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Yet another delightful story to read aloud with your family from one of my very favorite authors. Andries is a troublesome 10 year old orphan who comes to live with his bachelor uncle in a large lonely house near the Dykstra home (which is quite the opposite - small and overflowing with children). Although his reputation as a troublemaker precedes him and is firmly cemented in the townspeople's heads, the Dykstras, who are less quick to judge, discover that he is really kind-hearted, but lonely. Their friendship helps to build his confidence and cut down on his mischief and help him develop a happy relationship with his uncle.

I first read Betsy-Tacy to my eldest daughters when they were about five and eight years old. How I skipped over this charming book when I was a child I shall never know, but it was as new and delightful to me as it was to them.

As the book opens, Betsy Ray is almost five years old, and is longing for a friend.

“Well, for Pete’s sake!” said Betsy’s father. “Hill Street is so full of children now that Old Mag has to watch where she puts her feet down.”

“I know,” said Betsy’s mother. “There are plenty of children for Julia.” (Julia was Betsy’s sister, eight years old.) “And there are dozens of babies. But there isn’t one little girl just Betsy’s age.”

Enter Tacy Kelly, a new little girl in the neighborhood. After a rocky beginning (due to Tacy’s extreme shyness) the girls become the best of friends – so close, in fact, that Hill Street comes to think of them as one: "Betsy-Tacy."

The magic of the story is that while it is disarmingly simple, it's not simplistic, and, while sweet, not saccharine. It’s enchanting, honest and real. Everything from the way in which Betsy and Tacy play paper dolls:

The five-year-olds were the most important members of the large doll families. Everything pleasant happened to them. They had all the adventures.

The eight-year-olds lived very dull lives; and they were always given very plain names. They were Jane and Martha, usually, or Hannah and Jemima. Sometimes Betsy and Tacy forgot and called them Julia and Katie. But the five-year-olds had beautiful names. They were Lucille and Evelyn, or Madeline and Millicent.

… Both father dolls were sent quickly down to work; the mothers went shopping; the babies were taken out in their carriages by the pretty servant dolls; and the older children were shut in the magazines.

to the death of Tacy’s baby sister, Bee:

“And I’ll tell you what tickles Bee. She knows all about Heaven, and we don’t. She’s younger than we are, but she knows something we don’t know. Isn’t that funny? She’s just a baby, and she knows more than we do.”

“And more than Julia and Katie do,” said Tacy.

is handled with sensitivity that avoids being maudlin, and genuine, affectionate humor. Maud Hart Lovelace knew little girls: their feelings, their friendships and their families.

Betsy-Tacy is the first in a series of thirteen books. (I’ve read only the first four with my daughters: Betsy-Tacy, Betsy-Tacy and Tib, Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill, and Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown. We paused at that point, as a friend had cautioned me that “boys enter the picture” in later books, and my girls were still quite young.) We adore the first four books.

Do be aware that these books are in danger of going out of print. See The Betsy-Tacy Society for more details.

Also, visit Melissa Wiley’s blog for an excellent explanation (scroll down, especially, to the last four paragraphs) of why it's vital that we buy new copies of the books we love and want to keep in print. It’s not enough to write letters to a publisher. We must shout at them with our checkbooks.

And, see Melissa's post about how excellent writing from “old time” authors such as Maud Hart Lovelace can continue to influence the people who are writing for our children today.

This story is about a nine year old girl and her friends and brothers. They all lived in Noisy Village, which was really three farms with seven children running around and being noisy which is why everyone called it Noisy Village. In South Farm lived a boy named Olaf and his little sister Kersten. In Middle Farm lived Karl, Bill and Lisa. In North Farm lived two girls named Britta and Anna. They have a few adventures with the grumpy shoemaker, have trouble coming home from school on time and have many other hilarious adventures, but you will have to read the book to find out about them. I think girls would like this book a little bit better than boys would, but I think your whole family will enjoy this amusing, fast-read book.

