10 Read Aloud Books for the Younger Years
What is your favorite picture book from your childhood? Reading aloud is so important in the younger years. It teaches a love of reading, models fluency, introduces vocabulary, builds curiosity, and opens the door for great discussions. These picture books I like for the writing and the illustrations, especially the colored pencil art in Albert and the watercolors and postcards in Toot and Puddle. Several stories are about overcoming fears, making friends, travel adventures, and family. Some have sensitive topics that will take careful discussion, but what better place to have these conversations than in your own living room. I took a walk down memory lane and pulled these off my bookshelf. Some I read to my own kids and some were from my classroom. Below are 10 of my favorites for read aloud books for the younger years (or actually for any age!). Just pulling these favorite books off my shelf has brought me joy and a flood of memories from my classroom and my own children in their younger years. I am looking forward to reading these to my grandchildren! A Pig Parade is a Terrible Idea by Michael Ian Black and Kevin Hawkes “Like most…
Book Review: When Words Matter Most
When do words matter most? Just as I was finishing working through the book Truthfilled: The Practice of Preaching to Yourself Through Every Season by Ruth Chou Simons, a friend gave me a copy of the book When Words Matter Most: Speaking Truth with Grace to Those You Love by Cheryl Marshall and Caroline Newheiser. These two books go hand in hand. Colossians 3:16 says “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” We must first let the Word of Truth dwell in us. We must preach truth to ourselves. This is where Truthfilled is helpful. It’s not a self help book but a beautifully illustrated and practical reminder that in the trials of life, the truth of God is unchanging and life changing. This book is a 7 session study that you can do on your own or with a group. The art alone is worth a view! When Words Matter Most takes this concept to the next level. Once we have internalized this truth, we can then share it with others, strengthening and encouraging them…
Book Review: Lazy Genius Kitchen
Where do you put your dirty dishes in your kitchen? We all have routines. In my house the dirty dishes go to the left of the sink before they get loaded into the dishwasher, which hopefully happens shortly thereafter. Best selling author Kendra Adachi writes Lazy Genius Kitchen so we can “have what you need, use what you have, and enjoy it like never before.” Do my dishes go to the left of the sink because that’s where there’s more counter space or because that’s the dirty dishes zone that frees up all the rest of my kitchen space for other things? Recently a friend loaned me this book and said it is much like how I already run my household. That was true! The book is a “slightly sassy” guidebook to organizing your kitchen using the Lazy Genius Principles. Adachi gives the framework to prioritize what matters most in your kitchen and build a system that makes it easy for you to enjoy your kitchen and mealtimes. This book is jam packed with helpful references on how to cook, how to make meals taste good, how to use kitchen tools, and how to simplify all the tasks and hard…
20 Read Aloud Books for the Middle Years
What was your favorite read aloud as an elementary or middle school child? Most parents think of read aloud as something you do at bedtime for preschoolers, but read aloud is valuable at any age. It is especially helpful during the middle years as upper elementary and middle school kids are learning to think critically and to make sense of the world around them. Reading aloud and discussing it helps you guide and stretch their thinking. As a fourth grade teacher, my students and I loved read aloud time. It was a great way to teach across subjects and objectives, and it leveled the playing field for the wide range of reading abilities in my classroom. The discussions were rich and the “five extra minutes of read aloud” was a highly coveted prize in my weekly ticket drawing. I often found my parent volunteers listening to it as well. There are so many new books and books lists available by categories online, but I tend to favor older forgotten books that not every kid has read already. I look for books that have a strong character and often a topic that’s a bit of a controversy so we can have…
Libraries
When was the last time you visited a public library? The other day I had a half hour of time before an appointment so I stopped in at my local library to get some cookbooks for stepping up my weekly menu planning. I lost track of time and was almost late for my appointment. I forgot how much I loved free public libraries! Every season of my life has library memories, from filling a huge canvas bag of books as an elementary kid to checking out a big bag of books as a young mom with toddlers. We have Googled local libraries on rainy vacation days at the beach, visited library story times while traveling, and found joy in perusing the shelves of public libraries and bookstores across the country whether or not we take any books home. As a young mom, I got a new cookbook every time I took my kids to the library. Recently I had houseguests with school age kids for a few months and we took regular visits to the library where I told them they could get as many books as they could carry. Benjamin Franklin started his own lending library company in 1731…
Book Review: Road Trip Book Lists
