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So I'm at the point of coming up with my list for read-alouds for Beyond and I'm having a problem in that I want to choose them all! I know I have boys - but even the girls list looks good! What's a book-lovin' mama to do? Anyway, I know that they're all top choices, but I figured I'd come here and ask if you could share your very favorite Beyond storytime books. We do have a few from the classic list and boys list already on our bookshelves, but I'm not going to tell which ones so as not to sway your answers. (And no fair listing them all! ) Thanks, ladies!

My girls do not like listening to books being read to them, so that should let you know how good these books are!

We got the girl pack for Beyond, except we traded The Cabin Faced West with First Flight.... We have not read Paddington yet, but other than that the only one DD1 did not like out of the whole package was Ginger Pye, and it was simply the length... it seemed like we were reading forever, even to me... They also love any of the Little House books...

My daughters favorite book so far was Helen Keller. That was the first book we read this year and she still talks about it. We are currently reading the Millers Missionary Stories for the nonfiction genre and her and my son both are liking it. My son is in kindergarten and I am reading him the Thorton Burgess stories so I don't expect him to sit in on hers, but he keeps listening to this one and asking questions, this is the boy who can barely answer any of the questions for his own read aloud. My daughter also really liked The Trumpet of the Swan.

We are going to do Beyond next year as well. What I did was print out all the descriptions from the HOD website, read the 3 different choices from each genre and we each picked which one sounded like the best. Whatever book had the most votes, is going to be our read aloud. The rest of the books are on our read aloud list for this summer and evenings with daddy. Just a thought.

From the classic set:
Hist. Fic-Little House in the Woods (We simply could not pass this one up, with our love for all things Little House...)
Fantasy-Charlotte's Web


From the boy set:
Bio-Squanto (They loved this....and learned a lot about being fair/just)
Adventure-Sword in the Tree
Mystery-The Key to the Treasure(They were at the edge of their seats with this.)
Humor-Mr. Popper's Penguins (My son and daughter loved this)
Folk Tale-The Apple and the Arrow (My son loved learning about the crossbow.)

We read the above, we also read A Lion to Guard Us (Adventure option from the Girl's pack) and Trumpet of the Swan (Fantasy from the Girl's pack)...we prefered The Sword in the Tree for Adventure,though. We loved our book selectionsEither way...any of the books would be great! Have fun!

We've loved the Little House books, too. I actually haven't done Beyond yet...but should start it this next year mid-school year. When I did Bigger with my son we did a couple of the books. Key to the Treasure and The Apple and the Arrow were GREAT! The Apple and the Arrow was our favorite. Grant has his own bow and loves to hunt with his dad, so he was in awe of William Tell and is aspiring to learn to shoot like him.

I don't know what set I'll choose when I get there with Allison. "All of the above" sounds great, but I also know that keeping our days short & sweet is one of the things I love about HOD. I'll just read different books with each child so I get to read them all! I like to use the HOD book list in the winter to go to the library and pick books for me to read (by myself). I haven't been disappointed yet! I'm so glad that my kids are being exposed to these great books that I wasn't as a child.

Kathleen

We have liked all of the books so far but there have definitely been favorites:
Biography - Helen Keller
Fantasy - A Cricket In Times Square (probably my sons all time favorite), we also read the Trumpet of the Swan and really enjoyed it (again)
Mystery - Phoebe the Spy by Judith Berry Griffin (we also read The Key to the Treasure and Ginger Pye - they were both good but all three kids I'm homeschooling liked the Phoebe book better)
Non-fiction - Pagoo

My kids love to be read to so we usually pick one book in each genre to read during school time but then I'll choose the other books from that same genre to read at bedtime or to have Dad read to them. I never have to feel like we are missing out on any good books that way either.

We are going to use the classic set, but I have been reading from both the boys and girls list to my son this year. His favorites have been (he is barely 5 so on the younger side):
Paddington
Mr. Poppers Penguins
The Cricket in Times Square
The Trumpet of the Swan (his all-time favorite)
Ginger Pye

The only book we have ever chosen on a read aloud list that none of us liked and did not end up finishing was The Railway Children. It was just too over the top for that age group. Maybe I got the wrong addition, I don't think there were any pictures. All the rest were good or Great! Although Bigger Read alouds were even better.

Our favorite this year has been A Cricket in Times Square. We liked it so much that we had to go to the library and get Tucker's Countryside and read it. All of the books have gone over pretty well. The only one that we're not into as much is Mountain Born and it is our current book so it could just be the time of year. We read Squanto, A Lion to Guard Us (I was surprised how much we enjoyed this), Key to the Treasure (it was great and I got more in the series for us to read), Pagoo (I was surprised that Non-fiction could be this interesting and fun). We have several more to read that we haven't gotten to yet. I don't think you can go wrong with any of them, but do get A Cricket in Times Square. I think your boys will love it! Both my son and daughter did!

We have read:

benjiman West and his Cat Grimalkin
The Twenty One Balloons
The Cabin Faced West
Kildee House
Ginger Pye
If you lived 100 years ago
The adventure of Happy Jack (we had already read Mr. Poppers Penguins
Follow my Leader
Children's book of Virtues

We loved them all! and we pick different ones the 2nd time through beyond.

So many to choose from! Here are some of our favorites (for both my sons and dtr):

Ginger Pye--- they really got into it, esp. with Carrie's ideas that go along with Storytime
The Sword in the Tree
The Cricket in Times Square (my boys esp love it, and we also read Tucker's Countryside after)
All Little House books are great (dtr)
Sarah Whitcher's Story
Key to the Treasure
Mr Popper's Penguins
All EB White books!
The Cabin Faced West (starts a little slow, but they got into it after a while)
McBroom's Wonderful One-Acre Farm (that is in the DITHOR pack, but I did it as a read-aloud for humor, and they LOVED IT. It is hilarious if you read it with the right accent!

I've switched up between some of the DITHOR books and the sets, as far as storytime goes. There are so many good choices! You really can't go wrong!

Well, I can't remember all the books we read. The one that stands out is The Cricket in TImes Square. My dd loved it and my son, who was doing a different 'program' at the time, also came over to listen in. We checked out Tucker's Countryside later and it was also well-loved by all.

Kathleen had a great idea....I may have to use the book list to check out books for myself. Why didn't I think of that? Then I can also read all the books I never did when I was a child!

We really enjoyed:
Biography: Squanto and Helen Keller
Non-Fiction: Pagoo
Humor: Mr. Poppers Penguins
Folk Tales: In Grandma's Attic (Though we haven't gotten to this genre yet, we read and loved this book last year so we'll probably look for More Stories from Grandma's Attic this time around.)

Thanks ladies! This is exactly what I was hoping for. The Cricket in Time Square was one of the books that I already have, so I'm excited that you've all loved it so much. This is great info.
(I also realized as I was reading all of your replies, that I'll have another chance to pick a different mix of books in a couple of years with my younger little man because I'm sure he'll be listening in on big brother's reading time this year. And that thought made me )