#SOL16 - 20/31 - Read alouds I've Loved

SOL16 #20/31 - 

      I'm slicing with the Two Writing Teachers community for Day Twenty of Thirty-One of the Slice of Life Challenge in March.  Thank you Stacey, Tara, Anna, Betsy, Dana, Kathleen, Beth, and Deb.  

A favorite for younger students.

Special today! I just discovered that Catherine of Reading To The Core is also sharing a list of read alouds. Be sure to visit her too!

        I read many books, and recently have been envious of some terrific ones published that I would love to have read aloud to my class. Many of you are sharing what they are, and I've read most of them, and know they are going to be fabulous read alouds.

           Unless it’s a picture book, or an easy chapter book that I read to my granddaughters, I no longer have a class for which to choose a great book. (There have been a few times through the years that a student has chosen/recommended one.) And reading aloud to a group brings much value to the community. It’s a shared conversation inviting many opinions, a way to get to know one another better. It allows me as the teacher to share content from which students will benefit. It can be a mentor text for writing.  It adds to our shared history.  Here is one article from Brightly that shows some benefits of reading aloud to older kids.

        I thought it would be fun, and hopefully helpful to some of you, to share titles of a few read alouds I’ve used with my gifted middle-school-aged students through the years. Some are relatively recent, but some old, yet I think still would be good to experience together. I'm also adding a few books from the past for younger students, ones I've suggested to other teachers.

         my reasons: strong characters, ingenious approach to story, humor, poignancy and empathy, surprises, kindness, magic, peer or group influence, adventure (animal and real)

       Ones I Really Have Read Aloud:

                 I imagine there were more, but I don't remember them. I've read and collected numerous short stories for that kind of book group, either regular, or what I called the scary short story group at Halloween. If you'd like titles, I'm happy to share. 

Monster - Walter Dean Myers

The Wind In The Willows - Kenneth Grahame

Eva - Peter Dickinson

The Acorn People - Ron Jones

My Left Foot - Christy Brown

Twelve Kinds of Ice - Ellen Bryan Obed

The Van Gogh Café - Cynthia Rylant

Ellen Foster - Kaye Gibbons

The Wave - Todd Strasser

Night - Elie Wiesel

Sixteen - short stories collected by Donald Gallo

Seedfolks - Paul Fleischman

The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams

Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury

Dandelion Wine - Ray Bradbury

House of Stairs - William Sleator

         For Younger Students

The Green Book - Jill Paton Walsh

The Wish Giver - Bill Brittain

The Girl Who Owned The City - O.T. Nelson

also - Seedfolks - Paul Fleischman

Twelve Kinds of Ice - Ellen Bryan Obed

The Van Gogh Café - Cynthia Rylant