Where will you go this summer? Bethany House Publishers produced an annual “Road Trip Guide” for seven years where they suggested books to read based on the settings. It’s such a clever idea! Summer beach reads abound, but what about those who vacation in Montana or India? There’s a book for them too! Grab a book set in your vacation destination, childhood home state, or bucket list destination and take a book vacation. The blog post has links to past road trip lists as well. While everyone is waiting in line to get the newest books, grab copies of these books online or at your local library and take a road trip to a new or favorite place! Where will you go this summer? Want other book reviews? Check out these posts. Got some book suggestions for summer travel? Post in the comments below! Table Talk: What was the destination of your favorite childhood vacation? What destination is on your wish list? Like this post? Share it with a friend! Share on facebook Facebook Share on email Email Share on pinterest Pinterest Share on print Print
Book Review: Imperfect Disciple
What do you do when you struggle to get your act together but keep failing? Imperfect Disciple: Grace for People Who Can’t Get Their Act Together, by Jared C. Wilson, is the perfect book to read with a friend this summer. Wilson’s conversational style of writing makes you feel like you are sitting across the table at a coffee shop or at an airport waiting area having a chat. His wisdom makes you feel smarter not smaller once you finish a chapter. Read a chapter, let it settle in, then discuss it with a friend or two. Repeat 10 times. Preferably with an iced coffee. Wilson takes readers on a discipleship journey through his own stories with humor and honesty. Knowing you are not alone in this journey nor do you have to have it all together all the time will build your confidence. Discipleship is doing life on life with someone else. Normal life. Messy life. Wilson understands a life full of questions and knows a Book full of answers. After hearing Wilson speak in person a few years ago, some friends and I did a book study with Imperfect Diciple. There are not questions at the end of…
Book Review: How to Read Books Like a Professor: For Kids
How does seeing figurative language help you be a more thoughtful reader? You can read a book and think it’s a good story. Or you can read a book and notice the symbols, setting, and figurative language and understand the meaning of the story on a whole different level. This book is for the reluctant reader and the avid reader, the young and the old, but especially for the middle schoolers. Written by New York bestseller author and professor Thomas Foster, How to Read Books Like a Professor: for Kids teaches the reader some secrets to understanding books and points out helpful examples and connections along the way. Through humor and insight, the Foster teaches how to read books using familiar books, stories, and movies as examples. With chapter titles like “Nice to Eat You” and “Where Have I Seen You Before,” readers learn about the skills needed to find meaning and make connections. Not only will they read better, their summaries and conversations about literature will also be much richer. This book is so good I suggest you get a copy this summer and read it aloud to your kids, ages 5th grade and up, especially the middle schoolers.…
Disciple Your Children
How do you make discipleship a natural way of life? Whether it’s the younger years, the middle years, or the launching years, discipleship can easily be woven into the natural rhythms of family life. It can start with simple questions about the beauty around you in creation or reading Bible stories at bedtime. You can discuss right choices or natural consequences of bad choices. You can talk about school and life through a biblical lens. You can do a book study with your teens, host a backyard Bible club this summer for your elementary-age neighborhood kids, or read Bible stories to your little ones. It does not have to be hard or complicated, but it does have to be intentional. Talk with your children when you wake, when you walk, and when you wind down to sleep (see Deuteronomy 6). So that pretty much means disciple your kids all throughout your days. Do not leave it up to the church. They are there to partner with parents not replace biblical teaching in the home. In order to disciple your children, you want to open the doors of communication so it is regular and natural and you will want to lead…
Book Review – Relationships: A Mess Worth Making
What relationships are a mess worth making? There’s no denying that relationships are messy, but there is hope for improving them. After the added stress of distance or close confinement during Covid, most of our relationships could use some strengthening. This book, Relationships: A Mess Worth Making, by Paul David Tripp and Tim Lane is a guide for deepening our relationship with God and improving our relationships and reactions with our fellow man. I first came across this book when our small group chose to do it as a book discussion. There was plenty to discuss and reflect upon with each of the chapters. When a friend came to me with some relationship questions, I immediately thought about several of the chapters of this book. I tried to summarize and quote large chunks of it. Then I gave up and bought her the book! It’s that kind of book. You will benefit greatly from the personal reflection, but you will also find yourself using this as a resource for others. Go ahead and add it to your shopping list. It’s available in paperback, audio book, or ebook. In fact, add a couple to your list and stock up. It’s a…
