Books to Read Aloud

There are some things that are annoying about being a parent.  The constant need to supply them with edible meals, the buying and stain spotting and washing of all of the clothes, the cleaning and manicuring of their bodies that is never ending, and of course the frequent whining about unimportant or unchangeable things and the asking for things they could technically do on their own (The tags on my clothes itch!  The sun bothers my eyes!  I need a bandaid!  Wait, now I need another bandaid!).  Just to name a few. 
 
But there are joys that come with it too, and one of them is reading aloud.  If I was stuck on a desert island with them all I would want is an unlimited supply of books.  It would be awesome.   I would go to my dehydrated grave full with words and upturned smiling faces.  It really is my favorite thing to do with them.  But choosing the right books can be difficult to keep a 10 year old girl and a 7 year old boy interested (Viv doesn’t read with us much yet but she is getting closer to being able to concentrate on the story).  One challenge is the age spread and another is the gender difference, but even then you would think there would be tons of choices out there.  It ends up it is harder to find than you think.  Also, the third challenge is that I am picky about what I’m reading too and I want it to be good; I don’t want to waste my time on tired stupid plots that lack interesting prose.  When I tell people this they will often recommend classics, and I do try to get some of those in, but I’ve read a lot of those already so I don’t really want to read them again out loud (although I do for the kids sake).  But normally I want something fresh and new for all of us, so I’m constantly on a hunt for something that meets all my criteria. 
 
We have a local small bookstore called Rediscovered Books and we have found the staff to be really helpful in giving us some guidance.  It was through their summer reading list that we ended up with TumTum and Nutmeg: The Rose Cottage Adventures.  We just finished it and really enjoyed it.  It is essentially 3 different stories inside the one book and while it clearly was not the first book in the series I thought it stood on its own well.  The one line synopsis is that it is about 2 little mice that live inside the house of a lower class family and the mice sort of watch over the kids while also getting sucked into different adventures and therefore the children also get involved.  Asher lost interest from time to time, but Avery liked it more than I thought she would; I thought it might be too “babyish” for her but she actually really got into it!  It is pretty gentle as far as the plot, very innocent but with enough adventure to be good for boys or girls.  Definitely a lower elementary target age as far as topic but at a reading level more for a 3^rd or 4^th grader (based on my guess), which is why I think it was good for reading out loud.  I even liked it!

People sometimes ask me what Avery and Asher are into reading on their own right now and I think Avery’s favorite books of the summer have been The Twistrose Key, The School for Good and Evil, and A Tale Dark and Grimm. Asher’s favorite books right now are the two Life of Ty books.  If you have a first or second grade boy and are looking for something to start reading to them and then transition to them reading on their own I would recommend these.  Even I laugh at parts of the books!

Please feel free to share any books that you think are great to read aloud to a family, we are always looking to beef up our list!