AUTUMN
I started reading to my boys when they were only a few months old. We read all sorts of books with rich, descriptive language, complex plots and beautiful imagery. By the age of five, both of them were reading fluently with zero formal teaching and both are avid readers!
Under 5y:
Read these books over and over again seasonally, but put them away at the end of each season and do NOT bring them back out until the next season. Children connect to stories and imagery differently when the time the work is presented is chosen carefully.
Woody, Hazel and Little Pip
Stone Soup
Johnny Appleseed
Sun Egg by Elsa Beskow
Children of the Forest by Subil Von Olfers
Tales of the Mushroom Folk
Hedgie's Surprise by Jan brett
Autumn by Gurda Muller
Christopher's Garden, by Elsa Beskow
Little Red Hen by Paul Galdone
Henny Penny by Paul Galdone
For older children, please try to avoid immediately going to the "fluff" by Scholastic or other mainstream publications. Exposing your children to great work early is crucial to having lifelong readers. Think of it as letting a child eat junk food for their early years and then offering steak and salad. They probably wont have a taste for substance, right? Reading is the same! No graphic novels, comic books, or books inspired by TV or movies. Books that inspire movies are a whole other thing entirely.
SCHOOL AGED KIDS
Harry Potter series
Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
The Borrowers by Mary Norton
The Witch of Blackbird Pond, by Elizabeth George Speare
Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Where the Red Fern Grows by Rawls
Sign of the Beaver
Witches by Roald Dahl
Baba Yaga's Book of Witchcraft by Madame Pamita
The House Witch by Delemhach
Bridge to Tarabithia
The House at the Edge of Magic by Amy Sparkes
Ogress and the Orphan, by Kelly Barnhill
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