Drover's Road is a sheep "station" set way back in the hill country of New Zealand in the 1920s. Gay (Gabrielle) Allan, who lives at Drover's Road with her cousins and her uncle, writes of their happy childhood, of their adventures on the farm, on horseback, and exploring the hills and caves surrounding Drover's Road, in an "upside-down world" (to those of us from the Northern Hemisphere) where at Christmastime the house can be decorated with fresh flowers from the garden and the weather is very warm. It is a world filled with family, humor, hard work and horses.

This Bethlehem Budget Book includes three titles in one volume. The first, Drover's Road introduces us to the Allan family and their adventures, pranks and mishaps as children. When the scheming Cousin Celia starts to turn her attentions toward their bachelor uncle, the children come up with a plan to "discourage" her after hearing one of the family ghost stories. After Gay and her cousin Merry adopt a good-for-nothing dog, he shows a surprising side in a pinch. And as for cousin Hugh's attempts at raising pigs, well... I don't want to spoil it for you. Let's just say this is a great family story you don't want to miss. In the second book Cape Lost, Gay meets her Great-uncle Garnet and does him a great favor for which he is indebted for life. Uncle Dunsany finally gets married and Gay begins to make plans for her future, but perhaps a little prematurely. Finally, in The Golden Country, Gay inherits some land which calls for lots of patience and some interesting adventures. Although she has a bit of trouble getting men willing to work for her on her farm, she finds herself choosing between an array of suitors.

According to the afterword, "Joyce West spent her childhood in the remote country districts where her parents taught in Maori schools. About her stories she said, 'When I began to write, it was with the wish that I might save a little of the charm and flavour of those times and places for the children of today.'"

Drover's Road is a nice place to escape to for awhile with your family, particularly when the weather is too cold or too hot outside. You can spend many delightful hours with the Allans and still ask for more.

The charming and humorous adventures of the children of "Noisy Village" are continued in this sequel, recently reprinted by Bethlehem Books. The children's adventures and creative pranks and business ideas make for a fun family story. Speaking from experience, I can attest to the fact that it's an excellent book to curl up with on a chilly fall afternoon with a couple of little girls on your lap. (My eight year old boy hung around to listen too.)

It may have been the old fashioned cover with all those happy children, or the subtitle, but the fact is, I grabbed a copy of the Penderwicks from the library even though it’s a 2005 copyright: our read-aloud selections are almost never beyond 1950! It took me a while, however, and some research online, before I inserted the CD into the van’s stereo, and not without some trepidation. Needless to say my personal experience with contemporary children’s materials has been… bumpy at best. But this one promised to be different.

By the second chapter, we were hooked. Four sisters and a dog? My girls loved that. A professor dad? With lots of Latin phrases? I loved that. I found pro life themes all over, in references to their loving, deceased mother and other positive references to large families. The story revolves around the family's summer spell in a rented cottage located in a wealthy estate with breathtaking, manicured gardens. The sisters' personalities emerge real and believable: in our conversations about the book we discussed things such as Skye's decision to learn Algebra over the summer, or our desire to read Jane's Sabrina Star stories.

I am delighted to recommend The Penderwicks for family reading. Jane Birdsall’s writing will undoubtedly improve your young readers’, or listeners’ as in our case, writing. It’s like if someone, while captivating them with a simple yet profound story of family and friendship, is able to exemplify to them all of the good writing skills we’ve been trying to still in them for years!

We can't wait for the sequel, coming out next month. And I just love the fact that the author, 42, had never written anything until this. Her writing, to us, had a crystalline quality. And a National Book Award to boot! The CD audio version was read carefully and with very well-done character voices.

Rebecca, Peter and Phyllis are three British children (around the turn of the century) who live in a large, beautiful house in London with their lovely and creative mother and their very attentive father. One night their lives change dramatically when their father is mysteriously called away. The children and their mother have to "play at being poor" for awhile, pack up only what seems necessary and move to a house out in the country near a railway station. The story tells of their adventures in and around the railway station and the gradually unfolding mystery regarding their father. It's a lovely family story and Mrs. Nesbit is quite a gifted and interesting author. In the midst of their adventures, we discover a lot about character and the devotion children should have for their parents. This story is a great read-aloud for the whole family, and can be read independely by mid-grade-schoolers on up.

