Books for all Ages
{Top Ten Holiday Lists}
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Welcome to Top Ten Holiday Lists! Where Stir the Wonder, P is for Preschooler, Powerful Mothering, Afterschool for Smarty Pants, Little Bins for Little Hands, Making Time For Mommy, Makeovers & Motherhood, Creative World of Varya and myself have gotten together to post our Top Ten Holiday gift items. We will be featuring books, games & puzzles, building toys, pretend play, crafting kits, and stocking stuffers. So when you’re finished here check out all the other suggestions for the perfect holiday gift.
This week we are featuring BOOKS! Oh, how I love books. I love paperbacks, hardcovers, and ebooks. My hubby and older children love comics and graphic novels. I prefer inspirational romance, blogging how-to’s, or cookbooks. We spend most of our Summer scouring garage sales for new books in perfect condition at a fraction of the price. We can get into trouble big time at those sales where books are .10 or .25 each.
Here are some suggestions for a variety of readers young and old.
Infants and Toddler Books:
We love Sandra Boynton and her cute animals. All those crazy characters and their antics make for fun reading even for the parent! I suggest buying them in collection sets, ebooks, or at garage sales to save yourself some moola! Of course check with your local library to see which books YOU MUST ADD to your child’s collection.
Margaret Wise Brown’s Big Red Barn is another must read for toddlers. Lil’ Red loved it so much that I made a red barn from wipes tub to play with. I bought some tubes of animals and printed out some Montessori cards to match the animals to. You can read about it on the Big Red Barn Tutorial post.
Books to help your child grieve:
Yes, I know it’s a little odd, BUT we recently lost our dog, Jazz, of almost 13 years. It was very hard on Eldest and Lil’ Red still questions where his dog is. He is getting a better understanding though. You can enter to win Heaven is for Real for Kids through November 21!
Chapter Books for Beginning Readers:
We have a bunch of easy reader chapter books including the books with Levels 1-4 on them often found at the grocery stores. Princess loves Junie B. Jones books. Eldest loved Super hero and Star Wars books when he was younger. Even the Magic School Bus series has been put into easy readers AND chapter books!
Elementary and Tween Reading:
Now that Eldest is in 5th grade and Princess is in 4th grade we’ve got to up the ante a little bit. We did sign-up for Book It through Pizza Hut as a homeschool family and I think this helps motivate them to read!
Eldest loves: Narnia, Nerds, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and the Eragon series especially audiobooks. He will listen to them over and over again while playing with legos or cleaning his room!
Princess loves: Beverly Cleary books, The Littles, Black Beauty, and American Girl.
Books for the Techie (my hubby):
Books about blogging and Inspirational Romance for ME:
Of course I have tons of free ebooks about blogging that I hope to read someday,lol! I know of some really great foundational books for newbie bloggers.
Great parenting Books I recommend:
My best advice is to “buy” all the free Kindle books that remotely interest you even if you do not own a Kindle. Why? With all the variety of Kindle apps you can download and read on your pc, phone, or tablet! I began collecting Kindle books about 3 or 4 months before we got a Kindle friendly device and had already downloaded over 500 free books!
Who will you be buying books for this year?
I love your multi-age list. There is a lot of overlap with what your children are reading with my 7 year old (she is an advanced reader). We also get a lot of our books on the garage sales and library book sales.
Great suggestions! I’m quite literally on the lookout for good books every time I leave the house these days. So far, some of my toddler’s favorites are, Blueberries For Sal, and pretty much anything by Mercer Meyer.
Thanks for this list! I still need to buy my toddler a book for Christmas so these are some great ideas.
What a great list of books! We have an emerging reader in the house so books are on the list this year. I’m so sorry about losing your dog. 🙁
Merissa,
I know that he will love any board book that you enjoy reading to him.
Oh, yes those Five in a Row books are great. Mercer Meyer has some cute ones as well. Honestly was very hard to narrow it down and I could have spend hours more sharing more book titles and why we love them. Just ran out of time to include more,lol.
So glad your daughter enjoys reading. What a great way to grow and learn.
Camille,
Thanks, we are taking it day by day. We have tons and tons of books including all of my husband’s books from childhood!
My kids are the only age you did not have a list for.. 🙂 I know you don’t have any in that age group though.
Have you ever heard of the book Dog Heaven by Cynthia Rylant? That really helped my kid the first time we experienced the loss of a pet.
Sandra Boynton is a favorite of mine too! I also love your suggestion for the free Kindle books – most of the books I read on the Kindle are the freebies! Plus, I was sorry to hear about your dog. That must have been tough for the whole family. 🙁
I think that giving books for the holidays or for any reason is wonderful. I always get at least one book for my birthday and Christmas.. The only problem is finding some time to read them!