Building a library for your child, Part 4 – Beginning reading

Part 1 HERE
Part 2 HERE
Part 3 HERE 

“A child has not begun his education until he has acquired the habit of reading to himself, with interest and pleasure, books fully on a level with his intelligence.”  - Charlotte Mason

Early readers

The following are our favorite books to pull out once a new reader has a firm grasp on phonics. Of course, most of the Dr. Seuss, P.D. Eastman and Berenstain Bears beginning readers are great, but these are our top picks:

Are You My Mother? – P.D. Eastman

Billy and Blaze books – C.W. Anderson

Fox in Socks – Dr. Seuss

Frog and Toad are Friends (all 4 books in the series) – Arnold Lobel

Inside, Outside, Upside Down – Stan and Jan Berenstain

Little Black, A Pony – Walter Farley

Mouse Soup – Arnold Lobel

Mouse Tales – Arnold Lobel

Octopus – Evelyn S. Shaw

Oscar Otter – Nathaniel Benchley

Owl at Home – Arnold Lobel

There Is a Carrot in My Ear – Alvin Schwartz

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Chapter books for child’s first individual reading
(Short chapters, easy to understand storylines)

**Pathway Readers – we love, love, love these readers! They are the only readers I’ve ever seen that actually have interesting stories.

Abraham Lincoln, Man of Courage – Bernadine Bailey (A Piper biography – all of these are great!)

Animals Do the Strangest Things – Leonora Hornblow (Any of these series is good – Reptiles, Insects, Birds, Fish)

Copper-Toed Boots – Marguerite De Angeli

Homer Price – Robert McCloskey

Sarah, Plain and Tall (and  sequels) – Patricia McLachlan

The Bears on Hemlock Mountain- Alice Dalgliesh

The Boxcar Children – Gertrude Chandler Warner

The Courage of Sarah Noble – Alice Dalgliesh

The Happy Hollisters – Jerry West

The Hundred Dresses – Eleanor Estes

The Matchlock Gun – Walter D. Edmonds

Thornton Burgess Animal Stories -Thornton Burgess

Tornado – Betsy Byars

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Final part of this series: Part 5 – Chapter books and non-fiction