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I’m always on the lookout for good books to add to our home library collection. And while I think reading for your own enjoyment is great, it’s also just as great to read aloud to your children. Family reading instills a lasting love for books and creates memorable experiences of togetherness.
It’s hard to stick to a normal routine with busy schedules but we try to pick a night each week for family reading. This will typically involve lots of pillows and blankets in the living room or one of the kid’s rooms. Our goal is to read between 1-2 chapters each family reading night but sometimes we’ll read a chapter each night of the week if they’re really into the book.
Before we get down to our list, here are a few tips to make family reading night enjoyable for all involved:
- Take turns reading – the kids will look forward to their turn to read so take this as an opportunity to engage your older readers. Letting your tweens read a chapter to their younger siblings will not only be great practice for them but it will also spawn a special bond between them.
- Pick a special spot in the house to read and let them get cozy. As I mentioned above, we will switch it up between the living room and the kids bedrooms with lots of pillows and blankets. Don’t start until everyone is ready.
- Get into the reading. Don’t be the boring monotone reader – be sure to use expressions to add drama and get the kids more excited about the story.
- Don’t be afraid to also set aside time to have individual reading night with just you and one of your children as well. This can be a special mom and me date.
- And lastly, try moving family reading outside with a picnic blanket on a warm day!
Depending on the age of your kids, you may not get a very long attention span but here is a list I compiled of our favorite books to read during family reading night. Scroll down to shop our picks!
- The Witches
Grandmamma loves to tell about witches. Real witches are the most dangerous of all living creatures on earth. There’s nothing they hate so much as children, and they work all kinds of terrifying spells to get rid of them. Her grandson listens closely to Grandmamma’s stories—but nothing can prepare him for the day he comes face-to-face with The Grand High Witch herself!
SHOP IT NOW
2. The Secret Garden
When orphaned Mary Lennox comes to live at her uncle’s great house on the Yorkshire Moors, she finds it full of secrets. And at night, she hears the sound of crying down one of the long corridors. The gardens surrounding the large property are Mary’s only escape. Then, Mary discovers a secret garden.
SHOP IT NOW
3. The Magic Christmas
When Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield’s grandparents give them a pair of matching antique dolls for Christmas, they’re a little surprised. Their grandparents should know they’re too old to play with dolls! Then the twins learn that the dolls are a family legacy from a past generation of twins. But that’s not all that’s special about the dolls. Before they know it, Jessica and Elizabeth are thrown into the most magical adventure of their lives.
SHOP IT NOW
4. Children of the Lamp
Meet John and Philippa Gaunt, twelve-year-old twins who one day discover themselves to be descended from a long line of djinn. All of a sudden, they have the power to grant wishes, travel to extraordinary places (and not necessarily on public transportation), and make people and objects disappear.
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5. Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims
A book for young readers with a history teacher who travels back in time to have adventures with exceptional Americans.
MEET RUSH LIMBAUGH’S REALLY GOOD PAL, RUSH REVERE!
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6. Whatever After Fairest of All
Once upon a time my brother and I were normal kids. The next minute? The mirror in our basement slurped us up and magically transported us inside Snow White’s fairy tale.
I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true.
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7. The Seven Tales of Trinket
Guided by a tattered map, accompanied by Thomas the Pig Boy, eleven-year-old Trinket searches for the seven stories she needs to become a bard like her father, who disappeared years before. She befriends a fortune-telling gypsy girl; returns a child stolen by the selkies to his true mother; confronts a banshee and receives a message from a ghost. All fine material for six tales, but it is the seventh tale, in which Trinket learns her father’s true fate, that changes her life forever.
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8. Magic Treehouse
Jack and his sister, Annie, are just plain old regular kids. But one day, the siblings discover a tree house in the woods… and that’s when the magic happens! The two kids are whisked on a series of adventures every time they visit the tree house, visiting everything from dinosaurs and pirates along the way!
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9. Wonder
“I won’t describe what I look like. Whatever you’re thinking, it’s probably worse.” August Pullman was born with a facial difference that, up until now, has prevented him from going to a mainstream school. Starting 5th grade, he wants nothing more than to be treated as an ordinary kid—but his new classmates can’t get past Auggie’s extraordinary face.
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10. Holes
Stanley Yelnats is under a curse. A curse that began with his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather and has since followed generations of Yelnatses. Now Stanley has been unjustly sent to a boys’ detention center, Camp Green Lake, where the boys build character by spending all day, every day digging holes exactly five feet wide and five feet deep. There is no lake at Camp Green Lake. But there are an awful lot of holes.
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I hope you’ve enjoyed this round up of family reading night books! If you have any recommendations to add to our list, I would love for you to share in the comments.
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