This set of seven books has been a children's classic for decades (and will soon be released as major motion pictures). The action is focused on a small group of children from our own world (Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve) who are drawn into the activities of a whole separate world - Narnia. The activity extends from our own world, to Narnia, it's neighboring countries, and even other worlds still. Though it is not strictly a parallel to our own world the author ends up showing us a creation-to-apocalypse view of this other world - and in so doing reveals much about the themes that are seen in our own. By seeing another creation (which is not JUST like our own) we are taken out our own mindset and can understand the motives and the majesty of what it must have been like. Most things in Narnia are just enough different to make us think - but still so full of human nature (ironically even in the talking animals of that world) that it is a fascinating exercise for your mind. Discussions of the events and motivations with your children are like a multitude of grapes ripe on the vine - pick ones here and there - you will never finish them all; even in a dozen readings (like honor, duty, charity, worship etc.). The characters are well developed but not hard to understand. In fact, sometimes the fact that a character is such and such an animal is itself revealing! This is a good fantasy story. And it is interesting enough for you and your children to read, discuss and enjoy together.

The Magician's Nephew, although chronologically first in the series, should probably be read after The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.. (Even as children should probably be introduced to the story of Christ and his life before going back to the important stories of the Old Testament).

At first glance, this is a story of magic, drama and journeying to other worlds. Digory and his friend Polly, who live in London in the early part of the 20th century, accidentally discover some weird experiments being performed by Digory's Uncle. Too cowardly to test out his own experiments, he sends them off unwillingly to an adventure in an unknown world.

They find themselves in an enchanted place - a "wood between the worlds" - a quiet, peaceful place filled with trees and pools of water. They soon discover that each pool will take them into a different "world." When they decide to explore one of these worlds, their real adventure begins - and they're in for a wild ride.

The story is, primarily, about the founding of a new world - Narnia. The two children witness its creation and its initial struggles with evil - not unlike those of our own world. Naturally, it presents some of the history that leads up to the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as well.

Like the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, children need not be fully aware of the story's allegorical significance in order to enjoy and benefit from the story. On a simpler level, the story highlights truths about character and consequences that will remain with them for a lifetime.

This most famous, and probably most beloved of the Narnian tales was the first one written, and probably the best place to start. I have heard that the author wished for children to read this book first and then go back to The Magician's Nephew afterward.

Four British children - Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy, are taken to the country to live with an old Professor during World War II, as London was quite unsafe for children. The professor is somewhat eccentric, but kind, and permits them to explore his large estate. While hiding in an old wardrobe, the youngest, Lucy, is amazed to discover that there is no back to the wardrobe - as she pushes past more and more coats, they become scratchier and colder and she begins to realize that she's no longer in a wardrobe. She's in the middle of a snowy forest. Lucy has discovered a strange, unknown world where amazing adventures await her and her siblings.

Long beloved by children the world over, this is a tale of innocence, difficult lessons learned, adventure, friendship and love. Underneath and not immediately apparent to children is an allegory. Some truths about our own world can be seen more clearly through a story that takes place elsewhere.

Narnia is in the grip of the White Witch. Although she promises happiness and delightful things, those who follow her are miserable, and the entire land is immersed in an eternal winter - always winter and without Christmas. The mysterious Aslan, a lion who is greatly feared by the witch, comes to Narnia and things begin to change.

Most parents will quickly realize that Aslan is a figure for Christ who saved the world from the tyranny of sin and death (represented by the witch). There are many interesting details that correspond with this allegory. Although I read the series many times as a child, I wasn't fully aware of the allegorical significance until much later. I wouldn't spoil it for children by sitting down and explaining it to them. The Christian allegory will probably be more meaningful if they are permitted to discover it for themselves.

The story (as well as others in the series) is appropriate as a read-aloud even for rather young children and is written at a mid-grade-school reading level. (Strong readers may be interested in tackling it even earlier.) The book is most powerful, I think, when it can be first introduced in the very simple way that young children enjoy such a book.