Where Do I Find Good Books For My Kids?

How Do I Find Literature With A Strong Moral Compass…

Why Should I Look For Good Literature for My Kids?

Books help us develop a moral compass. I think that after the effects of mother and father on a child, books are the next most important source of morality (unless you let your children watch TV). Books feed your child’s imagination. They develop critical thinking skills and reading good books will enable your child to write masterfully. We all are built to copy what we see and hear around us and reading good literature leads your child to naturally copy the writing styles as well as the morals of the authors.

Where is the list of Good Literature?

There are plenty of lists of “Good Books” and “Great Books” out there. Some are made by famous philosophers and others by curriculum publishers or professors in universities. The problem is that the people who made those lists did so with their own set of morals. And so, I find that many of the “Good Books”or even the “Great Books” are not all actually good. I think that some of them present my children with great ideas and others draw them away from the morals and mindset that I want embedded in them.

So, How Can I find Good Literature?

The easiest way is to make your own list. Start with lists you find, like the lists of “Good Books” and “Great Books” and then sort through them to make your own list. That is your starting point. But it is really just the beginning.

Then you need to add books you have read that are really important for you to “pass on” to your children. Now you are fleshing out your own list of good literature. But you are not yet done.

The final step is a continual one. You need to hone your list and add to it continuously as your child grows.

What Do I Do If My Child Reads Voraciously & I Cannot Keep Up?

This is a really hard one. I have two children who not only read about twice as fast as I do, but love reading. They read morning, noon, and night. Every day. They read while I cook and clean. They read while they sit in the car. They even have perfected the art of reading while knitting! For my kids a 200 page book is light bedtime reading. So I obviously cannot keep up. Instead my husband and I direct our children backwards in time to books written in the 1800’s or earlier. These books are less likely to be flawed by loose morals. Also these books develop their vocabulary.

The other trick I use for my kids is to trace which authors inspired the authors my children love. This can be a little difficult, but well worth the effort. I have uncovered treasure troves of stories and new authors for my children this way. If the authors are still alive, they probably have a blog and they probably have written about their most favorite authors. If, on the other hand, the authors are no longer alive, you can use online encyclopedias, or biographies, or even the Internet Archive (which oftentimes have the entire libraries of famous people, including authors, scanned and available for you to download free).

How Do I Get Started?

My list of Good Literature is as unique as your list should be. For my husband and I, this list is literature with Christian morals focused on the culture of America and Great Britain. But your list will be different, I am sure. Your list of good literature should reflect the morals you and your husband share. So start your list today and update it each time you find a new book. Some day you can share your list with another family and provide them with the start of their list.

And that is how you find good, solid literature for your children that reflects the mindset and morals you hold dear.

And So Here Is My List

Well, actually this is just the highlights of my list.

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Classics for the High Schooler or Advanced Middle Ages Child:

• Ben Hur by Lew Wallace
• Bessie’s Pillow by Linda Bress Silbert
• Dracula by Bram Stoker
• Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
• Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
• Horse of a Different Color by Ralph Moody
• Le Morte D’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory
• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
• Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkein
• Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan
• Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
• Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
• Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, translated by J.R.R. Tolkein
• Tarzan stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• The Aeneid by Virgil
• The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
• The Fairie Queene by Edmund Spenser
• The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells
• The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
• Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana

Classics for Elementary through Middle Years:

• Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
• Encyclopedia Brown by Donald J. Sobol
• Five Children and It by Edith Nesbit
• Little Britches by Ralph Moody
• Man of the Family by Ralph Moody
• Mandy Series of Books by Lois Gladys Leppard
• Narnia Series by C. S. Lewis
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
• The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander
• The Famous Five series by Enid Blyton
• The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein
• The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith
• The Long Rifle by Stewart Edward White
• The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald
• The Railway Children by Edith Nesbit
• The Wolves of Willoughby Chase series (13 in all) by Joan Aiken
• Wonder tales from Scottish myth and legend by Donald Alexander Mackenzie

Books for Fours though Elementary:

• Babe by Dick King-Smith
• Best Stories for 5 year olds by Enid Blyton
• Freddy the Detective series by Walter R. Books
• Frog and Toad books by Arnold Lobel
• Henry and the Paper Route by Beverly Cleary
• Homer Price by Robert McCloskey
• Little House on The Prarie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers
• Mr. Popper’s Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater
• Mrs. PiggleWiggle by Betty MacDonald
• Pigs is Pigs by Ellis Parker Butler
• Raggedy Andy Stories by Johnny Gruelle
• Raggedy Ann Stories by Johnny Gruelle
• The Catlady by Dick King-Smith
• The Fairy Caravan by Beatrix Potter
• The Wizard of Oz books (all 12) by L. Frank Baum

Books for the Very Young:

• Are You My Mother by P.D. Eastman
• Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey
• Dr. Suess’ Sleep Book by Dr. Suess
• Each Peach Pear Plum by Janet Ahlberg
• Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
• If you Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff
• In the Rain With Baby Duck by Amy Hest
• Jamberry by Bruce Degen
• McDuff and the Baby by Rosemary Wells
• Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton
• One Seal by John Stadler
• So Much! by Trish Cooke and Helen Oxenbury
• The Baby BeeBee Bird by Diane Redfield Massie
• The Fourteeen Bears in Summer and Winter by Evelyn Scott
• The Sneeches and Other Stories by Dr. Suess
• Thundercake by Patricia Polacco
• Watch Out! Big Bro’s Coming! by Jez Alborough
• We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen
• When Lightening Comes in a Jar by Patricia Polacco
• Where’s My Teddy? by Jez Alborough

Now, What Are Some Treasured “Good Books” from Your List?