Help your kids read and write faster

Reading to your kids helps them learn. It is really important to read to your kids at every opportunity especially the bedtime story. Its good if your child can see the words as you read. Good books can help explain stuff like how to behave, how to treat other children and help provide safety information, like being careful of strangers. Reading to your kids gives them a great start in school with reading and writing and helps them learn.

These books all have wonderful messages for your children.

(Clicking on links opens a new tab on your browser linking to Amazon.com)

Wonder

Wonder is a rare gem of a novel–beautifully written and populated by characters who linger in your memory and heart. August Pullman is a 10-year-old boy who likes Star Wars and Xbox, ordinary except for his jarring facial anomalies. Homeschooled all his life, August heads to public school for fifth grade and he is not the only one changed by the experience. August’s internal dialogue and interactions with students and family ring true, and though remarkably courageous he comes across as a sweet, funny boy who wants the same things others want: friendship, understanding, and the freedom to be himself.

The Wonderful Things You Will Be

Childhood is a time full of potential, and Martin celebrates this promise in this work. “Will you stand up for good/By saving the day?/Or play a song only you/Know how to play?” While the rhyming text falters a bit in spots, the word choice overall is spare, inspiring, and accessible to preschoolers. Children are encouraged to be kind, clever, and bold, to take care of the small, and to help things grow. Martin’s oil paintings have the same retro, mid-century feel as her other illustrations, with large-eyed children of many ethnicities playing, gardening, and sharing together – a go-to gift for new parents, and a potential bedtime favorite for many children.

The Care and Keeping of You: The Body Book for Younger Girls, Revised Edition

The best-selling body book for girls just got even better! With all-new illustrations and updated content for girls ages 8 and up, it features tips, how-tos, and facts from the experts. (Medical consultant: Cara Natterson, MD.) You’ll find answers to questions about your changing body, from hair care to healthy eating, bad breath to bras, periods to pimples, and everything in between. Once you feel comfortable with what’s happening, you’ll be ready to move on to the The Care and Keeping of You 2: The Body Book for Older Girls!

Princesses Wear Pants (Princess Penelope Pineapple Tbd)

The authors have written a fun book for children with good lessons learned. Princess Penelope Pineapple lived with her brother Prince Philippe and their royal cat, Miss Fussywiggles. They were the children of the king and queen. Princess Penelope had lovely pink cheeks and beautiful brown eyes and swinging ponytails. However, what was more beautiful than the ponytails was her closet full of dazzling dresses and beauteous tiaras. But, Princess Penelope was an adventurous girl, and she liked to wear pants while partaking of all of her activities. When you read this book you will discover how fortunate it was that Princess Penelope wore pants.

My Mouth Is a Volcano!

All of Louis thoughts are so important to him that when he has something to say, his words begin to wiggle, and then they do the jiggle, then his tongue pushes all of his important words up against his teeth and he erupts (or interrupts others). His mouth is a volcano! My Mouth Is A Volcano takes an empathetic approach to the habit of interrupting and teaches children a witty technique to capture their rambunctious thoughts and words for expression at an appropriate time. This story provides parents, teachers, and counselors with an entertaining way to teach children the value of respecting others by listening and waiting for their turn to speak.

The Giving Tree

In Shel Silverstein’s popular tale of few words and simple line drawings, a tree starts out as a leafy playground, shade provider, and apple bearer for a rambunctious little boy. Making the boy happy makes the tree happy, but with time it becomes more challenging for the generous tree to meet his needs as she gives all of herself until she is just a stump, poignantly cut down to the heart the boy once carved into the tree as a child that said “M.E. + T.”  When there’s nothing left of her, the boy returns again as an old man, needing a quiet place to sit and rest. The stump offers up her services, and he sits on it. “And the tree was happy.” While the message of this book is unclear, Silverstein has perhaps deliberately left the book open to interpretation.

Junie B. Jones’s First Boxed Set Ever! (Books 1-4)

Outrageously sassy Junie B. Jones will make young kids crave their daily dose of reading. And with this four-volume boxed set, whether they start with Junie B. Jones and Some Sneaky Peeky Spying or Junie B. Jones and Her Big Fat Mouth, readers will laugh out loud at Junie B.’s hilarious mishaps and breathtakingly horrible grammar. Although the books should come with a caveat–Kids, don’t try this syntax at home!–alert parents and teachers can find learning opportunities for their kids. The set contains the first four titles in Barbara Park’s extensive series. All are great for reading aloud.

Where the Wild Things Are

Where the Wild Things Are is one of those truly rare books that can be enjoyed equally by a child and a grown-up. Max dons his wolf suit in pursuit of some mischief and gets sent to bed without supper. Fortuitously, a forest grows in his room, allowing his wild rampage to continue unimpaired. Sendak’s color illustrations are beautiful, and each turn of the page brings the discovery of a new wonder.  Sendak’s defiantly run-on sentences–one of his trademarks–lend the perfect touch of stream of consciousness to the tale, which floats between the land of dreams and a child’s imagination.

Giraffes Can’t Dance

Gerald the giraffe doesn’t really have delusions of grandeur. He just wants to dance. But his knees are crooked and his legs are thin, and all the other animals mock him when he approaches the dance floor at the annual Jungle Dance. An encouraging word from an unlikely source shows Gerald that those who are different “just need a different song.”  In the vein of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Gerald’s fickle “friends” quickly decide he’s worthy of their attention again – showing insecure young readers that everyone can be wonderful, even those that march to the beat of a different cricket.

Goodnight Moon

Perhaps the perfect children’s bedtime book, Goodnight Moon is a short poem of goodnight wishes from a young rabbit preparing for–or attempting to postpone–his own slumber. He says goodnight to every object in sight and within earshot, including the “quiet old lady whispering hush.” Clement Hurd’s illustrations are simple and effective, alternating between small ink drawings and wide, brightly colored views of the little rabbit’s room.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

“In the light of the moon a little egg lay on a leaf.” So begins Eric Carle’s modern classic, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. The book follows the ravenous caterpillar’s path as he eats his way through one apple (and the pages of the book itself) on Monday, two pears on Tuesday, three plums on Wednesday, and so on until he is really fat and has a stomachache. And no doubt you know what happens next! Kids love butterfly metamorphosis stories, and this popular favorite teaches counting and the days of the week, too.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (Board Book)

The 26 characters in this rhythmic, rhyming book are a lowercase alphabet with attitude. “A told b, and b told c, ‘I’ll meet you at the top of the coconut tree'”–which probably seemed like a good idea until the other 23 members of the gang decided to follow suit. Lois Ehlert’s chunky block illustrations show the luxuriant green palm standing straight and tall on the first page, but it begins to groan and bend under its alphabetical burden. A very simple board-book version stops there, but this original text goes on to introduce the helping hands of the 26 uppercase “mamas and papas and uncles and aunts.”