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362 reviews for:
The Read-Aloud Family: Making Meaningful and Lasting Connections with Your Kids
Sarah MacKenzie
4.31 AVERAGE
362 reviews for:
The Read-Aloud Family: Making Meaningful and Lasting Connections with Your Kids
Sarah MacKenzie
4.31 AVERAGE
There is time for read alouds in every family! This book is a delight and film of books to read with a variety of ages. Thanks Sarah for inspiring me to keep our family read alouds interesting:)
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
“A good story gives shape to the human experience and touches us in our innermost places. It picks us up right where we are and leaves us somewhere else—changed, transformed, more awake and alive and aware.”
I Absolutely LOVED this book! I left this book feeling motivated, encouraged, and excited to make reading aloud part of our family norm. I highly recommend you read this book!
You will leave this book with a bigger TBR! The author provides a book list for all ages.
✨What Stood Out:
The author talked about 5 myths we believe about reading aloud to our children. The one myth that stood out was the myth that we have to do a lot of reading aloud to make a difference.
“Here’s where this gets good: ten minutes every other day for an entire year equals thirty hours of reading aloud over the course of a year.”
The author spent a chapter providing readers with 10 compelling questions to ask our children about a book read. These questions were so helpful to me.
One of the questions: “ What is something you don’t want to forget from this book (or from this chapter)?”
✨Quotes:
“The single most important activity for building the knowledge required for eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children.”
“reading aloud with our kids is indeed the best use of our time and energy as parents. It’s more important than just about anything else we can do.”
“If we tell them enough stories, they will have encountered hard questions and practiced living through so many trials, hardships, and unexpected situations that, God willing, they will have what they need to become the heroes of their own stories.”
“Fiction allows us to do something that nothing else quite does. It allows us to enter fully into the lives of human beings.”
“Story makes us fall a little more in love with the world we live in and the people God made to live here with us.”
“Our first and foremost priority is to nurture a love for books.”
Of course I loved this book. Even before I had children I looked forward to reading aloud to them. This book wasn’t anything I didn’t already know, since I also listen to the podcast, but absolutely worth it for the book lists and questions to use when discussing books with your children. Now to go add many, many more books to my “future read alouds” list…
Of course I loved this book. Even before I had children I looked forward to reading aloud to them. This book wasn’t anything I didn’t already know, since I also listen to the podcast, but absolutely worth it for the book lists and questions to use when discussing books with your children. Now to go add many, many more books to my “future read alouds” list…
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
Once again, Sarah knocks it out of the proverbial park with The Read-Aloud Family. This book has something for every parent, no matter where you are on your parenting journey, or how you choose to educate your children.
For newer parents she offers encouragement and a simple plan for truly connecting with kids through books. Her friendly, conversational writing style puts the new momma (or daddy) at ease, and her generous anecdotes from her own family help the reader understand the value and worthy investment any (and all) reading aloud to our children provides. (Bonus: she keeps it real and doesn't just pretend to be perfect)
For those of us who are perhaps a little more seasoned as parents, or already listen to the Read Aloud Revival podcast, she didn't forget us either, writing fantastic chapters on mastering the art of conversation and asking compelling questions.
THEN she gets to her (in my opinion) wheelhouse...BOOKLISTS. The booklists AND the books she recommends throughout, are worth the publishing price. Period. My family has yet to be disappointed in any book she has recommended. What's even better is she has done the hard work of reading every single one cover to cover for us, categorizing them by age, and to an extent genre, and often times giving a short synopsis.
I thoroughly recommend this book, no matter where you are in your parenting (or even grand-parenting) journey. My copy is marked up and out on the counter for handy reference. After finishing the book, I went back and ordered 4 more copies to give as baby shower gifts, I think it is that worthwhile.
I received a free ARC copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
For newer parents she offers encouragement and a simple plan for truly connecting with kids through books. Her friendly, conversational writing style puts the new momma (or daddy) at ease, and her generous anecdotes from her own family help the reader understand the value and worthy investment any (and all) reading aloud to our children provides. (Bonus: she keeps it real and doesn't just pretend to be perfect)
For those of us who are perhaps a little more seasoned as parents, or already listen to the Read Aloud Revival podcast, she didn't forget us either, writing fantastic chapters on mastering the art of conversation and asking compelling questions.
THEN she gets to her (in my opinion) wheelhouse...BOOKLISTS. The booklists AND the books she recommends throughout, are worth the publishing price. Period. My family has yet to be disappointed in any book she has recommended. What's even better is she has done the hard work of reading every single one cover to cover for us, categorizing them by age, and to an extent genre, and often times giving a short synopsis.
I thoroughly recommend this book, no matter where you are in your parenting (or even grand-parenting) journey. My copy is marked up and out on the counter for handy reference. After finishing the book, I went back and ordered 4 more copies to give as baby shower gifts, I think it is that worthwhile.
I received a free ARC copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
This book is 5 stars for the questions to ask your children about stories they’ve read and the recommended reading list. This is a very practical how-to, which is exactly what I was looking for.
I found the first 2/3 of the book a bit thin. She’s religious and I could overlook some of the God comments, they’re sprinkled in. Some of the “causation” arguments seem more anecdotal and didn’t really resolve with a logical conclusion. But that’s ok. I knew reading aloud was great, so I was really looking for specific suggestions to make the connection through books.
I will specifically remember her comparison between school book reports and book clubs… no wonder kids hate reading!
I found the first 2/3 of the book a bit thin. She’s religious and I could overlook some of the God comments, they’re sprinkled in. Some of the “causation” arguments seem more anecdotal and didn’t really resolve with a logical conclusion. But that’s ok. I knew reading aloud was great, so I was really looking for specific suggestions to make the connection through books.
I will specifically remember her comparison between school book reports and book clubs… no wonder kids hate reading!
I love a good booklist and this book is filled with applicable strategies to help your kiddos (or students) not only find and maintain a love for reading but to help them grow as only books can do.
Wow, how I wish I would have had this book and known about her podcast when I was a young mother. Sarah is so in tune with kids and parents, she's a mom of six children, and what obstacles come up when reading to your children. This is a meaningful book with so much information on the hows and whys to read aloud and in the back are tons of book recommendations.
An inspiring book about the importance of reading aloud to your kids of all ages . . . But a little pushy with religion.
Unfortunately, the author of this book seems to assume that everyone is Christian and will be interested in her frankly not-very-interesting musings on Christian theology along the way . . . But that having been said, the journey is a good one, as she takes us through why we should read aloud as families, and then gets into how (with different recommendations for different ages of children - including, if course, her favorite Bible to read aloud to each age group). I'm glad I read this, and I took lots of useful ideas from it, I just needed to tune out some sermons . . .
Unfortunately, the author of this book seems to assume that everyone is Christian and will be interested in her frankly not-very-interesting musings on Christian theology along the way . . . But that having been said, the journey is a good one, as she takes us through why we should read aloud as families, and then gets into how (with different recommendations for different ages of children - including, if course, her favorite Bible to read aloud to each age group). I'm glad I read this, and I took lots of useful ideas from it, I just needed to tune out some sermons . . .