Parenting Guide - Baby Showers - Parenting Tips

Classic Books for Kids

Getting your children engaged in reading is one of the most important gifts you can give them. Here are some great reads for elementary school-aged kids that will stay in their memories for years.

What Do Fish have to do With Anything? One of the most eloquent authors of all time, Avi has a long list of children’s classics to his name. This particular one features a series of short stories, each narrated by a child at a turning point in his life. A little boy discovers the key to happiness; a girl carries on heartfelt phone conversations with a silent listener, who she believes is her runaway older brother; a preteen copes with his family’s rocky relationships by staging a showdown in a Chinese restaurant; a daring boy finds respect and understanding for his domineering teacher. This book is filled with insights that will stay with your child, and he will want to return to them again and again.

The Watsons go to Birmingham – 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis:  This funny and beautifully written novel, narrated by a young boy named Kenny, tells the story of an African American family’s journey south to their grandmother’s house in Birmingham, Alabama the summer of the bombing of the Sixteenth Avenue Baptist Church. Preteen kids will find this portrait of a family’s love and strength in harsh times a joy to read and hilarious as well as heartbreaking.

Number the Stars by Lois Lowry:  During the mass evacuation of Jews from Denmark in World War II, Annemarie’s best friend Ellen, a Jewish girl, poses as Annemarie’s sister to hide from the Nazis.  The family and Annemarie herself find incredible courage in the face of several frightening encounters in the struggle to get Ellen and her family to safety outside of Denmark.

Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli:  This tale of a legendary boy who races dogs and unties impossible knots features storytelling at its finest. Jeffrey is an orphan who lives with his aunt and uncle, a couple who hates each other so much that they have duplicates of everything in their house so they never have to come in contact with each other. Jeffrey gets so fed up with this that he runs away, only to discover that the world outside is equally as divided. Jeffrey succeeds in uniting a town separated by race and becomes the stuff of legends. Spinelli is also the author of Stargirl, another unforgettable tale of an outsider who inspires change.

Tags: children’s books, education, gifts, literature, reading