# Looking for a good read aloud series for the kids.....



## ginnie5 (Jul 15, 2003)

we've done all the Little House books and several others. Its a good way to keep them off the tv at night!


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## Veronica (Oct 31, 2008)

Depending on their age you might want to read the Little Britches series. My dc really enjoyed them when they were younger.


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## Chixarecute (Nov 19, 2004)

Hank the Cowdog.


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## Our Little Farm (Apr 26, 2010)

Enid Blyton, The Famous Five.

My kids love them, and so still do I.


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## pheasantplucker (Feb 20, 2007)

How old are the kids?


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## Guest (Sep 21, 2011)

Age has a lot to do with this.

Right now I'm reading the _Lord of the Rings_ to the Kinder Major for the third time!

Mama's reading one of the earlier Harry Potter books to the Kinder Minor. 

We've read the Little House books to both of them already and the K. Minor wants me to read them to her again.

I've read very nearly all of the original Sherlock Holmes stories to the K. Major and would like to read her some Jules Verne and H.G. Wells too. Oh, and I've read Swiss Family Robinson to her as well. The original English translation. What a vocabulary stretch that one was!

My kids are six and twelve.


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## pheasantplucker (Feb 20, 2007)

Gender has something to do with it as well. Generally girls seem to be more willing to listen to a "boys' book" than boys are willing to listen to a "girls' book"...


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## rean (Nov 18, 2008)

I second Hank the Cowdog. Excellent books.



Chixarecute said:


> Hank the Cowdog.


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## RedDirt Cowgirl (Sep 21, 2010)

Kids can't get enough - a series and more - now in paperbacks for cheap. There's a movie too if you want to link that. Boys and girls both overcome adversity, good humor.
www.*lemonysnicket.com*

Also, Rhold Dahl wrote some good things for kids - some more appealing than others, and he wrote for adults too. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, again, a book/movie hookup if you like.

I wonder if Lord of the Rings would stand the attention test - maybe just The Hobbit? And then there's the Lang series of colored fairy tale books, I think Dover publishes them. East of the Sun, West of the Moon is a nice fairy tale collection.


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## pheasantplucker (Feb 20, 2007)

I had many students who liked Series of Unfortunate Events, but IMO...the series is very overrated. I think it's slick marketing that came into play...


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## RedDirt Cowgirl (Sep 21, 2010)

You're right, there's a thick overlay of marketing, but when he just started out the local kids just went ga ga for him. The tongue in cheek Victorian twist strikes our funnybones.

I love Maira Kalman's Max series - Dream Shoes, mmmm, art, love, poetry...Swami on Rye. http://www.mairakalman.com/books/c_books/index.html


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## Guest (Sep 22, 2011)

RedDirt Cowgirl said:


> I wonder if Lord of the Rings would stand the attention test - maybe just The Hobbit?


 That's what we started out with when the Kinder Major was nine. Not long afterwards she wanted to hear the Lord of the Rings. She's twelve now and we're halfway through reading it aloud a third time and she wants the Silmarillion afterwards. The fourth time I'm going to insist she reads it to ME.


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## Lisa in WA (Oct 11, 2004)

Check out *The Great Brain *series by John Fitzgerald. 

My 5th grade teacher read them aloud to my class and I in turn, read them aloud to my daughters. Really, great funny books.

http://www.amazon.com/Great-Brain-Book/dp/0142400580/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1316707901&sr=8-1

_Description
The best con man in the west is only ten years old. Tom, a.k.a., the Great Brain, is a silver-tongued genius with a knack for turning a profit. When the Jenkins boys get lost in Skeleton Cave, the Great Brain saves the day. Whether it&#8217;s saving the kids at school, or helping out Peg-leg Andy, or Basil, the new kid at school, the Great Brain always manages to come out on top&#8212;and line his pockets in the process. _


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## pheasantplucker (Feb 20, 2007)

Hey Lisa...I didn't know anyone else ever read those. I esp. loved, The Great Brain at the Academy...when he has all his candy empire thing going!


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## beewench (Mar 5, 2010)

The Artemis Fowl Series
The Children of the Lamp Series
The Daniel X books
The Percy Jackson and the Olympians
The Kane Chronicles
The Lord of the Rings
Harry Potter
Septimus Heap Series
Araminta Spookie series


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## andabigmac (Jan 10, 2011)

I was going to say Little Britches too. Those books made me want to be a homesteader.


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## Honduras Trish (Nov 30, 2007)

The _Wrinkle in Time, Wind in the Door, Swiftly Tilting Planet_ books are great. Oh, and the _My Side of the Mountain_ books were enjoyed here - though the second and third weren't as good as the first. The _Indian in the Cupboard_ series is great fun. Maybe we're weird, but my kids also like having me read James Herriot's books (_All Creatures Great and Small_, etc). Brian Jacques' "Redwall" series is fun, the kids were hooked, but they weren't my favorite to read aloud - just didn't hold _my_ interest enough, I guess.

So many books, so little time . . .


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## Lisa in WA (Oct 11, 2004)

pheasantplucker said:


> Hey Lisa...I didn't know anyone else ever read those. I esp. loved, The Great Brain at the Academy...when he has all his candy empire thing going!


No one really seems to know about them and they are really great books! I'm glad you know of them too. When I got that link from amazon, they said the author had written other books too...I'll have to check them out.


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## Keildra (Sep 1, 2011)

depending on age you could get a book of the original grimm fairy tales. have you read the anne of green gables series. Nancy drew series or hardy boys series are good ones. ABC mysteries, magic tree house series, boxcar children mysteries, if you have girls some of the American girl books would be good. The babysitters club is a good one, some classics might be good like Alice in wonderland/Alice through the looking glass. Charles dickens, Agatha Christie (depending on age), Little women, on amazon there are several younger versions of hard to read classics like Wuthering Heights and Pride and Prejudice. My list goes on and on I'm going to stop here for now.


