices on this list, and it’s a great way to discover favorite authors. In addition to this list, there are some wonderful resources for choosing good books. Check out our list below!
What are your favorite family read aloud books?
Happy reading!
Our favorite resources for choosing family read aloud books
- Honey for a Child’s Heart
- Honey for a Teen’s Heart
- Give Your Child the World: Raising Globally Minded Kids One Book at a Time
- The Read-Aloud Handbook
- The 20th-Century Children’s Book Treasury: Picture Books and Stories to Read Aloud
- HarperCollins Treasury of Picture Book Classics: A Child’s First Collection
- Children’s Book-a-Day Almanac
- From Hinton to Hamlet: Building Bridges between Young Adult Literature and the Classics, 2nd Edition
- Stories and Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children of All Ages
- You Read to Me & I’ll Read to You: Stories to Share from the 20th Century
Family read alouds — such great memory makers!
(And sources of laughter! My boys were reminiscing recently about their father falling asleep as he read to them . . .)
Aww–I’ve had a hard time keeping my eyes open through a few that we’ve read. But, it is such a special time together! 🙂
I typically only have a problem of narrowing down what we’re going to be using as a family read aloud! We have so many idea and so little time. 🙂
That’s a good problem to have! 🙂