Our Family Read Alouds
It’s been a wonderful year of reading for our family! We’ve made so many new friends and have collected “memories” of all the places we’ve traveled! (Extra helpful to our travel “budget!”) My younger Bookworm started the year as a new 4 year old and just turned 5. Looking back through the months of our booklogs, I see such a huge growth in him. Nothing like a book list to (mentally) stack up against the growth chart hanging on our wall! We began the year with many early chapter books with pictures throughout and shorter chapters. We ended the year with a 300+ page novel with no pictures! Wow! My older Bookworm is about to turn 7, and gaining confidence in his independent reading. I wonder if I’ll see an opposite shift in him this coming year, and he will head back to those beloved early chapter books and read those on his own!
To celebrate the end of our reading year, I wrote out a list of all of our family read alouds and asked the boys to tell me what their favorites were. After choosing every book with the exception of TWO that they vaguely couldn’t remember, I asked them to tell me the name of just their TOP TWO. Drum roll:
My Side of the Mountain– read my review in our monthly recap here.
The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street– read my review in our monthly recap here.
Our other 47 read alouds for the year are listed below. These include both paper books read aloud together in various locations (mostly on the couch, often at the lunch table, sometimes in the yard, a few times while they were in the bathtub), along with our audiobooks that kept us company for hundreds of miles of errands and family road trips. I can’t imagine our family culture without a good book in my parenting back pocket!
Books mentioned in this post should be available at your library, or at the affiliate links provided. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Shorter Chapter Books:
Princess in Black (series. we read 4.)
Zoey and Sassafras (series. we read 8.)
Sophie Mouse (series. we read 6.)
Cam Jansen (series, but we only read 1)
Magic Treehouse (series, we read 5.)
Family Novels
The Trumpet of the Swan*one of mama’s favorites!
By the Great Horn Spoon (we listened to this as a “full cast audio” audiobook)
Little House in the Big Woods and Little House On the Prairie
The Faraway Tree series (Up the Faraway Tree, Folk of the Faraway Tree, The Enchanted Wood) * I’m surprised this didn’t make their TOP choice– we loved these!
The Green Ember *while an amazing book/series that I LOVE- my sensitive 6yo found it too intense!
Eugenia Lincoln and the Unexpected Package
The Adventures of Geraldine Woolkins *one of mama’s favorites!
The Boxcar Children (series. they listened to approximate 250 during quiet time! Thank you, Hoopa library downloading service!)
I hope you find some ideas to share with your own family this year! What were your family’s favorite read alouds to date?? Connect with me in the comments below or on my Facebook or Instagram accounts!
