Tuesday 29 December 2015

Top Read alouds from 2015

This has been a slightly strange year for reading aloud. There has been great enthusiasm about a few books but mainly not shared by both younger children. The only books which have met with joint approval are the Five in a Row books which are still often pulled out for bedtime stories.

The list of chapter books that I have read aloud is here. This year, I haven't listed picture books but hope to add these to next year's list.

Best Picture books of the year
  • Roxaboxen 
  • A Medivael Feast-the most favoured not Five in a Row picture book.
  • Lentil
  • Night of the Moonjellies
Onto chapter books, Younger Daughter, aged nine, loved some of Patricia St John's books, in particular, Rainbow Garden Treasures of the Snow. Her other favourites were the Andrew Matthews and Tony Ross Shakespeare Stories and Paul White's Jungle Doctor books.
and

Youngest Son, aged six, enjoyed some of Roald Dahl's books
  • Charlie and the Chocolate factory
  • Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator
  • James and the Giant Peach 
as well as Enid Blyton's Famous Five series.

We had a few read aloud fails. Maybe, I was a bit over-ambitious but we had a couple of goes at The Hobbit, once as a read aloud and once as an audio book and didn't succeed in getting beyond the first sixty pages. Several books just didn't work for my youngest including the David Macaulay books Castle and Cathedral whilst I was impressed and his sister enjoyed these. I suspect the vocabulary was too complex.

Audiobooks that have been popular have included The Chronicles of Narnia, Black Beauty and Michael Morpurgo's Aldophus Tips.

I'm working on some ideas for next year and any suggestions would be great, especially for books which will appeal to both an almost seven year old boy and a nine year old girl. 

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3 comments:

  1. I think you may have too many readers, however, I nominated you for a liebster award. Here is the link:
    http://raisinglittleshoots.com/2015/12/29/liebster-award-nomination/

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    Replies
    1. I think I'm just over the limit. I enjoyed your post. Funny how different you sound from what I imagined! Hopefully, we might meet at some home ed conference one day.

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