What books would/did you encourage your kids to read? Or make sure to read to them?

Magpie

DIS Veteran
Joined
Oct 27, 2007
My list:

The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings

The Jungle Book, by Kipling

The Ancillary Series, by Ann Leckie

Harry Potter

Peter Pan

Watership Down

The Narnia Series

Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders series

Louisa May Alcott's books

The Wizard of Oz books by L. Frank Baum

All the classic fairy tales (particularly Bros Grimm)

Classic Greek Myths

Your basic Bible stories


My daughter's list (she doesn't have children yet, but this is the plan):

Almost all of my list above (minus the Bible), plus...

Anything by Roald Dahl

Anything by Tamora Pierce

The Uglies series by Scott Westerfield

Redwall series

DiscWorld! Also, Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

She also says she'll make any kid of her's watch Inside Out at a young age, "so we have vocabulary to talk about feelings!"

And selected Anne McCaffrey (though she feels some of what I let her read at a young age might have been inappropriate).

(Adding: She may have a point. She was reading one of the Talent series books at breakfast her grandmother, when she was eight, and suddenly exclaimed, very loudly, "Oh, so THAT's what an orgasm is!" :laughing:)

What's on your list?
 
Your list is great!

Some of my favorites which I'd add -

Charlotte's Webb

the Little House series

Harriet the Spy

The Witch of Blackbird Pond

A Wrinkle in Time

My favorite series from when I was a girl is the Trixie Belden series!

And my DD would most definitely add The Giver & The Book Thief. The Book Thief is her favorite!
 
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I agree with all of the above, and have to say that my parents never said "no" to me when it came to a book choice. I discovered some mighty strange books that way at a young(ish) age that I would add to the list like:
Watership Down
Dune
Black Beauty
all of Tolkien
"sagas" (Michener, Gone with the Wind, Outlander, Lonesome Dove, I definitely thought longer meant better)
Clan of the Cave Bear
all of Heinlein
le Carre spy novels
the Anne of Green Gables series
The Borrowers
"vintage" series: Trixie Belden, Cherry Ames, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Black Stallion, Little House, etc

I really think part of why I became a librarian was because my parents said, "Try any book, if you don't like it after twenty pages put it away for a later time". And I did :)!

Terri
 


Where The Red Fern Grows
Death In The Long Grass
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Splat The Cat
The Grapes of Wrath
 
All of you mentioned at least one or two books that I read during my life. I didn’t read The Jungle Book by Kipling, I read The Man Who Would be King, saw the movie had to read the book. Heinlein, I love his short stories. East of Eden I always liked the idea of choices, that beings have a choice. Any British history, Jewish history, and getting into some American history.

I would encourage any reading and the choices that anyone makes. I always have a book.
 
So many of these are on my list as well but here are a few more:

The Endless Steppe
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Everything by Eric Wilson
Everything by Gordon Korman
From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
 


the Mary Poppins series
the Little House series
Anne of Green Gables series
Pippi Longstocking
Ronia, the Robber's Daughter
Caddie Woodlawn
The Hobbit
Tales from Shakespeare - Charles and Mary Lamb
Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare - E. Nesbit
She has now moved on to reading Shakespeare's works on her own in his own words, but I credit the two previous titles plus attending lots of his plays for her current interest in Shakespeare.
Most of Edith Nesbit's other works
Andrew Lang's fairy tales
Grimm's Fairy Tales
Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales
the Harry Potter series
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
Peter Pan
The Hunger Games trilogy
The Wizard of Oz series
A Wrinkle in Time
the Madeline stories
Now We are Six
When We Were Very Young
The House at Pooh Corner
The Septimus Heap series
lots of poetry collections
From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
The Secret Garden
A Little Princess
The Jungle Book
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Arnold Lobel books
Little Bear books
Stuart Little
The Trumpet of the Swan
Charlotte's Web
The Ramona Quimby series
The Mrs. Piggle Wiggle series
The Diary of Anne Frank
To Kill a Mockingbird
all of the Patricia Polacco picture books we could find
Dr. Seuss titles
anything by Cynthia Rylant
Watership Down
The Wind in the Willows
Little Lord Fauntleroy
A Christmas Carol
Baum's The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus
Jan Brett picture books
The Little White Horse
The Princess and the Goblin
The Endless Steppe
Number the Stars
Snow Treasure
Pollyanna
Capyboppy
Sam Campbell's Inky series
Little Women
Little Men
Jo's Boys
various D'aulaire biographies
various Diane Stanley biographies
Holling C. Holling books (Paddle to the Sea is probably the most famous)
Pinocchio
Heidi
The Wheel on the School
Red Sails to Capri
Johnny Tremaine
The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
Teacher by Helen Keller


We have/she has read so many more books, but the above were from my not to be missed list. Even so, there are more books worthy of reading than there is time for reading them.
 