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## TenBusyBees (Jun 15, 2011)

Little Britches and Redwall series are the hands down favorites here.


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## nananne (Oct 8, 2011)

Have you tried ANNE OF GREEN GABLES? Nice for girls......


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## nananne (Oct 8, 2011)

_HATCHET, BRIANS' WINTER, THE RIVER. _ Gary Poulson is the author of all.


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## nananne (Oct 8, 2011)

WHERE THE RED FERN GROWS is exceptional for boys or girls.


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## Harry Chickpea (Dec 19, 2008)

"Williamstown Branch" R.L. Duffus is written in a series of connected vignettes detailing his life as a young boy growing up in a tiny town in rural Vermont. If you like the "Little House"
series, you probably will like this. 
http://openlibrary.org Has a copy you can "borrow" online.


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## bowdonkey (Oct 6, 2007)

Deltora Quest. Among the Hidden series.


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## suzyhomemaker09 (Sep 24, 2004)

Oh....We are really HUGE Terry Pratchett fans.....there are lots of books by him but this link shows the young adult selection.

http://www.terrypratchettbooks.com/books/youngadult.html

The Tiffany Aching books are fantastic light fantasy....


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## gracie88 (May 29, 2007)

Almost anything by Jack London. I loved his stuff as a kid, though being in Alaska might have biased me a bit. I loved almost all the others listed in this thread too, but no one had mentioned Jack yet.


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## boiledfrog (Jun 2, 2011)

I've been reading the Chronicles of Narnia and they just scream "Read me out loud!"


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## Classof66 (Jul 9, 2011)

I would suggest the same books the teachers read to us in school, for the grade school aged children. They seem to be timeless. The Little Eddie books by Carolyn Haywood, the books by Beverly Cleary, Beezus and Ramona are still very popular today, the Homer Price books by Robert McClosky, and anything by Lois Lenski, who was my very favorite. A few of her books may be a little dated now, but they are wholesome and good reads. I still read Prairie School and Corn Farm Boy every so often. Beverly Cleary has 3 books for teen aged girls that might appeal to a preteen, including Fifteen, Jean and Johnny and The Luckiest Girl. 

I wonder if teachers still read aloud to their classes.


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## Lisa in WA (Oct 11, 2004)

Classof66 said:


> I would suggest the same books the teachers read to us in school, for the grade school aged children. They seem to be timeless. The Little Eddie books by Carolyn Haywood, the books by Beverly Cleary, Beezus and Ramona are still very popular today, the Homer Price books by Robert McClosky, and anything by Lois Lenski, who was my very favorite. A few of her books may be a little dated now, but they are wholesome and good reads. I still read Prairie School and Corn Farm Boy every so often. Beverly Cleary has 3 books for teen aged girls that might appeal to a preteen, including Fifteen, Jean and Johnny and The Luckiest Girl.
> 
> I wonder if teachers still read aloud to their classes.


I can't believe I forgot Beverly Cleary!! My daughters loved her books so much we had to take a trip to Portland and visit Klickitat St. and the neighborhood that Ramona "lived in". 
My youngest totally identified with Ramona...they certainly thought and behaved alike!

Another set of books my kids loved were the Pippi Longstocking books. My husband loved listening too. Just yesterday he mentioned taking "good meduceen" as Pippi referred to it.


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## copperpennykids (Sep 6, 2004)

Chronicles of Narnia is an excellent read aloud.

The Hobbit is great. Many moons ago I read The Hobbit to my younger siblings and then started on The Lord of the Rings. They loved it - but when I got to "Many Meetings" (the longest chapter in a book EVER), with lots of descriptive narration - well, I told them they were going to have to read that to themselves. LOL

Love the Elizabeth Enright books with The Saturdays and The Four Story Mistake.

Also Hilda Van Stockum with The Winged Watchman and the Mitchell's series by her as well. Oh, and don't forget The Cottage at Bantry Bay, Francie on the Run, and Pegeen.

Old Sam, Dakota Trotter (esp boys but girls love it too) by Don Alonzo Taylor.

And ditto for Little Britches.


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## Seeker (Sep 29, 2004)

I read the Winnie the Pooh books by Milne to my wife in the evenings way back when we were newly married. I do a great Eeyore. 

I love read-a-loud books. I worked to make my Christmas books read aloud as well. There's just something about being read TO versus reading that is cool.

Dan T. Davis
www.secondstar.us


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## gracie88 (May 29, 2007)

Rudyard Kipling's books are fun to read aloud. My kids especially love his "Just So Stories", we're planning on going through them again soon.


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## bikehealer1 (Oct 8, 2009)

Encyclopedia Brown is great for kids, along with the Three Investigators. Both are a series that will have the kids thinking aloud as to how to "solve" the mysteries. Also, Have spacesuit will travel by Robert A. Heinlien along with his other child oriented novels.


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## BlueberryChick (May 12, 2008)

Richard Peck's _A Long Way from Chicago_ and _A Year Down Yonder_

Both books are really funny. They are set in the 1930's and tell the adventures of city kids spending time with their quirky, very rural grandmother.


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## pheasantplucker (Feb 20, 2007)

A Little Princess, Rascal, Old Yeller are three excellent read alouds for mor mature listeners...


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## Red_Hen (Sep 20, 2011)

There is a series called RedWall by Brian Jacques that we are going to start reading after we finish all of the little house books. Redwall is 20 books!!! My kids found the animated series on Netflix and my husband remembered reading a few when he was a kid. The stories are great for both boys and girls.

http://www.redwallabbey.com/


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