Favorite Children's Books to Read Aloud

Our library is busy building a list of 100 of the top children's books.  As a storyteller, I have just a handful of my most favorite books to read to children.  By far the story I love to tell the most is The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams.  There are several ways of reading the story.  First is to read the story without the children's involvement.  The story builds and as the little old lady is nearing her home, the pace builds quickly and the words should be read faster and faster until she is safely in her cottage.  Then the pace can quiet down as she rocks.  The line that reads, "Should she answer it?" can be asked of the children.  Some will say "yes" and some will say "no."  Remind the children that she is not afraid of anything!
 

A second way to read to a group of older children is to have the children act out the parts of the scarecrow as the little old lady meets them.  The children will shake for the shirt, clap for the gloves, tap their feet for the shoes, as so forth.  The children will need to be standing for the story.  If you do not want the children standing, they can help repeat the repetitive lines in the story.  

Another favorite book is Owl Babies by Martin Waddell.  This story involves three little owls waiting for their mother to come home.  The children can relate to their having to wait for their mother at different points in their lives.  The three owls each have a distinctive voice inflection.  The oldest (I feel Sarah is the oldest) has a normal tone, Percy is a bit higher inflection and Bill, the baby, has the highest pitch, very baby-like tone.  At the point where the owls feel like their mother will never come back and they close their eyes, I ask the children if the mother will come back.  Some of the children say "yes" and some say "no."  In your best "mother" voice say "What's all the fuss..."  If the children at the story time with their mother, I ask after the story is over to give their moms' a hug.  

A favorite fairy tale to tell is Three Billy Goats Gruff.  This is a traditional story that works well with a flannel board.  There are several flannel kits and a variety of books that tell this story.  The best part of the story is to modulate your voice to the size of the goat.  The wee or little billy goat gets a high pitched voice, middle-sized voice for the middle brother and booming, loud voice for biggest goat.  The ogre gets a version of the biggest goat, but I like to add a bit of a comical inflection.  When the biggest goat says, "I am the biggest..." the ogre gets a "Hummm?" that is somewhat of a Simpson's character's voice.  I try not to make the ogre's death a big deal, he just floats down the river never to be seem again.

Later blogs with include other favorites.