I like the books above, depending on the age of the child. I'd also add the
Aesops Fables
Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass
Bambi,
Black Stallion Series,
The Book Thief
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The Cricket in Times Square
Disneyland Quest 1 & 2
5 Little Peppers and How They Grew,
Gullivers Travels
Heidi
Irish Red
Island of the Blue Dolphins
Little House on the Prairie
The Little Prince
Little Princess
Little Women
Mary Poppins series
Maximum Ride Novels (James Patterson)
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
Old Yeller
Percy Jackson series
Peter Pan,
Shadow Castle
Treasure Island
Wizard of Oz
 
So many good books people have listed!!

So many of these are on my list as well but here are a few more:

The Endless Steppe
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Everything by Eric Wilson
Everything by Gordon Korman
From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

I LOVE From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler!

Also 2 short stories that I consider "must-reads":

The Gift of the Magi
The Lady or the Tiger
 
I have to tell you all that I'm sitting here crying...books have been a very important thing in my life. It is the one thing that my parents never said "no" to. Whether that meant a new book purchase or yet another trip to the library, it was never too much. As a result, I skipped first grade and graduated Magna cum Laude from college. I swear, the love of literacy is what shaped my life in a positive fashion. Now that I have a 2.5 year old, I find myself never saying "no" to books. She is through Early Head Start testing toward being cognitively closer to 3.5. She came to live with us at 7 months old and we were told that she would never catch up to her peers. I don't think that reading can ever be too advanced, children can be taught to understand. This thread seriously made my week. Thank you all for sharing your love of literacy.

Oh, and @Magpie - I share your daughter's love of Discworld!
 
My dad always encouraged reading. He was an avid comic book collector and that stemmed from his love of reading. He honestly never cared what I read as long as I WAS reading. I hold the same values when it comes to my kids. Some of their favorite reading material:
Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Goosebumps
Animal nonfiction
Minecraft books
 
From when I was little:
Francis books
The Boxcar Children\
HoneyBunch:Her first little garden
Madeline
Ant and Bee
The Sugar Mouse Cake
From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs.Basil T.Frankweiler
Many more that I can't call up at the moment.
 
Bridge to Terabithia was my favorite as a child, and one I think all kids should read.
Agree with The Grapes of Wrath and pretty much anything Steinbeck.
I also adored reading Shakespeare plays except Macbeth. A Midsummer Night's Dream is my favorite and I think a fun one for younger readers.
 
My dad always encouraged reading. He was an avid comic book collector and that stemmed from his love of reading. He honestly never cared what I read as long as I WAS reading. I hold the same values when it comes to my kids. Some of their favorite reading material:
Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Goosebumps
Animal nonfiction
Minecraft books

I was going to say that I don't really worry about what my children are reading as long as they are reading. Obviously, we read a lot of Dr. Seuss (from pregnancy to early elementary), but other than that, I don't really have a list in my head.
My oldest is only 11, and while he is a good reader, it hasn't been that long that I can just hand him one of my favorite longer books that would be appropriate to his age and reading level. He has also introduced me to newer literature. We are reading Harry Potter together. We read some Lemony Snicket together. (My son also read Diary of a Wimpy Kid.)

I did recently suggest The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom because he was studying WWII. He picked up Hunger Games on his own this year.
 
I never encouraged my kids to read anything specific, they were encouraged to read whatever they wanted as long as they were reading.
They are teens now, my dd loves fiction, my one ds has always had a love of biographies, and my other dh likes non-fiction.
 
I first read Gone With The Wind at age 12 after falling in love with the film. My mother loved the book and was thrilled at my desire to read it.

I had a Children's Illustrated Bible that I adored as a child.

Some of my favorite books were Charlotte's Web, The Hundred and One Dalmatians and the Little House Books.
I also read a Walt Disney biography (the one by Bob Thomas) and other non fiction at an early age. Helter Skelter gave me nightmares for a while.
 
I never encouraged my kids to read anything specific, they were encouraged to read whatever they wanted as long as they were reading.
They are teens now, my dd loves fiction, my one ds has always had a love of biographies, and my other dh likes non-fiction.

This is what I did as well. I have one avid reader who LOVES to read. Unfortunately my other dd hates it. As a result I truly believe she is not a great writer due partly to her lack of reading.
 
