Welcome back to the new iteration of What We’re Reading — where instead of just sharing what I am reading with my own kiddos every week, every few months I open up the conversation to everyone.
Here’s a handful of titles we’ve enjoyed lately. If I’ve reviewed any of them at any point, I’ve linked to them here, otherwise, FYI, these are affiliate links:
And, the most delightful audiobook series my kids and I have listened to in a long time, The Terrible Two (and its three follow-ups) by Mac Barnett and Jory John. We laugh out loud almost constantly at these books, and they’re probably good on the page, but I find myself questioning how they could be anywhere near as amazing in print compared to Adam Verner’s dead-perfect narration. He does an outstanding job — highly recommended.
Your turn! What are you reading with the children in your life?
We listened to Mary Poppins on audio last year and it was so good! I *did* know it was a book but somehow didn't expect much from it? I was more than pleasantly surprised. (Mary Poppins Comes Back, the sequel, is also pretty great.)
Gerda Muller's Seasons books are pure gold. Full stop.
We are currently loving Baby Goes to Market which we just got from the library yesterday from your counting post and Mole’s Spectacles and Frog’s Day Out, our latest two purchases from Julia Donaldson’s Tales from Acorn Wood series, the cutest rhyming lift the flap books which are perfect for toddlers.
My favorite MG book in July was DAN UNMASKED. Do you like baseball, comics, humor and friendship conflict? Read Chris Negron's contemporary novel for 8-12 year Olds. You will learn about making comic books and team building. Beth Schmelzer
Two picks off the library “new” shelf have been in heavy rotation lately: “The Shadow and the Ghost” by Cat Min and “Prunella” by Beth Ferry, both of which (in v different ways) are about belonging and finding your people and making connections. I also have fallen down a Sophie Blackall hole and am snapping up all of her books that I can find! “If You Come to Earth”, “Farmhouse”, and “Hello, Lighthouse” are all amazing so far—her illustrations are incredible.
We’ve been listening to the full Henry Huggins collection on audio (free on Spotify premium!) and the kids are really into it (though we do have to stop it every so often to have conversations about sexism and racism since some of it is pretty dated). We’re reading Ozma of Oz as our bedtime family read-aloud right now which has been a lot of fun. Some other favorite picture books recently include: Louise, the Adventures of a Chicken (Dicamillo), Knight Owl (Denise), The Emperor and the Kite (Yolen and also, thanks for the rec, Sarah!) and Pedal Power (Drummond)
We are reading the Percy Jackson series, anxiously waiting for book 3 from the library. I’ve ordered it from the two library systems where I have cards, and no joy. I was really hoping we’d receive it before we head on holiday Friday am.
We are loving all of the Shirley Hughes books, Margaret’s Unicorn, anything from Enchanted Lion (We Go to the Park), and just knocked out Peter Pan and Charlotte’s Web with my three year old and adored that!
We have reached a new stage where there is some consensus on audiobooks across the kids. So we have been listening to Beverly Cleary--all the Ramona Quimby books and now Ralph and the Motorcycle.
The Terrible Two were an absolute favorite in our household as well! They have listened to this series so often that they can actually recite entire chapters verbatim. Another audiobook series my two boys love is the Redwall books by Brian Jacques. The author is a master storyteller, has a wonderful accent, and even provides musical interludes :)
Lucy (age 3) loves Ada Twist, Scientist. Saoirse (age 11) is working her way through A Series of Unfortunate Events. Ethan (almost 13) is into fact books, mostly of the astronomy nature. Carstens (age 10) is working on the Hilo series.
Absolutely loving Margaret Mahy lately. Into all of her collections of short stories - The Girl with the Green Ear and A Tall Story and Other Tales are two faves. Also loving the illustrations of Krysten Brooker - she works on great projects. Through her I discovered one of my new fave picture books, City Angel by Eileen Spinelli.
