Rainy Day Read-Alouds

Books the Whole Family can Enjoy

Has rain cancelled your outdoor adventure for the day? Are you faced with an entourage of disappointed kids who angrily stare at the rain hitting the window, and you don’t know what to do with them? 

Well, guess what, there’s another way to adventure! Pour yourself a cup of coffee or tea, arm your kids with coloring pages, Legos, or quiet toys, and read aloud to them.

Books are a wonderful way to make the hours of a rainy day fly by. And, for homeschooling parents, they’re also an excellent way to teach your kids. Well-written children’s literature provides fun and entertainment while your kids learn about history, the world, and life.

Do  your kids want to know about life on a ship traveling around the tip of North America? Or what it was like to live at a boarding school in Victorian England? Or how settlers survived on the wide open prairies of the wild west? Read them a book!

Here’s a list of children’s literature with excellent writing, intriguing story lines, and characters that seem to come alive. 

1. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland — Lewis Carroll
2. Anne of Green Gables — L.M. Montgomery
3. A Series of Unfortunate Events — Lemony Snicket
4. A Single Shard — Linda Sue Park*
5. A Wrinkle in Time — Madeleine L’Engle*
6. Banner in the Sky — James Ramsey Ullman*
7. By the Great Horn Spoon! — Sid Fleischman
8. Caddie Woodlawn — Carol Ryrie Brink*
9. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory — Roald Dahl
10. Charlotte’s Web — E.B. White
11. Ginger Pye — Eleanor Estes*
12. Gone-Away Lake — Elizabeth Enright*
13. Harry Potter — J.K. Rowling
14. I Am David — Anne Holm 
15. Johnny Tremain — Esther Forbes*
16. Little Women — Louisa May Alcott
17. Maniac Magee — Jerry Spinelli*
18. Misty of Chincoteague — Marguerite Henry
19. My Side of the Mountain — Jean Craighead George
20. Number the Stars — Lois Lowry*
21. Ramona Quimby, Age 8 — Beverly Cleary*
22. Peter Pan — J.M. Barrie
23. Pictures of Hollis Woods —  Patrica Reilly Giff*
24. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer — Mark Twain
25. The Chronicles of Narnia — C.S. Lewis
26. The Complete Tales of Winnie-the-Pooh — A.A. Milne
27. The Cricket in Times Square — George Seldon
28. The Giver — Lois Lowry*
29. The Little Princess — Frances Hodgson Burnett
30. The Little House on the Prairie — Laura Ingalls Wilder
31. The Mysterious Benedict Society — Trenton Lee Stewart
32. The Secret Garden — Frances Hodgson Burnett
33. The Westing Game — Ellen Raskin*
34. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase — Joan Aiken
35. Tuck Everlasting — Natalie Babbitt

*These are John Newbery Medal Books

You’ll find yourself laughing with Ramona Quimby as she stumbles through life as an eight year-old; smiling at the adventures of Jerry, Rachel, and Ginger Pye as they explore their world of Cranbury, Connecticut together; and falling in love with the majestic horse Phantom and her colt Misty.

What are your favorite family read-alouds?  What else do you do to make the rainy days go faster?