I encouraged my son to read whatever he wanted, I was happy if he was reading. He loved books, would climb on the lap of anyone who came and sat down in our house with a book in his hand and ask to be read to. He had a Teddy Ruxpin who read him to sleep every night and who he learned to read from before he was 3. He still reads all the time, if there is any time he is just sitting, on a bus, in a restaurant, waiting on a bus, in class (goes to UGA) and has already done his work - he is reading. I didn't and don't care what he read, as long as he was reading. All my family are big readers, the public library was our go to place. My Mama made me read the classics - I read War and Peace when I was about 13 and didn't understand much of it. She made me read Wuthering Heights and Pride and Prejudice. I also had to read Pearl S. Bucks books but was also allowed to read whatever I wanted, Nancy Drew and Little Women were my favorites until I was about 11 then I started reading adult mysteries and biographies. And yes, I did read To Kill a Mockingbird and Gone with the Wind and actually still read Gone with the Wind every year. I worked in the Comparative Literature Dept. at UGA for awhile and back then the freshmen students had to read Norton's Anthologies Vol. 1 and 2. I figured if they had to read it, so should I so I would sit at my desk reading it when I didn't have anything else to do, my boss would actually tell his students that his secretary read it just because so they certainly could.
 
I have to tell you all that I'm sitting here crying...books have been a very important thing in my life. It is the one thing that my parents never said "no" to. Whether that meant a new book purchase or yet another trip to the library, it was never too much. As a result, I skipped first grade and graduated Magna cum Laude from college. I swear, the love of literacy is what shaped my life in a positive fashion. Now that I have a 2.5 year old, I find myself never saying "no" to books. She is through Early Head Start testing toward being cognitively closer to 3.5. She came to live with us at 7 months old and we were told that she would never catch up to her peers. I don't think that reading can ever be too advanced, children can be taught to understand. This thread seriously made my week. Thank you all for sharing your love of literacy.

Oh, and @Magpie - I share your daughter's love of Discworld!

Yes, last night her father foolishly commented, "I've never read Discworld..." and the girl immediately went off on a long passionate dissertation about why it's a must-read. Eventually he had to say, "Sweetie, you're getting a bit... intense." :laughing:

I came to reading late, and required intensive extra tutoring (thanks to a mild learning disability), but I always had excellent books read aloud to me. I remember during my first run through First Grade (which I had to repeat due to my inability to read), my mother signed us up for a book-of-the-month club featuring all the original Wizard of Oz books (the ones written by L. Frank Baum). Every night, she read a chapter to me. It was wonderful!

A love of reading won't guarantee that your child is academically advanced, but it certainly will enrich their lives.

My mother, in an effort to be a responsible parent, did say no to some books. She was very suspicious of anything "modern" (like The Cat Ate My Gymsuit). But, once I'd got the reading bug, that didn't dissuade me from reading. It simply made me sneakier and more determined about getting my hands on books she'd forbidden.

And when it came my turn to be a parent, while I was fine with young adult fiction, I definitely did say no to certain websites and/or story ratings. Fanfiction was a problem for a little while, until I could be reasonably convinced our daughter had the educational background to be able to make sense of some of the amateur porn people were writing.

There's another downside to all this, too. A love of reading can also sometimes be a crutch, or a way of escaping reality (which is fine for short periods, but shouldn't be sought out constantly). My daughter did sometimes read too much, neglecting other important parts of her life. And I did have to put some limits on her reading, occasionally, such as telling her that she was not allowed to bring novels to school (as she would then read them under her desk, ignoring her lessons). With no other option available, she took to reading her textbooks under her desk instead and her grades improved remarkably. A lack of interest in physical activity has also been an issue sometimes. She has postural hypotension, and too much time spent in a seated position can lead to her fainting when she stands up. The solution to this is better physical fitness, but all she really wanted to do was read. It wasn't good for her health.

Fortunately, she's discovered a love for lab work, where a lot of her job involves standing and working with equipment. She's gotten involved in gaming. And, of course, just being a university student will get you up and around.

Meanwhile, my son has a form of dyslexia and reads very slowly. As a result, he's extremely picky about the books he's willing to invest his time and effort in. Does he love reading? No, and he never will. But, he loves other aspects of the creative arts. He's passionate about typesetting, font, and the artistic arrangement of words on the page, finding the most interesting books to share with me. House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski, is a particular favourite of his.

And I do appreciate that we never had to worry about him using a love of reading as a way of avoiding dealing with real life. :goodvibes
 

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