For the Love of Books – Recommended Reading

*This article contains affiliate links. When you choose to purchase an item through the link, it costs you nothing extra and gives me a small percentage back from your purchase price.

If you instill in your child a love for reading, you give them a lifelong gift of learning! I love to read and have ever since I was a child. All seven of my children old enough to read on their own also love to read! What a legacy to hand down to your children!!!

Keep reading for a list of some of our favorite books!

In our family it started before our oldest child was even old enough to read on her own. What did we do? We read to her!!!! Actually, my earliest memory of her with any form of a book was before she was one year old, propped up against a stool with a large phone book in front of her. She loved that phone book! She was very gentle, carefully turning one page at a time. What was she thinking? I have no idea, but I think even at that age she had observed my love of books.

When she was quite little, I started reading out loud to her. We progressed from board books that were very short to longer and longer, more involved books, until I was reading chapter books to her. When she started kindergarten, I had already read most of the Boxcar Children books to her! Then she was eager to learn to read all by herself. How exciting it was when she could sit all by herself, curled up with a book! By then, I was reading out loud to her brother, and he was observing both of our loves of books!! This chain reaction continued to where we are today with my 6 year old voraciously reading everything she can get her hands on (that is her level)!!!

Once you teach a child to read and to love reading, you give him the ability to teach himself so many things. All he needs is an interest or curiosity in a subject and a book that explains that subject. Because of this progression (and a natural maturity as the children age), I have noticed in our homeschool that my children become more and more independent learners as they grow older. I spend the majority of my one-on-one teaching time with the youngest who are learning to read or in the early stages of reading. Of course, the older kids still need help memorizing key facts for a history or science test or understanding upper level math, but they can progress on their own for a lot of their schooling.

Over the years we have accumulated a large number of books. Our family has 14 bookshelves of various sizes in our house!!! Six of these contain approximately 1100 books total, which belong to my husband, who is a pastor. The rest of them contain homeschooling books, devotional books, piano and other music for my piano-teaching adult daughter, and other books we just love to read!!! Believe it or not, we really restrain ourselves and try not to bring too many books into our house; otherwise we would have a lot more!!!

I thought it might be fun to list some of our favorite books or series, organized by age level. (Although we really enjoy these books, I recommend you screen them to make sure that they meet whatever individual standards you might have. I do not necessarily agree with everything in each of these books!)

For Young Children: (to read to them)

Frog and Toad Series

Dr. Seuss Series

Mrs. Toggle’s Zipper

The Know Nothings

Katy and the Big Snow and others in the series

Corduroy Series

Morris the Moose Series

I Spy Series

Curious George Series

Berenstain Bears Series

Little Brown Monkey

Five Little Peppers and How they Grew

Amelia Bedelia

Mercy Watson Series

For Beginning readers:

Encyclopedia Brown Series

Butternut Bill Series (link is to one used copy of one of the books in the series)

Tales from Maple Ridge Series (link is to one used copy of one of the books in the series)

Moody Family Series

The Littles Series (by John Peterson)

Flat Stanley Series

Cam Jansen Series

A to Z Series

Chapter Books (Good for reading aloud or intermediate readers)

Danger in Detroit * This is a short fiction chapter book that a couple of my kids wrote and published several years ago.

The Boxcar Children (the originals are the best)

Christian Heritage Series (by Nancy Rue)

Grandma’s Attic Series

Triple Creek Ranch Series

Ivan Series (by Myrna Grant)

Bob and Arty Series (by Jeff Barth)

Tiger and Tom and other Stories by J. E. White

Little House on the Prairie Series

American Adventure Series (link is to a review of the series and list of the books)

The Young Underground Series

Sherlock Jones Series (by Ed Dunlop)

Advanced Readers

The Baker Family Adventures (by C.R. Hedgcock)

The Men of Grit of Series (by John Horn) (We have not read Secret of the Lost Settlement due to concerns about some content in it.)

Jayne’s Endeavour (by Lauren Compton)

Faith and Freedom Trilogy

Battle for Heritage Series (by Ryana Lynn Miller)

Robinson Crusoe

Pilgrim’s Progress

Various Nonfiction

Ten P’s in a Pod (by Arnold Pent III)

I, Being in the Way, the Lord Led Me (by Frank Garlock)

The Best of Noel Smith (edited by Norma Gillming)

Exploring Creation with Physics (my 15 year old said this is one of his favorite books; it is actually a textbook!)

Animal Farm

Buying a House Debt-Free: Equipping your Son

Boyhood and Beyond (by Bob Schultz)

To Die Is Gain (by Stephanie Wesco)

The Family Daughter (by Sarah Lee Bryant)

Favorite Authors:

Rebekah A. Morris

Douglas Bond

Stephen B. Castleberry

Horatio Alger Jr.

Jayna Baas

*My daughter has posted many book reviews on the following website: GreatBooksForGodsGirls.wordpress.com. Find a list of the books she has reviewed by clicking here.

And, of course, the best book you can ever read and teach your child to read is the Bible! This is the most published and read book in the world. It is actually a collection of 66 books written by many authors who were inspired by God. The Bible holds the truth about many important questions such as where we came from, what our purpose is, and how we can gain eternal life. If you have never read the Bible, I recommend you begin in the Gospel of John, which is in the New Testament. (The Bible is not written to be read in order from front to back.)

There are many, many other books that we have read and thoroughly enjoyed. These are just the ones that we were able to quickly pull off the shelf or bring to mind. Most of these are fiction books that are more for the enjoyment of a good story, but most also have a good message behind them. I suggest you branch out and look for good books and good authors that reinforce morals and character that you are trying to teach your children. Grab a good book, and sit down with a child on your lap today!!

Now, I would like to hear from you, the reader! What are your favorite books for your kids? Do you like different books for different grade levels? Please comment below today!

4 Comments

  1. Jennifer says:

    We enjoy Anne of Green Gables books and also the Odyssey of the Mind Imagination Station book series.

  2. Sarah says:

    I never knew what i was of children’s books until I became a mom. There are some really beautiful children’s books and some really fun ones too! One of my favorite children’s authors would be Cynthia Rylant. Her “Henry and Mudge” books are so cute!

  3. […] my children to learn is to read to them from a very young age. This topic is addressed in another blog post. While this does not actually teach them their letters and their sounds, it grows in most children […]

  4. […] subject with two of my boys, as well as the boys taking Apologia Physics- all with similar results! One of my boys listed the Apologia Physics book as one of his favorite reading books!!! This year one of the boys is trying Apologia Chemistry, and we are branching into the elementary […]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *