Madame Esme's
Read-Aloud Resuscitation!

Big kids need love...and literature...too! This is a list of books I have had positive experience with when reading to intermediate aged children (grades 4 through 8). For helpful hints about reading out loud, click here.

1. The Wish Giver by Bill Brittain
2. The D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths by Ingri and Edgar D'Aulaire
3. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by P.K. Rowling
4. The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes, illustrated by Louis Slobodkin
5. Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli
6. The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pene du Bois
7. Taking Flight by Vicki Van Meter
8. The Wretched Stone by Chris Van Allsburg
9. The Juniper Tree and other Tales from Grimm translated by Lore Segal
10. The Watsons Go To Birmingham, 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis
11. The House of Sixty Fathers by Meindert DeJong
12. Mowgli's Brothers by Rudyard Kipling, illustrated by Christopher Wormell
13. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson
14. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
15. The Bat Poet by Randall Jarrell
16. In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Bao Lord
17. Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar
18. Frindle by Andrew Clements
19. Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
20. The Sneetches and Other Stories by Dr. Seuss
21. What's So Funny, Ketu? by Verna Aardema, illustrated by Marc Brown
22. One Thousand and One Arabian Nights translated by Geraldine McCaughrean
23. The Empty Pot by Demi
24. Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
25. Half-A-Moon Inn by Paul Fleischman
26. Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner
27. Ida Early Comes Over the Mountain by Robert Burch
28. Shrek! by William Steig
29. Afternoon of the Elves by Janet Taylor Lisle
30. The House With a Clock in Its Walls by John Bellairs
31. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken
32. The Twits by Roald Dahl
33. Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine
34. Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
35. The Stories Julian Tells by Ann Cameron
36. The Wheel on the School by Meindert DeJong
37. Tim All Alone by Edward Ardizzone
38. Zlateh the Goat and Other Stories by Isaac Baschevis Singer
39. Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary
40. Even A Little is Something by Tom Glass
41. Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
42. A Penny A Look by Harve and Margot Zemach
43. The Land I Lost by Huynh Quang Nhuong
44. The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Pinkwater
45. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
46. The Wonderful Farm by Marce Aymé

Favorite Out of Print Read-Alouds

This list drives me crazy! These books are by far the read-alouds that have given me and my intermediate students the most joy and success, and they are out of print! These are well worth the hunt at public libraries and used book stores. I can't imagine getting through a school year without them!

1. King Matt the First by Janusz Korczak
2. The Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse by Ursula Moray Williams
3. Princess Longnose by Priscilla Hallowell
4. The Griffin and the Minor Canon by Frank Stockton
5. Soup and Me by Robert Newton Peck
6. The Happy Rain by Jack Sendak
7. Trouble in Bugland by William Kotzwinkle, illustrated by Joe Servello
8. The Devil and Mother Crump by Valerie Scho Carey
9. The Iron Man by Ted Hughes
10. A Little Bookroom by Eleanor Farjeon

My Favorite Childhood Books


These books were my favorites when I was an intermediate reader. A favorite reading memory I have is when my father read aloud The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, changing his voice to match the characters. Or when my mother would read from a short story from a recent copy of The New Yorker at bedtime. Or when my Uncle Dave gave me his entire collection of Dennis the Menace comic books...for keeps! What is your favorite childhood book, or childhood reading memory? If you'd like to share, please e-mail me!

  • A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Miles
    This is not a great read-aloud, it is a more personal book. I remember when my father gave it to me, I was daunted by the "width" of the book. By the time I was finished, I was crying, wishing for a magic button I could press to make 400 more pages appear at the end of the book! Instead, I reread the book a half dozen more times.
  • A Bargain for Frances by Russell Hoban, illustrated by Lillian Hoban
    I was so jealous of the author's talent for dialogue, that when I was six years old I crossed out the name on the title page and wrote my own in. I then ran to my mother, shouting, "look what I wrote!" I named my first son Russell, after this author.
  • Suzuki Beane by Sandra Scoppettone (now out-of-print)
    "Henry and I were going on the road/andwherever we went we would get other kids who weren't allowed to be people and by the time we got to the coast we'd have enough kids to start our own village/where a square could be a square and a swinging cat could swing in peace/and kids could feel things because they do..." Started my dream of my own classroom. Also, a great book of dancing tips.

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