Love a good audiobook recommendation! Thank you!! We recently read a Jeremy Thatcher Dragon Hatcher by Bruce Coville as a night time chapter book (one chapter at a time) and I’m happy to report that this childhood favorite of mine held up! It’s as magical as I remember it. Ballet Kid and Baller Ina have also been making the rounds as we have a 3 yo very motivated to start “ballet school.” Now to find a ballet school… 🩰
we started listening to The Silver Arrow (Grossman) on a recent road trip and all of us enjoyed it. and if you have an odd ball kid who loves ghosts, the Ghosthunters series by Cornelia Funke on audiobook has completely captivated our kid. Magic Treehouse series is also a good audiobook option!
chapter books: we've really liked the Wild Robot series (Peter Brown)
picture books: Not Quite Narwhal (Jesse Sima), The Little Wooden Robot and the Log Princess (Tom Guald) & They're So Flamboyant (Michael Genhart) have been recent favorites
After a brief hiatus, Today by Julie Morstad is back with a vengeance - my girls LOVE making their own choices on all the pages. Don’t Worry, Little Crab by Chris Haughton and Woodland Dance by Sandra Boynton are also current bedtime favorites.
Our three-year old's current obsessions are Bilal Cooks Daal, Bread and Jam for Frances, Blueberries for Sal, and a Spanish translation of Pigs Aplenty, Pigs Galore, which I got based on your recommendation! Heckedy Peg was another I remembered due to this blog, and it's been a hit. Hmm, I'm noticing a big food theme here!
Our 5-year old is absolutely loving the DK book "Earth's Incredible Oceans", he lays in bed and reads to himself (aka looks at the pictures) every night.
Our 3-year-old is really into "Carson Crosses Canada" by Linda Bailey and "Goldilocks and the Three Bears", the magnificently beautiful Jan Brett version.
And mom is reading "A Day of Fallen Night" by Samantha Shannon, which is a follow-up to "Priory of the Orange Tree", a fantastical and romantic treasure of a novel...but definitely not for kids! Parents need good reading too. 😉
Amen! (I’d argue parents’ good reading is the most important in the house — not just to establish taste and model what a reader looks like, but because we probably need all the gifts books offer the most!)
I recently rediscovered the Moonbear series by Frank Asch, and my two and four year olds are loving it! "Moongame" and "Mooncake" are their current favorites.
Moonbear is one of my all-time, deeply beloved series -- I had most of them as a kid, and they make up many of my earliest reading (being read to) memories. Thank you for reminding me of them today -- it makes my heart happy! 🌕🐻
The hysterical Chicken Big. And Pippi Longstocking of note this is the fourth time I’ve read the entire Pippi Longstocking series to my now eight-year-old.
Our whole entire family is now apparently obsessed with Kafka, thanks to a little picture book titled Kafka and the Doll by Larissa Theule and Rebecca Green. I just wrote about the whole experience here because it has been uniquely fun:
I like to have audiobooks going with each of my younger kids whenever we’re in the car together- with one it’s a wacky Gordon Korman book called The Superteacher Project and with the other I’m wrapping up Stuart Gibbs’ Moon Base Alpha series with Wasted Space. Were currently on a family trip and started listening to The Eyes and the Impossible (because I loved it so much when I first read it).
Who was Jesse Owens was my 7 yo’s book this week, and he also really liked Sixteen Hand Horse by Fred Gwynne (the whole book is illustrated homophones). His steadfast favorites are all Dav Pilkey but edpecially most recent Dogman- the Scarlett Shedder. Ghost Book by Remy Lai has been his favorite for nearly a year and when packing books for our beach trip he said oh I really need this one too!
5 yo is still loving The Legend of Rock, Paper, Scissors by Drew Daywalt about a month after getting it for his birthday.
My husband and I discussed Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing a few nights ago but we haven’t gotten it from the library yet! We are interested to see if our kids like it.
We listened to Mary Poppins on audio last year and it was so good! I *did* know it was a book but somehow didn't expect much from it? I was more than pleasantly surprised. (Mary Poppins Comes Back, the sequel, is also pretty great.)
Gerda Muller's Seasons books are pure gold. Full stop.
