So I got to thinking. And as recommendation after recommendation poured in on this weekend’s post…I knew I had to do something with all of the amazing comments.
So I alphabetized, linked, them, and put them all in one giant list.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I’m nuts. And I totally am, but in a good way. HAHAHA!
When I was searching for read-alouds for my girls I did NOT find a great comprehensive resource. So I decided to make one.
I hope you find it as helpful as I do. I’m now just ITCHING to read to my girls.
You know why I love read-alouds? Well…there are a million reasons. I know it’s good for their little brains to listen to stories. I want to instill in them the same love (obsession??) of reading I have.
But mainly? I love that on a day when it’s just not going well…on a day where I want to string all four of them up by their tiny toes, I can just say “That’s IT! We are all getting in Mommy’s bed and reading!”.
I’m grateful for books.
If you are too, then this list’s for you.
Here you go!
A
A to Z Mysteries– Ron Roy
Alfie the Werewolf Series– Paul Van Loon
All of a Kind Family Series– Sydney Taylor
Amelia Bedelia Series– Peggy Parish
Anne of Green Gables Series – L.M. Montgomery
Araminta Spookie Series– Angie Sage
B
Baby Island– Carol Ryrie Brink
The Babysitters Club Series– Ann M. Martin
A Bear Called Paddington– Michael Bond
Because of Winn Dixie– Kate DiCamillo
Betsy, Tacy, & Tib Series– Maud Hart Lovelace
The BFG– Roald Dahl
The Bobbsey Twins Series– Laura Lee Hope
The Boxcar Children– Gertrude Chandler Warner
Bridge to Terabithia– Katherine Paterson
Bunnicula Series– Deborah and James Howe
C
Caddie Woodlawn– Carol Ryrie Brink
Captain Underpants Series– Dav Pilkey
Catwings Series– Ursula Leguin
The Chalet School Series– E.M. Brent Dyer
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory– Roald Dahl
Charlotte’s Web– E.B. White
The Chocolate Touch– Patrick Skene Catling
The Christmas Mystery– Jostein Gaarder
Clementine Series– Sara Pennypacker
Coraline– Neil Gaiman
The Cricket in Times Square– George Selden
D
The Doll People Series– Ann M. Martin
Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz– L. Frank Baum
Dragon Rider– Cornelia Funke
Dummie the Mummie Series (in Dutch)– Tosca Menten
E
Ella Enchanted– Gail Carson Levine
Eloise Series– Kay Thompson
Emily Windsnap Series– Liz Kessler
Encyclopedia Brown Series– Donald J. Sobol
F
The Famous Five Series– Enid Blyton
Flat Stanley Series– Jeff Brown
Frindle– Andrew Clements
From the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler– E.L. Konigsburg
G
The Giving Tree– Shel Silverstein
The Golden Goblet– Eloise Jarvis McGraw
Gooney Bird Greene Series– Lois Lowry
The Gruffalo– Julia Donaldson
H
Hank the Cowdog Series– John R. Erickson
Harriet the Spy– Louise Fitzhugh
Harry Potter Series– J.K. Rowling
Hatchet– Gary Paulsen
Heidi– Johanna Spyri
The Hobbit– JRR Tolkien
Holes– Louise Sachar
Horrid Henry Series– Francesca Simon
The Hundred Dresses– Eleanor Estes
I
Ida B– Katherine Hannigan
Igraine the Brave– Cornelia Funke
The Indian in the Cupboard Series– Lynne Reid Banks
The Invention of Hugo Cabret– Brian Selznick
The Iron Man– Ted Hughes
Island of the Blue Dolphins– Scott O’Dell
Ivy and Bean Series– Annie Barrows
J
The Jack Sparrow Series– Rob Kidd
James and the Giant Peach– Roald Dahl
Johnny Texas– Carol Hoff
Joey Pigza Series– Jack Gantos
Judy Moody Series– Megan MacDonald
Julie of the Wolves– Jean Craighead George
Junie B. Jones Series– Barbara Park
Just So Stories– Rudyard Kipling
K
Katie Kazoo Series– Nancy Krulick
L
Land of Elyon Series– Patrick Carman
The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles– Julie Andrews
Little House on the Prairie Series– Laura Ingalls Wilder
A Little Princess– Frances Hodgson Burnett
Little Women– Louisa May Alcott
Lotta Series– Astrid Lindgren
M
Madeline Series– Ludwig Bemelmans
Magic Tree House Series– Mary Pope Osborne
Maniac Magee– Jerry Spinelli
Mandie Series– Lois Gladys Leppard
Martha Matilda O’Toole– Jim Copp
Matilda– Roald Dahl
Millie’s Marvellous Hat– Satoshi Kitamura
Milly Molly Mandy Series– Joyce Lancester Brisley
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel– Virginia Lee
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane– Kate DiCamillo
Momo– Michael Ende
The Mouse and the Motorcyle– Beverly Cleary
Mr. Popper’s Penguins– Richard and Florence Atwater
