#1: Don’t worry too much about what to read to your kids, but read to them! And once they can read, make sure they never run out of books. Libraries are wonderful places.
I started to make a list here and then decided that I probably can't do much better than these folks (though I'm tempted to make it into something a little easier to take to the library and tick off as you go...)
Welcome To Story Hour: 100 Favorite Books For Young Readers
It's been such a strange, lost summer. Camps and schools and activities have shut down during the pandemic, leaving kids and caregivers stuck at home and climbing the walls - and sometimes the garden fences. With that in mind, we decided that this year's summer reader poll should be all about keeping kids occupied.
www.npr.org
The list above for young readers, created in 2020, is a supplemental list to their backseat reads list focused on older kids 9-14, created in 2013:
The Ultimate Backseat Bookshelf: 100 Must-Reads For Kids 9-14
We've curated this list of 100 favorite books for kids, based on recommendations from more than 2,000 of our readers.
www.npr.org
And here is a list of npr readers’ favorite books for teens, by popular vote: in 2012:
Your Favorites: 100 Best-Ever Teen Novels
More than 75,000 of you voted for your favorite young-adult fiction. Now, after all the nominating, sorting and counting, the final results are in. Here are the 100 best teen novels, chosen by the NPR audience.
www.npr.org
While I’ll defer to these lists, I will add the book I gift the most: A Child's First Book of Poems
— it’s a collection of poetry by different authors and has wonderful illustrations (by Cyndy Szekeres), which I think was important for me in interfacing my young mind with the magic of poetry in a really positive way.
It was originally published in 1981 and is out-of-print, so I buy it used; for whatever reason, there are two separate listings on Amazon:
A Child's First Book of Poems
A Child's First Book of Poems [SZEKERES, CYNDY] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. A Child's First Book of Poems
amzn.to
A Child's First Book of Poems
A Child's First Book of Poems [Cyndy Szekeres] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. A Child's First Book of Poems
amzn.to
This website is where a friend chooses books for reading aloud:
Chapter Books Archives
In this archive you will find all of our chapter book lists. The chapter books cover a variety of levels, from easy readers to early chapter books as well as middle grade fiction and YA. My most popular lists are 50+ chapter books for preschoolers and Read Aloud Books for 4-6 Year Olds.
www.whatdowedoallday.com
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