My kids are high schoolers now but since they were very little we’ve occasionally read books aloud with one another as a family, sometimes taking turns with the reading. Summertime and vacations car trips have been the prime opportunities, but we made it part of the bedtime routine off and on too. In the age of audio books and individual devices I don’t know if other families do this much anymore (my family did when I was young). It has been a lot of fun and we share memories of good stories we all know from having read them together. Some of our favorites have been:
Swallows and Amazons
The Phantom Toll Booth
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase
Harry Potter
The Teacher’s Funeral (ANY book by Richard Peck was a hit)
The Septimus Heap series
My kids are grown & gone, but I used to read aloud in the car when we went on trips. I read all of the Narnia books, and H loved them as much as the kids. Every Christmas Eve, we read Twas the Night Before Christmas. And my S & I read together, taking turns every page, through 7th grade - he loved sharing his books from literature class with me, and we had a lot of great conversations that stemmed from the books.
We read aloud when our D was little all the time. We would read one page and she would read the next. We got through the first Harry Potter book that way.
We do read aloud. My girls are 17 and 15 but they’ve never outgrown me reading to them. My 17 yo had me read over FaceTime when she was at a semester school, and requested we continue that once a week when she’s at college. We prefer light, fun, and frivolous reads, my favorite of which was probably Beauty Queens by Libba Bray.
We enjoyed both audiobooks and read-alouds. Special favorites were the marvelously complex fantasy novels of Diana Wynne Jones. Great fun to stop and discuss.
At Christmas we take turns reading an array of seasonal stories, essays and poems. One year I neglected to “pre-screen” a story by Willa Cather that seemed to be Christmas-related. My family will never let me forget that ghastly story in which Santa’s reindeer try to cross a river, and most of them drown…
I have never liked reading aloud or being read to. In fact, I don’t process anything longer than the first 30 seconds. I love to read , mind you. Love. It’s just I get distracted when hearing books aloud, so no audio books for me. Was so happy when the kids could read to themselves!
I read aloud to my daughter every night until she was maybe in eighth grade. I remember reading Stuart Little and Charlotte’s Web as a family at home. I read aloud to my husband in graduate school after he had eye surgery. I read aloud often when my husband and I go out in our canoe. He fly fishes, I read.
I read the Harry Potter series, complete with voices, to son and DH as they came out. All those years of HS forensics came in handy there. My husband loves when I read out loud but it always puts him to sleep.
Super fond memories all around I think!
Chronicles of Narnia and Harry Potter. Some Shakespeare too.
We (4 of us) read the last HP book aloud in an overnight marathon of passing the book around the table.
DS started reading on his own very young but I do remember one summer reading him Peter Pan while lounging in the hammock. I did have many nights reading at bedtime. but that’s not the same as family reading.
I love reading aloud but hate being read to as I just don’t retain it as well. I do all my reading aloud in the car; if we have to go somewhere and the trip is longer than 15 minutes or so, I read. When the kids were younger I did more family friendly reading (Harry Potter series, The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings trilogy, A Series of Unfortunate Events for example) but now it is mainly just my H paying attention (keeps him awake as he drives) so we pick things we think we will enjoy:
A few Nancy Drew mysteries
Gone with the Wind
All the Game of Thrones books currently written
About half of the Aubrey/ Maturin (Master and Commander) books
Cell, The Stand, Skeleton Crew etc by Stephen King
Some classics like Treasure Island, Dracula, Sense and Sensibility, A Room with a View plus more
Non fiction books and news articles too
Every once in a while, even though I think they aren’t listening, I get a question from the back of the car regarding some plot point so I guess some of it does filter through!
We read to kids before bed until 9th-10th grade (after which, their homework often kept them up later than their middle aged parents). And on long trips, always listened to books on tape, such as King Arthur stories etc.
Some of our favorite “chapter books” – The Penderwicks – a charming 3 book series about a widower with 3 girls (4 girls?) which feels “old fashioned,” like Anne of Green Gables or Louisa May Alcott books, though set in an indeterminate modern age. My boys loved those books. Swallows and Amazons (an endless series, I grew soooo bored but kids loved it). Mismantle series – anthropomorphic squirrels and other beasts, a la Wind in the Willows (which I also loathed, but read, faithfully). The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings series. Louisa May Alcott (Little Men will always be my favorite).
No- not since kid became a silent reader. We read far too fast to wait for words to be spoken. Lack patience for it.
Our junior year HS honors English teacher would read aloud to us on a regular basis. I think we could bring in a snack- but he could take one so you learned to have two.
On Fridays my eighth grade algebra teacher would have “Mr. X’s Bubblegum and Story time Hour” He was a great reader and would read either short stories or selected chapters from current novels. He turned the entire class into readers. Since he only read parts of books you had to get the book to read for yourself. (Btw he was a good math teacher also)