Review: This book has a lot of really good ideas to help your child enjoy learning to read. It has so many suggestions that I plan to take notes on many of the ideas before I return it to the library. My only real problem with it is that I sort of feel like it goes against my own personal teaching philosophy, which is that I think it’s best to let your child learn to read organically, without a lot of intervention.

If I were to do many of the activities in this book with my preschooler, I feel a little like I’d be pressuring him to learn to read, when really, I’m in no hurry and I trust he’ll figure it out on his own when he’s ready. However, I know there are a lot of parents who are legitimately in a hurry for their kids to learn to read, because their kids are in kindergarten or elementary school, and the last thing a parent wants is for their child to fall behind.

To be fair, this book is aimed at those school-age children, not preschoolers. For those families, I think this book might be a really helpful resource. On the other hand, if your child is already one of the kids falling behind, while I do feel like these “games” and ideas encourage the participation of the child rather than resistance, they are not quick and easy solutions.

They’re the sort of ideas that would gradually work over time, so be prepared to be patient in order to see results. Maybe the ideal time to start using these methods would be the summer before a child starts kindergarten, but I wouldn’t hesitate to use these ideas whenever a child is struggling. (Personal Rating: 8/10)

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Review: I think this is a really interesting concept for a book, because as the author points out and most people would agree, girls frequently enjoy “boy” books, but boys are less interested in “girl” books. Many of the titles I’ve read, I enjoyed, and lots of the ones I never heard of sounded really interesting to me personally (a grown up girl). (Of course, there were others titles that sounded not appealing to me at all such as the first recommendation: Smart Feller, Fart Smeller.) If someone were going to read aloud a story to a class or to a group of children of mixed gender and ages (such as siblings), this is basically a compilation of books that are likely to appeal to a wide range of people.

Another reason why this book seems useful is because it focuses on older kids (about 8 through 16). I spend quite a lot of time trying to select great picture books for my toddler and preschooler, but let’s be honest. They’re not that critical of what I read to them. They’re just happy to be read to and don’t particularly care if it’s a classic like The Little Engine That Could or an unmemorable board book from the library about learning shapes. However, older children can be challenging. If they’ve already decided they don’t like reading, getting them interested in a book can be difficult. This seems like it would be a good reference for that situation, particularly if the unenthusiastic reader is a boy.

The only thing I thought was somewhat strange about this book is that there are a fairly limited number of titles (around 400) and how these titles were chosen is a little unclear. It appears the author collaborated with certain children’s authors and the works of these authors seem to be somewhat over-represented in the list. Also, rather than say, “this series of books is good,” the author frequently lists the first few titles from books in the same series, which seems a little unnecessary to me. Is he implying that when he doesn’t list a book from the series, it isn’t really very good? Overall though, I think this is a good resource for selecting novels for older children, especially, but not only, boys. (Personal Rating: 7/10)

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Review: Overall, I thought this was a really useful reference, with just the right amount of commentary regarding each selection. The only somewhat odd aspect of this book, which is acknowledged by the author, is that the categories contain a somewhat eclectic grouping of books. For example Are You My Mother is listed in the Early Reading group along with full novels like the Little House on the Prairie series. It makes sense if you consider which books are meant to be read by early readers and which are meant to be read to early readers, but still, a little strange. However, there are also very useful guides at the back of the book, sorting the books not only by title and author, but also by theme, age group, and which ones make good read-alouds. (Personal Rating: 7/10)

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Review: In my opinion, there are much better resources of great children’s literature, not that there’s anything wrong with this work in particular. This book is a thorough resource of books to read at different ages and for different reasons. The work is divided up into three parts. The first part covers the motivation for reading to children.

If you’re interested in this book in the first place, you probably don’t need to be convinced, but I still think it’s important this section be there. The second part is called “What to Read Aloud at Every Age” and divides the first 10 years of a child’s life into 8 age ranges, so it’s pretty specific to each age, which is nice.

The third section is what the author calls “The Emotional ‘When’: Fifty Essential Themes” and covers topic ranging from “Bath Time” and “Feeling Silly” to “Death” and “Divorce”. What I didn’t really love about this book is that to me it seems completely indiscriminating. Instead of just including the books which the author felt were of the highest quality, it seems like she included EVERY book she’s ever read.

They’re just handed out like candy, the greats along with the ones that make you think “Really? That’s what you’re passing out?” I much prefer The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease or Valerie and Walter’s Best Books for Children by Valerie Lewis and Walter Mayes, since in those books you get the impression that the authors really tried out and stood behind the books they chose to include on their lists. (Personal Rating: 6/10)

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Review: When I checked this book out from the library, I thought it would have useful information for parents interested in encouraging their children to read. However, it is fully meant for teachers and most of the advice is not really applicable to parents. As a book for teachers, I think this book is incredible. I would have loved to have been in the author’s class and I completely agree with everything she says. I’m taking a moment to see if I want to qualify that statement, but I don’t.

