Family Reading Time

When time permits, a full-scale exhortation will appear here encouraging families to make reading time, and in particular a read-aloud time, part of their regular routine. But for now, here are some of the best books we know of for sharing as a family.

There are few books we admire more than the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Not only is Wilder an accomplished storyteller, recounting events of her upbringing as the child she was, but her books give the reader an unvarnished, ground-level view of life on the American frontier. We now carry a nine-book boxed set of the Little House books, along with a pictorial tour of the people and locations mentioned in the books.

For another factual description of life, this on an 1805 Connecticut homestead, we highly recommend Diary of an Early American Boy. And don't forget about the Little Britches series by Ralph Moody, which tells of a young boy growing up in the early 20th century.

We really liked The Whole Story series of books when they came out in the mid-90s, and we still do. The illustrations are great, and the margins of each book are filled with helpful pictures and other tidbits about the times in which the story is set. Some of our favorites are no longer available new (The Jungle Book, Tom Sawyer, Black Beauty) and some entries in the series we can't recommend, but there are still some good ones here:

• Around the World in Eighty Days follows an unflappable Englishman and his faithful valet as they race around the globe to win a bet.
• The Hound of the Baskervilles has the world's most famous detective, Sherlock Holmes, and his assitant Dr. Watson investigating the truth behind a legendary curse.
• Heidi is the story of a young orphan girl who goes to live with her grandfather in the Swiss Alps and transforms the lives of those around her.
• The Call of the Wild tells the story of Buck, a dog abducted from home who must learn to survive in the merciless world of the Alaskan gold rush.
• White Fang , half dog and half wolf, tells his own story in this successor to The Call of the Wild.
• Little Women recounts the lives and loves of four sisters growing up during the American Civil War.
• And Treasure Island is a great adventure yarn brimming with pirates, a lost map, a search for buried pirate treasure, mutiny and murder on the high seas.

History is best approached as a story, and many of the books that excel at capturing a child's imagination center on historical events. Some of the best of these are set during the early years of the United States.

• Johnny Tremain is an apprentice silversmith in 1775 Boston who gets caught up in the events which lead to the American Revolution.
• Toliver's Secret tells of a young girl who must disguise herself as a boy and escape from British-blockaded New York City in order to get a message to General Washington.
• Across Five Aprils recounts the Civil War from the point of view of a young boy whose older relatives and friends have gone off to fight.
• Carry On Mr Bowditch is a fictionalized biography of Nathaniel Bowditch, who overcame difficult circumstances and taught himself enough to write the definitive book of navigational information.
• In All Sail Set, a young boy falls under the spell of a master shipbuilder and ships out on his latest creation for a record-breaking trip around the Horn.
• And The Great Wheel tells of the job of constructing the very first Ferris wheel.

Good historical fiction can not only inspire by putting us in the midst of great events, it can broaden our understanding of the good life with stories from times when life was lived more sensibly.

• The Witch of Blackbird Pond is the story of a young girl raised in a carefree Carribean environment who must suddenly adapt to life with Puritan relatives in 17th century Connecticut.
• In The Sign of the Beaver a young boy must fend for himself during a summer and winter in the Maine wilderness while his father returns to colonial Boston to fetch the rest of the family.
• The Journeyman is a young man who travels New England looking for work stenciling the walls of homes.
• The Great Turkey Walk is the very funny story of a young man who decides to make his fortune by herding thousands of turkeys from St. Louis to the goldrush boomtown of Denver.
• The Great Brain relates the adventures of a bright but not especially scrupulous young boy in the days when Utah is just being settled.
• Anne of Green Gables is the well-known story of Anne Shirley and her devotion to the brother and sister who adopt and raise her on Prince Edward Island.

And sometimes historical fiction can engage us with its exotic setting.

• The Golden Goblet relates an exciting mystery set in ancient Egypt.
• Detectives in Togas is a funny mystery set in ancient Rome.
• The Shadow Spinner is the story of Shahrazad, the Persian girl who saved her own life night by night by telling the Sultan story after story.
• The Door in the Wall tells of a young crippled boy who is taken in by a monk to live in a medieval English monastery.
• In Adam of the Road, a young man travels the open roads of 13th century England searching for his minstrel father and stolen dog.
• The Crown and Covenant series (Duncan's War, King's Arrow, and Rebel's Keep) follows the lives of the M'Kethe family as they endure persecution in 17th-century Scotland.

And then there are those stories that are just plain fun.

• Ginger Pye follows the adventures of Jerry and Rachel Pye as they search for their stolen puppy Ginger.
• Hank the Cowdog is the Head of Ranch Security at the M-Cross Ranch—or that's his inflated opinion of himself, anyway.
• The Family Under the Bridge consists of Armand, a hobo in Paris, and the five homeless children who adopt him.
• The Twenty-One Balloons is the fantastic tale of a professor whose hot-air balloon crashes on a mysterious, fabulously wealthy island.
• And The Wolves of Willoughby Chase is an over-the-top story of two children, a mysterious estate, ravenous wolves, and a sinister governess.

Finally, a few stories for the youngest among us.

• Little Pear and Little Pear and His Friends are a sheer delight to read, the adventures of a five-year-old Chinese boy as a five-year-old would see them.
• And The Ox-Cart Man is agrarianism in a nutshell, a picture book that tells of a man who goes to town at the end of the season to sell the year's produce.