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh– Robert C. O’Brien
Mrs. Piggle Wiggle Series– Betty MacDonald
My Father’s Dragon– Ruth Stiles Gannett
My Naughty Little Sister Series– Dorothy Edwards
My Side of the Mountain– Jean Craighead George
My Weird School Series– Dan Gutman
The Mysterious Benedict Society– Trenton Lee Stewart
N
Nancy Drew Series– Carolyn Keene
Narnia Series– C.S. Lewis
O
Olga Da Polga Series– Michael Bond
The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark– Jill Tomlinson
P
The Paperbag Princess– Robert Munsch
The Penderwicks Series– Jeanne Birdsall
The Phantom Tollbooth– Norton Juster
Piper Reed Series– Kimberly Willis Holt
Pippi Longstocking– Astrid Lindgren
The Puppy Place Series– Ellen Miles
The Pushcart War– Jean Merrill
Purple, Green and Yellow– Robert Munsch
R
The Railway Children– E. Nesbit
Ramona Series– Beverly Cleary
Rascal– Sterling North
Roman Mysteries Series– Caroline Lawrence
S
Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes– Eleanor Coerr
Saddle Club Series– Bonnie Bryant
Sarah, Plain and Tall– Patricia MacLachlan
Scaredy Squirrel– Melanie Watt
Scrawny,the Classroom Duck– Susan Clymer
The Secret Garden– Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Secret of Zoom– Lynne Jonell
A Series of Unfortunate Events Series– Lemony Snicket
Sheep-Pig retitled Babe the Gallant Pig- Dick King-Smith
Shoes Series– Noel Streatfeild
Skippjon Jones Series– Judy Schachner
Sophie Series– Dick King-Smith
The Spiderwick Chronicles Series– Tony DiTerlizzi
Strawberry Girl – Lois Lenski
Stuart Little– E.B. White
Sylvester and the Magic Pebble– William Steig
T
The Tale of Despereaux– Kate Dicamillo
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing– Judy Blume
Tashi Series– Anna Fienberg
The Trumpet of the Swan– E.B. White
Tuesdays at the Castle– Jessica Day George
V
The Velveteen Rabbit– Margery Williams
W
Warriors Series– Erin Hunter
When Santa Fell to Earth– Cornelia Funke
The Witches– Roald Dahl
The Wizard of Oz– L. Frank Baum
Wonder– R.J. Palacio
A Wrinkle in Time– Madeline L’Engle
Extra Resources for Selecting Literature
A Mighty Girl– a thematic list of girl positive, “girl power” literature
Florida Young Sunshine State Readers Awards
Honey for a Child’s Heart by Gladys Hunt
Read for the Heart by Sarah Clarkson
Y’all. Seriously. I’m blown away by how great of a resource this is. Thank you SO much for taking the time to comment, email, and tweet with your suggestions.
I will add any more suggestions as they come in.
This might be my favorite blog post of all time. ♡
xoxo
I didn’t see Madeline on there! Those books are amazing. Also as a kid we liked Amelia bedelia.
What an awesome collection, Stephanie! Thanks for taking the time to put it all in one place!
Thanks for doing this! I’m pinning this!
anything by Calef Brown. Soup for Breakfast, Hallowilloween, Dutch Sneakers & Flea Keepers…. if your girls like “the sillies” then these books are right up their alley! and the illustrations are by the author as well!
You are amazing Stephanie! I am going to tuck this special list away for the day that we have little ones to read to! You captured so many of my favorite books from my childhood! You are definitely one inspirational momma!
Wow..thank you so much for taking the time to compile this list!
Such a fun and awesome list! My kids also love all the Skippy Jon Jones books (by Judy Schachner). They send everyone into giggles – you can’t help it!
great job Stephanie!!! Looks GREAT!
I will definitely send you an older girls list when
they get a bit bigger as mine read more and more books!
xoxo
tara
you are awesome! thanks for sharing this list!
great list 🙂 some of my all-time favorites. also wanted to mention two books that are great guides for choosing good literature for our kiddos:
Honey for a Child’s Heart by Gladys Hunt
Read for the Heart by Sarah Clarkson
This is so awesome!!! So glad you took the time to compile and organize all those great suggestions!! 🙂
Just amazing list! And I just want to say a big thanks stephanie because I’m French and I love to read books to my 3 children in English, as I read a lot in french or in English too. Now I can choose some in your list! I bought some books , christmas books ( ten gingerbread men, the littlest elf,how do dinosaurs says merry christmas,the biggest christmas tree ever, S is for snowman) elf on the shelf and they love it!
