Read Aloud WV

Planet Esme -- Esme Raji Codell, teacher and author groups recommendations by age, theme and genre. See the special "Read Aloud Resuscitation" page because "big kids need love and literature, too."

Guys Read -- Children's author Jon Scieszka has compiled titles good for little guys, big guys and everyone in between. Browse by topic, type or age. Lots and lots of funny books, as you would expect.

New York Public Library -- Find 100 favorite children's books grouped by type, including fantasy, poetry, biography, for example.

Jim Trelease -- A Read Aloud champion lists titles that appeared since the publication of the 6th edition of his "Read Aloud Handbook".

The Book Whisperer -- Teacher and author Donalyn Miller offers pages of titles for all ages, as well as other resources.

All About Adolescent Literacy -- This site aimed at parents and educators offers many things, including themed book lists for teens and tweens.

What do your listeners enjoy?

We welcome recommendations from volunteers, teachers, parents, students and friends of Read Aloud.

Send your recommendations of 100 words or so to readaloud@frontier.com.

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Memoirs of a Goldfish by Devin Scillian and illustrated by Tim Bowers. Help! A goldfish is not happy with a snail, a crab and a couple of

guppies invade his personal space.

The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant.

It is amazing how cozy and happy everyone can be when they squeeze into a little house to make room for visiting relatives.

Stinky Smelly Feet: A Love Story by Margie Palatini. Douglas and Dolores are ducks, and they are smitten, but someone has stinky webbed feet. How embarrassing! Will love prevail? This story has lots of kid appeal.

Most of this author’s picture books can be used as read aloud titles for this age group.

-- Raleigh County Read Aloud

Axle Annie by Robin Pulver. No matter how hard it snows, Axle Annie will get the students to school and home again.

Calico the Wonder Horse by Virginia Lee Burton. Is it is comic book? Is it a Western? It is definitely an original tale of good and evil.

-- Raleigh County Read Aloud

Redwoods by Jason Chin. School Library Journal recommends this title for grades 1 to 4. While cataloged as nonfiction, this book is an inventive blend of fact and fantasy. It follows the adventures of an unnamed boy who finds a book about redwoods on a subway bench and is transported to a redwood forest. Be sure to pay attention to the illustrations when reading this book! See a preview.

-- Terri McDougal

Riding to Washington by Gwenyth Swain. Young Janie is forced to go along with her dad on the August 1963 March on Washington. As one of the few white passengers on the bus to Washington, she had viewed black protesters on TV as troublemakers, until she makes this trip.

-- Raleigh County Read Aloud

Boycott Blues: How Rosa Parks Inspired a Nation by Andrea Davis Pinkney.

"With glowing, dramatic double-page spreads and a clear rhythmic text, this large picture book tells the inspiring story of the Montgomery bus boycott," says Booklist. We pair this one with Rosa by Nikki Giovanni.

-- Raleigh County Read Aloud

Rosa by Nikki Giovanni. The story of Rosa Parks' life provides an entry into a summary of the Civil Rights movement.

-- Raleigh County Read Aloud

Troll Country by Edward Marshall, illustrated by James Marshall.

A girl has a book that tells all about trolls, but her mother has actually met one. So the girl heads deep into the woods to find a real troll.

Abraham Lincoln Comes Home by Robert Burleigh. After President Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, for 13 days, his funeral train made its way from Washington D.C. to Springfield, Ill. It evokes deep feelings among grieving Americans, including a young boy experiencing a time of great change. Stunning paintings by Wendell Minor.

-- Raleigh County Read Aloud

one page, so this is perhaps not a book to be read aloud at one time so much as a “filler” to read one or two pages from at the end of your Read Aloud session.

-- Terri McDougal

Moonshot by Brian Floca. Well-researched and technically accurate illustrations bring the story of the Apollo 11 mission to the moon vividly to life. More about Brian Floca at the 2011 West Virginia Book Festival.

-- Raleigh County Read Aloud

One Hen: How One Small Loan Made a Big Difference by Katie Smith Milway. After his father dies, a boy in Africa has to quit school and help his mother gather firewood to sell, until his mom gives him a little money. The money is a bit of a loan from the neighbors. The boy buys a hen, and in a year, has a thriving flock of birds and then a farm.

This book is inspired by a true story in Ghana and introduces the concept of microfinance,

-- Raleigh County Read Aloud

Cabin Creek Mysteries: The Secret of Robber's Cave by Kristiana Gregory. Two brothers set out to explore an overgrown and misty island. There are clues and cliffhangers and a storyline that spans the series.

-- Raleigh County Read Aloud

Auntie Claus by Elise Primavera. Plenty of chic New York style, holiday intrigue and magic mark this story of Sophie, and how she grows more sophistocated one remarkable Christmas.

-- Dawn Miller

Abe Lincoln's Dream by Lane Smith.

What if President Lincoln's ghost walked the White House today? What would he think of what he sees? A serious, yet humorous book, with plenty of hope.

