And now, to conclude my read-aloud recommendation series, we get to 15-17-year-olds. Yes, reading aloud can still be fun at that age. We’re disconnecting from technology for a few minutes, connecting as a family, enjoying time as our ancestors did. Get with the program!
Whatever you choose to read will be great if your family enjoys it. Personally, I like to stick with what I consider the classics for read-aloud, simply because they, and we for that matter, may miss out on some good stuff otherwise. Classics are largely being pushed out of the schools these days in favor of newer, sometimes unwholesome, sometimes dumbed-down books. I think that’s terribly sad. Said Robert M. Hutchins: “To destroy the Western tradition of independent thought it is not necessary to burn the books. All we have to do is leave them unread for a couple of generations.” I want my children to be familiar with literary masterpieces from all time periods. I want them to hear and be familiar with how good language sounds. I want them to be acquainted with wise and uplifting thought, as well as just enjoy a timeless story. They can and do read whatever they want to on their own time, so read-aloud time is when I try to make sure we feed our minds more healthy things.
We have not read all of these. This list includes ones I’d like to get to eventually. Please feel free to comment with recommendations of your own.
Mathematicians Are People, Too: Stories of the Lives of Great
Mathematicians, (2 volumes) by Luetta and Wilbert Reimer
Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff
Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian
Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
He Walked the Americas by L. Taylor Hansen
The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Frankenstein: Or the Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley
The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
Emma by Jane Austen
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Abigail Adams: Witness to a Revolution by Natalie S. Bober
Ordeal by Hunger by George Stewart
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
The Greatest Generation by Tom Brokaw
Galileo’s Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith
and Love by Dava Sobel
Marie Curie: A Biography by Eve Curie
The Spirit of St. Louis by Charles A. Lindbergh
Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank Gilbreth
Animal Farm by George Orwell
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
Kon-Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl
The Travels of Marco Polo by Marco Polo
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
Contact by Carl Sagan
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
Who Moved My Cheese? by Dr. Spencer Johnson
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