After posting about The Wind in the Willows yesterday, I asked the children what their favorite read alouds were over the years.

Coming in at #1 without any hesitation from all parties:

Penrod & sequels.

Penrod is quite possibly the funniest book ever written. The sequels are also funny.
Penrod & Sam
and Penrod Jashber. A slight word of caution here. Penrod smokes in chapter 1 and the books are not PC.

It became apparent immediately that comedy ruled the read aloud favorites.

The other big surprise was that most of the children enjoyed reading The Chronicles of Narnia on their own rather than in a family setting.

If you want to get the whole family jabbering for hours just bring up Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Hilarious.

The Wind in the Willows did make the top 5.

Another unanimous choice was the Ralph Moody Little Britches series.

Still no surprises, everyone mentioned Little House on the Prairie & Co which have been read out loud in our family at least 3 times.

We have read through all the Tom Sawyer books and it is about time to read through the series again. Don’t let your children grow up without these books preferably read out loud.

The Black Arrow came in as the favorite R L Stevenson book which was a surprise. This book is part of the Scribner Illustrated Classics series illustrated by NC Wyeth. If you have a choice always choose Wyeth.


Perhaps the biggest surprise was that all 4 older boys picked The Last of the Mohicans as a favorite. This wordy, now unpopular tome, was a favorite of the boys. Several of the boys went on to read many other Fenimore Cooper books. Go figure. (Late breaking news: Timothy did not pick this book and I didn’t ask Nicholas because Nicholas went on to read many Fenimore Cooper books.)

Also getting honorable mention were the Scout books by Piet Prins.

And of course the little boys mentioned Winnie-The-Pooh. But you don’t have to be a little boy to like Pooh.

Then there are the not-to-be-missed authors Howard Pyle (Men of Iron), Lois Lenski (Cotton in my Sack) and George MacDonald (The Princess & the Goblin).

These were the books most often mentioned last night as we discussed it. When I begin to go over all the other wonderful books we didn’t get around to discussing my head swirls. All of a Kind Family, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, The Children of Green Knowe, Meindert DeJong books, Treasure Island, Swiss Family Robinson, Robinson Crusoe, Heidi, Hans Brinker, The Bird’s Christmas Caroll, Dickens’ Christmas Stories, Patricia M St John……

Of the writing of wonderful books there is no end. Building a lasting family culture starts with family reading.

My favorite resources for picking read aloud books are:
The Book Tree: A Christian Reference for Children’s Literature

We use this book to play a little game. We read book descriptions and excerpts from the guide and see who can guess the book first.

And the Bluedorn’s The Hand That Rocks the Cradle

  Leave a Comment »