Monday, July 16, 2012

Making Your Child A Lover of Books

I found a very short list of books that I recommend for children after my son cleaned out a closet for us last week. It is not my complete list, as I have another list that I will publish on my blog another time. This list is a mix of books recommended originally to me by Carole Seid, with some I discovered elsewhere. We read everything below—in some cases—many times!
  • Complete Set of Winnie the Pooh
  • Complete Set of Beatrix Potter
  • A Child's Story Bible by Catherine F. Vox
  • The Wind in the Willows
  • A Child's Garden of Verses (can memorize "My Shadow")
  • All of Marguerite de Angeli
  • Ingri and Edgar Parin d'Aulaires' Books
  • All of Laura Ingalls Wilder
  • All of Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice is excellent!)
  • All of Gene Stratton-Porter (We adored Freckles & Keeper of the Bees)

Make your child a lover of books! Always get the unabridged version which is what the author originally wrote with no changes. If they are too young after your first attempt on the unabridged, put it away for several months or a year and try again until they are ready. (Don't steal the thunder of the book by reading a watered-down abridged version. Save the book for the real thing!)

Keep going to the library and let them have a stack for quiet time! I have wonderful memories of my children spread out in the sunroom as I prepared supper—each going through their stack of picture books—quietly absorbed in their book until the timer rang 45 minutes later! Don't be emabarrassed about checking out a laundry basket full of books for two weeks!

Next time, I'll share how it wasn't always a bowl of cherries trying to read together! I think you'll identify!

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