We are currently loving Baby Goes to Market which we just got from the library yesterday from your counting post and Mole’s Spectacles and Frog’s Day Out, our latest two purchases from Julia Donaldson’s Tales from Acorn Wood series, the cutest rhyming lift the flap books which are perfect for toddlers.
My favorite MG book in July was DAN UNMASKED. Do you like baseball, comics, humor and friendship conflict? Read Chris Negron's contemporary novel for 8-12 year Olds. You will learn about making comic books and team building. Beth Schmelzer
Two picks off the library “new” shelf have been in heavy rotation lately: “The Shadow and the Ghost” by Cat Min and “Prunella” by Beth Ferry, both of which (in v different ways) are about belonging and finding your people and making connections. I also have fallen down a Sophie Blackall hole and am snapping up all of her books that I can find! “If You Come to Earth”, “Farmhouse”, and “Hello, Lighthouse” are all amazing so far—her illustrations are incredible.
We LOVE Sophie Blackall, such beautiful illustrations but we haven’t read any in a while so it may be time to get them from our library again.
We’ve been listening to the full Henry Huggins collection on audio (free on Spotify premium!) and the kids are really into it (though we do have to stop it every so often to have conversations about sexism and racism since some of it is pretty dated). We’re reading Ozma of Oz as our bedtime family read-aloud right now which has been a lot of fun. Some other favorite picture books recently include: Louise, the Adventures of a Chicken (Dicamillo), Knight Owl (Denise), The Emperor and the Kite (Yolen and also, thanks for the rec, Sarah!) and Pedal Power (Drummond)
We are reading the Percy Jackson series, anxiously waiting for book 3 from the library. I’ve ordered it from the two library systems where I have cards, and no joy. I was really hoping we’d receive it before we head on holiday Friday am.
We're reading a lot of early readers lately. They're short and usually rhyme. The perfect duo for holding both of my children's attention.
We are loving all of the Shirley Hughes books, Margaret’s Unicorn, anything from Enchanted Lion (We Go to the Park), and just knocked out Peter Pan and Charlotte’s Web with my three year old and adored that!
We have reached a new stage where there is some consensus on audiobooks across the kids. So we have been listening to Beverly Cleary--all the Ramona Quimby books and now Ralph and the Motorcycle.
Yes!
The Terrible Two were an absolute favorite in our household as well! They have listened to this series so often that they can actually recite entire chapters verbatim. Another audiobook series my two boys love is the Redwall books by Brian Jacques. The author is a master storyteller, has a wonderful accent, and even provides musical interludes :)
Lucy (age 3) loves Ada Twist, Scientist. Saoirse (age 11) is working her way through A Series of Unfortunate Events. Ethan (almost 13) is into fact books, mostly of the astronomy nature. Carstens (age 10) is working on the Hilo series.
Absolutely loving Margaret Mahy lately. Into all of her collections of short stories - The Girl with the Green Ear and A Tall Story and Other Tales are two faves. Also loving the illustrations of Krysten Brooker - she works on great projects. Through her I discovered one of my new fave picture books, City Angel by Eileen Spinelli.
Love a good audiobook recommendation! Thank you!! We recently read a Jeremy Thatcher Dragon Hatcher by Bruce Coville as a night time chapter book (one chapter at a time) and I’m happy to report that this childhood favorite of mine held up! It’s as magical as I remember it. Ballet Kid and Baller Ina have also been making the rounds as we have a 3 yo very motivated to start “ballet school.” Now to find a ballet school… 🩰
we started listening to The Silver Arrow (Grossman) on a recent road trip and all of us enjoyed it. and if you have an odd ball kid who loves ghosts, the Ghosthunters series by Cornelia Funke on audiobook has completely captivated our kid. Magic Treehouse series is also a good audiobook option!
chapter books: we've really liked the Wild Robot series (Peter Brown)
picture books: Not Quite Narwhal (Jesse Sima), The Little Wooden Robot and the Log Princess (Tom Guald) & They're So Flamboyant (Michael Genhart) have been recent favorites
My 2yo grandson requests a little board book called Peek-a Who? by Nina Laden every time he’s over.