Her main point is that schools really take the joy out of reading by having the entire class read the same book (regardless of varying interests and reading levels) and then beating the book to death with worksheets and tests. In her class, kids get to pick the books they want to read (totaling about 40 books during the school year) and are started on the path of being life long readers. Unfortunately for anyone who would like to follow in her footsteps, the real strength of her method is her thorough knowledge of books.

While I think what she’s done is admirable, it would take any individual a long time to build up the expertise she has gained over a lifetime of being a prolific reader. Since she’s had so much exposure to books, she’s able to look at each student as an individual and make unique recommendations for each child.

One aspect of this book that I found disappointing was the book list at the end. Given how much the author knows, I would have loved to have seen what she specifically would recommend be included in a personal library. Instead, there is a list of what her students (6th graders) recommend. I can see the value in this. After all, kids know what other kids will find most interesting.

However, since I personally would like to start gradually building a library for my children, I would like to include only the most worthy of books and let them check out from the public library those that have little literary value. That being said, even though this book wasn’t meant for parents, I’m very glad I read it. (Personal Rating: 8/10)

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Review: I’m sure this was a really awesome book when it was first published. I checked it out because it was recommended by one of my favorite parenting books, The New First Three Years of Life, by Burton White. However, a couple decades later, the majority of the books the author recommends are no longer in print and most of them are not even available from our county library system. (Personal Rating: 6/10)

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Review: I think this book is out of print now, which is unfortunate, because I really think they should update it and come out with a new edition. The two authors are remarkably thorough at selecting great books for children. They break their choices up not only by reading level, but by listening level as well. This book uses keywords and has handy appendices and extra lists in the back.

I’m working on trying to read books of a given theme each week during the summer and it is super useful to be able to go to the back of the book and see what they have for dinosaurs, for example, or trains or trees or just about anything you can think of. This is a great resource. I love it and am happy that I was able to find a used copy fairly cheap. (Personal Rating: 8/10)

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Review: To be fair, overall this seems like a very good list of books to read “before you grow up”. However, I would have been just as happy with a list of titles and authors as I was with this nearly thousand page tome. Generally speaking, I didn’t find the commentary particularly helpful or interesting. As different authors wrote different reviews, some were better than others, and I didn’t read them all. Some were simply summaries of the story that seemed to me to be longer than the story itself.

I also thought the age groupings were a little strange, with books that not my quite 3 year old appreciates being listed in the 5+ section and books that he likes, but I need to paraphrase, being in the 0-3 year old section. It is also unclear whether some of the foreign books listed have even been translated into English (which one would prefer from a guide written in English). Basically I think whoever picked the books did a good job, but beyond that, turning the list into a guide left something to be desired. (Personal Rating: 7/10)

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Review: Unlike my original assumption, this is not a book that teaches one how to be better at reading stories aloud. The author does have some pointers, but they are a very, very small portion of what this book’s content. What this book excels at is presenting a convincing, study-driven argument for why reading (and exchange of words in any form) is so important in the lives of children.

However, everyone knows reading to children is good. This book goes one step further and makes several points which are slightly more controversial, such as: 1) You should make your kids read if they won’t. 2) You should continue reading to your children long after they learn how to read. 3) It is extremely important that dads and other male role models be involved in the reading aloud process and be viewed reading for pleasure.

Trelease also makes the point that the reason US children are behind when it comes to reading, writing, and vocabulary is primarily the fault of the parent and not the schools. He shows through numerous studies that rather than drilling kids on letters and sounds, parents and teachers should be instilling a love of reading (motivation) in the children through lots and lots of sharing of stories.

Finally, the book contains several book lists of good read-aloud stories in the appendix along with appropriate listener age ranges, which is very handy. I think every parent should have a copy of this book. (Personal Rating: 10/10)

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Review: I really enjoyed this book. The introduction makes the statement, “…Nothing ensures the success of a child more in society than being read to from infancy through young adulthood.” While on the surface it seems like a bold statement, this is something that I have sincerely believed for most of my life.

The book choices for the top 100 are not really very surprising, but I think that quality is both necessary and desirable from a book that pares down the thousands and thousands of great books to 100. In addition to the top 100, there are is also a list of a few hundred more in the back of the appendix, which is useful.

While her choices are safe, the really enjoyable part of this book is the summary and backstory that go along with each title. The author comes across as extremely knowledgeable about both books and the entire publishing process and I found her commentary fascinating. (Personal Rating: 8/10)

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