I was a volunteer for my girls school Library and would often read to the little ones, one of my favorites was any Elephant & Piggie book by Mo Willems. There are several now and they are so funny, I used to read them with great exaggeration and flamboyancy, many times I would be in tears laughing along with all the 5 and 6 year olds.
My girls are older now, 11, 13 and 14 and I am reading to them To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, never considered it a read aloud but we started it during a camping trip and they are loving it.
What happened to The Pushcart War by Jean Merrill! It is my all time (ALL TIME she shouted) favorite read-aloud book!
we love and own ALL mo willems books!
its there. 🙂
the spacing was just messed up and its attached to the puppy wars.
ill fix it.
Absolutely great! FYI: Dick King Smith’s “The Sheep Pig” was retitled “Babe, The Gallant Pig” for the US market. That’s the title I first encountered it under as a 3rd grader many moons ago.
gotcha. ill add it!
Yah! Love the book list! You are amazing 😀
thank you so much for the list!!
This is incredible! Thanks! My daughter says you need to add The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles to your list. It’s by Julie Andrews (yes, THE Julie Andrews 🙂 )
A wonderful list Stephanie. Thank you for putting so much time and effort into this.
this is AWESOME!!!! thanks so much 🙂
What a lot of work! Thanks! This is a great resource for teachers as well.
Yay! You’re awesome! Thanks so much for putting this together to share with everyone 🙂 We’ll never run out of ideas now!
What a great resource! Only wish it was around when my kids were younger. I am definitely going to pass it on to my nieces for their little ones!
A great list!
Here’s another one for you:
An English author, Enid Blyton all her books are good here is a list of some:
The Noddy books
The Secret Seven series
The Malory Towers series
The St. Clare’s series
The Wishing-Chair series ****
The Magic Faraway Tree series *** the little girls will love this
Book of Brownies
Amelia Jane series
The Five Find-Outers (Also known as Enid Blyton’s Mystery series)
The Famous Five series
The Adventure Series
The Three Golliwogs
The Barney Mystery series
The Circus series
The Mistletoe Farm series
The Naughtiest Girl series
The Young Adventurers Series
The Adventurous Four Series
The Secret Seven Series
I seriously sat down last night and scrolled through your comments and made my own list!! yours is much more comprehensive! Thanks a million!!
The invention of Hugo Cabret
Oh never mind I see it! We read it in two days!
Love this list — thank you! One book you don’t have listed, but I think your family would enjoy is the All of A Kind series by Sydney Taylor: http://www.amazon.com/All—Kind-Family-Sydney-Taylor/dp/0440400597/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1383660017&sr=1-1&keywords=all-of-a-kind+family
How adorable are YOU?!?! I love that you did this!
Mrs. Piggle Wiggle! I have such fond memories of my mom & I reading those together. 🙂 Thanks so much for putting this together!
Encyclopedia Brown – Boy detective is a great series.
Also, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH.
Great list!
Also
The Hobbit J.R.R.Tolkein
The Chalet School series E.M.Brent-Dyer
The Gruffalo Julia Donaldson
Dream of Sadler’s Wells series Lorna Hill
Ballet Shoes etc by Noel Streatfeild
You’re nuttier than nuts, and I love you for it. Thank you for compiling this list, Amazon here we come! I know that some of them / most of them will make great reading for ESL readers like us. Thank you for including the Dutch books. The one about fox and hare was written by Silvia van Heerde, an d what about the Geronimo Stilton books, also great fun to read for beginning readers like Harper, lots of different typefonts and pics, originally publishedin Italian (lol) and Dr Seuss, many fun craft things and read out loud on the web, whenever you don’t feel like reading yourself! Winnie the Witch, oh the places we’ll go! And what about Usborne Publishing, many beautiful arts and crafts books, wonderfully ilustrated first readers, my first thousand Italian/ Chinese etcetra words, with internet support for pronunciation. I could go on for ages!
I cannot recommend enough the works of Patricia Polacco. http://www.patriciapolacco.com/
My children are now 24, 21, 16, and 11 and each of them, if asked their favorite children’s stories, will begin rattling off titles by her. She is absolutely amazing!
Oh, my gosh, thanks so much. My little Godson will have many gifts procured from this list I believe. I love this book, it’s ridiculous and silly and I just can’t seem to resist it. Click, Clack, Moo: Cows who Type by Doreen Cronin. I (and the young man I used to read it to) giggled allllll the way through many more times than once. 🙂
Thank YOU for organizing it…if ya’ don’t mind I’m sharing it with all my friends who have little ones to read aloud to? Copy and paste…copy and paste!
Thanks for the wonderful compilation you made out of all the suggestions!
As I was thinking about the rest of the year lately, another great book came to my mind: The Night of Wishes by Michael Ende. Perfect for New Years Eve.