That was my oldest absolute favorite baby board book!
It’s such a kid pleaser. And I love the illustrations!
Me too! Did you know there's a little set, with two more books in the "series"? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09WMJVZDQ?binding=hardcover&searchxofy=true&ref_=dbs_s_aps_series_rwt_thcv&qid=1721768225&sr=8-2
Yes, they are on my list!
After a brief hiatus, Today by Julie Morstad is back with a vengeance - my girls LOVE making their own choices on all the pages. Don’t Worry, Little Crab by Chris Haughton and Woodland Dance by Sandra Boynton are also current bedtime favorites.
Our three-year old's current obsessions are Bilal Cooks Daal, Bread and Jam for Frances, Blueberries for Sal, and a Spanish translation of Pigs Aplenty, Pigs Galore, which I got based on your recommendation! Heckedy Peg was another I remembered due to this blog, and it's been a hit. Hmm, I'm noticing a big food theme here!
Our 5-year old is absolutely loving the DK book "Earth's Incredible Oceans", he lays in bed and reads to himself (aka looks at the pictures) every night.
Our 3-year-old is really into "Carson Crosses Canada" by Linda Bailey and "Goldilocks and the Three Bears", the magnificently beautiful Jan Brett version.
And mom is reading "A Day of Fallen Night" by Samantha Shannon, which is a follow-up to "Priory of the Orange Tree", a fantastical and romantic treasure of a novel...but definitely not for kids! Parents need good reading too. 😉
Amen! (I’d argue parents’ good reading is the most important in the house — not just to establish taste and model what a reader looks like, but because we probably need all the gifts books offer the most!)
I recently rediscovered the Moonbear series by Frank Asch, and my two and four year olds are loving it! "Moongame" and "Mooncake" are their current favorites.
Moonbear is one of my all-time, deeply beloved series -- I had most of them as a kid, and they make up many of my earliest reading (being read to) memories. Thank you for reminding me of them today -- it makes my heart happy! 🌕🐻
Aww glad it could spark some happy memories! They are such sweet books.
The hysterical Chicken Big. And Pippi Longstocking of note this is the fourth time I’ve read the entire Pippi Longstocking series to my now eight-year-old.
In our house, this is the summer of The Vanderbeekers! We’ve done a mix of audio + read aloud, and the kids are frequently begging for more.
I've heard so many (SO many) good things about The Vanderbeeker series and have yet to read any of them...
Our whole entire family is now apparently obsessed with Kafka, thanks to a little picture book titled Kafka and the Doll by Larissa Theule and Rebecca Green. I just wrote about the whole experience here because it has been uniquely fun:
https://petya.substack.com/p/issue-73-my-7-year-old-daughter-influenced
I love this so much -- thank you for sharing your post!
Fireman Sam and Fireman Sam Down Below are on repeat at my house!
I like to have audiobooks going with each of my younger kids whenever we’re in the car together- with one it’s a wacky Gordon Korman book called The Superteacher Project and with the other I’m wrapping up Stuart Gibbs’ Moon Base Alpha series with Wasted Space. Were currently on a family trip and started listening to The Eyes and the Impossible (because I loved it so much when I first read it).
(And by younger, I mean my 13- and 14-year olds. 😜 I hope we continue this until they’re driving themselves to practice like their older sister).
Who was Jesse Owens was my 7 yo’s book this week, and he also really liked Sixteen Hand Horse by Fred Gwynne (the whole book is illustrated homophones). His steadfast favorites are all Dav Pilkey but edpecially most recent Dogman- the Scarlett Shedder. Ghost Book by Remy Lai has been his favorite for nearly a year and when packing books for our beach trip he said oh I really need this one too!
5 yo is still loving The Legend of Rock, Paper, Scissors by Drew Daywalt about a month after getting it for his birthday.
My husband and I discussed Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing a few nights ago but we haven’t gotten it from the library yet! We are interested to see if our kids like it.