-- Dawn Miller

House Held Up By Trees by Ted Kooser. Although School Library Journal recommends this for grades 3 to 5, I’m not sure how much 3rd graders will appreciate this picture book. I think it could be read to middle school and even high school students. Written by former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser, this is a melancholy story of a house and the family who once lived there and nature’s reclamation of the house when it is left empty for years. -- Terri McDougal

The Mangrove Tree: Planting Trees to Feed Families by Susan L. Roth and Cindy Trumbore. School Library Journal recommends this title for grades 3 to 6, although it is written in a manner that allows it to be shared with younger children by reading only the text on the left-hand pages. Those pages are written in the cumulative style of “The House that Jack Built.” The right-hand pages provide more factual information about the efforts of Dr. Gordon Soto to plant mangrove trees in the small African country of Eritrea. An inspiring account of one man’s contribution to combating poverty and hunger through the planting of trees. -- Terri McDougal

Eliza’s Cherry Trees: Japan’s Gift to America by Andrea Zimmerman. While School Library Journal recommends this title for grades 4 to 6, I think it is also possible to read it to 3rd graders. Eliza’s Cherry Trees is both a biography of Eliza Scidmore, author, photographer, and first woman to hold an important job at the National Geographic Society, and her decades-long quest to bring cherry trees from Japan to plant in Washington, D.C. This is the story of a remarkable woman about whom little is known.

-- Terri McDougal

Read a 2011 Washington Post review

Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman by Marc Tyler Nobleman. The format is a picture book, but this is a seriously researched biography of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, a couple of mild-mannered teens of the Depression era who created an enduring, idealistic superhero -- Superman. It is a story from when comic books were a new format. Illustrations by Ross MacDonald evoke the era.

Author Marc Tyler Nobleman appeared at the 2012 West Virginia Book Festival.

Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman by Marc Tyler Nobleman.  Another picture book biography, this one about Bill Finger, the guy responsible for much of what we know as Batman, but who was never credited.

The author keeps the story understandable for young readers or listeners, but does not shy away from the conflict and difficulty in the lives of these comic book creators. Ty Templeton's illustrations parallel comic book imagery of the time.

Author Marc Tyler Nobleman appeared at the 2012 West Virginia Book Festival. in Charleston on Oct. 14, 2012

Henry Works by D.B. Johnson.

Henry the Bear never gets paid, but on his "walk to work" he stays busy. He waters flowers and finds a healing plant for a neighbor. He brings news of a coming storm and sets a path of stone across a stream. It is a gentle, transendental delight.

-- Raleigh County Read Aloud

Henry Climbs a Mountain by D.B. Johnson.

This book is a deep and beautifully illustrated version of the story of Henry David Thoreau's night in jail in 1846, where he was taken for refusing to pay a poll tax, his protest against slavery.

-- Raleigh County Read Aloud

14 Cows for America by Carmen Agra Deedy.

A man returns to his Maasai village in Kenya with news of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in America. Villagers are moved to give a healing gift to all Americans.

-- Raleigh County Read Aloud

Bil Lepp gives a closer look at the author in advance of her 2010 West Virginia Book Festival appearance.

Bad News for Outlaws: The Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves, Deputy U.S. Marshal, by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson. As promised, this is the remarkable, true story of a man born in slavery in 1838, who flees to the West and is hired by a U.S. judge to bring law and order to territory that is now Oklahoma. Arresting illustrations by R. Gregory Christie.

-- Raleigh County Read Aloud

The Chocolate Touch by Margot Apple. A boy gets a magic box of candy, and then everything he touches turns to chocolate, just like Midas.

-- Raleigh County Read Aloud

A Tale Dark & Grimm by Adam Gidwitz. After this elementary teacher got over the horror of the blood and violence of the original Grimm's Fairy Tales, he saw some value in them, and wove them together in a modern, yet more faithful story about Hansel and Gretel, finding their way in a scary, dangerous world. My fourth and fifth grade listeners begged to hear more of this book.

-- Dawn Miller

Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science by John Fleischman never fails to grip audiences from fourth grade through high school. In a readable, narrative style, the author tells the story of a railroad construction foreman in 1848 who was shot through the skull with a 13-pound iron rod and went home to wait for the doctor. The details of Gage's story give modern readers a look at both the condition of 19th-century medicine, and the beginnings of modern understanding of the brain.

-- Dawn Miller

Guys Write for Guys Read, edited by Jon Scieszka. Various authors write about their lives as boys and young men. Stories range from belly-aching hilarious to mature and poignant. One of be best, funniest and shortest stories for all ages is "Brothers" by Jon Scieszka, who also edited this and other volumes in the series

-- Dawn Miller

Inca Gold by Jim Becket. Choose Your Own Adventure novels often appeal to middle grade readers or listeners.

Terri McDougal is director of children's services at the Kanawha County Public Library and a board member of Read Aloud West Virginia

Dawn Miller is editorial page editor of the The Charleston Gazette, a 20-year Read Aloud West Virginia volunteer, and a former chairwoman of Read Aloud's board.