on reading with kids

March 07, 2018

on reading with kids

If I had a "theme" for my life as a mom, this would be it. Books. Reading. Snuggles. Discussing stories, questions, lessons, sometimes through tears, sometimes laughter. There are all sorts of things I don't get right and all sorts of mom things I don't do, because I realized they aren't my thing. I made peace with that long ago. But reading? That I do. That's my thing. It energizes, restores, and fulfills me. It knits our hearts. Great books teach lessons in better ways than a lecture from me ever will. I'm so grateful to my sweet friend, Dana, for capturing this Thing of ours so well. When the kids are grown and head off on their own adventures, these are the moments I will replay again and again.

Don't these stinkers know I was trying to be serious? Ha!

The first novel I read aloud as a mom was when my eldest was 4. We started James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl. It wasn't a smashing success, he was only 4 after all. I put it aside for awhile and a couple of years later we really began cruising through all sorts of amazing literature. I keep track of all the books we read on Goodreads. (I LOVE Goodreads and refer to it often.)

We've read aloud in so many settings over the years: at bedtime as everyone is all snug as a bug, on the living room floor while the kids play with LEGOS, in the van while Edwin drives, piled on my bed while they color, cozied up in sleeping bags in a tent in the middle of nowhere.

Here's our list of books we've read together and our favorites are marked with an asterisk. 53 novels and counting...

*Summer of the Monkeys

*Because of Winn-Dixie

*A Christmas Carol (unabridged)

*The Twenty-One Balloons
*Holes

*Pippi Longstocking

*Shiloh

*The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

*Caddie Woodlawn
Fish in a Tree

Wonder

Mr. Popper’s Penguins

The Whipping Boy
The Indian in the Cupboard
The One and Only Ivan
Breaking Stalin’s Nose
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The BFG
Peter Pan
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
James and the Giant Peach
A Series of Unfortunate Events
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The Little Red Buckets
The Voyages of Dr. Doolitte
Mummies & Pyramids
The Usborne Book of Greek Myths
Tales from The Odyssey Parts 1 & 2
Stories From Old Egypt
Charlotte’s Web
Mrs. Piggle Wiggle
Encyclopedia Brown Cracks the Case
The Twits
Esio Trot
The Giraffe, The Pelly, and Me
The Magician’s Elephant
Farmer Boy
The Little House on the Prairie
Ramona
Lulu and the Brontosaurus
The Magic Finger
George’s Marvelous Medicine
Stuart Little
Oliver Twist (abridged)
Gulliver’s Travels (abridged)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (abridged)
Black Beauty (abridged)
The Prince and the Pauper (abridged)
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (abridged)
The Call of the Wild (abridged)
The Secret Garden (abridged)
The Jungle Book (abridged)
Treasure Island (abridged)
A Christmas Carol (abridged)