The Read-Aloud Handbook (7th Edition), Jim Trelease

The Read-Aloud Handbook (7th Edition, publication date 2013)
Jim Trelease
ISBN: 9780143121602
Read February 4, 2014

Nonfiction; education, parenting.

Background info: This nifty volume is in two parts: the first is an educational/parenting treatise giving the then-current state of research into why reading is paramount, and especially why reading TO kids is so important.  The second half is a listing of various titles that the author believes are suitable for being read aloud to kids, divided into categories like wordless books (yeah, I know) poetry, nonfiction, and various age-groups.

Each subsequent edition has recognized that there's no reason to purchase or read a new edition if nothing much has changed, so the author and publisher have done a decent job in the first half at updating the research, changing out the vignettes, and including the current state of affairs each time around.  For the second half, the titles recommended are cycled through, with special attention paid to titles currently out of print or difficult to find (those being either removed from the listing entirely, or noted as such if they are thought too good to miss).

So, with all that in mind, let me say here that last spring I discovered this resource existed, and I went on a binge-read right before the Summer Reading Program, placing requests on each edition (yes, all 6 of them), and checking out the different recommended reads, and thoroughly enjoying the first half of each book (which were, although slightly different each round, almost literally a repeated paean to librarians and readers).  The only one I couldn't get was this last edition, which our system couldn't borrow until it was a bit older.  Well, it got a bit older, and it arrived today!  Yay!

I haven't gone through the book recs yet, but I did take a while to read through the first half (and it has grown now into almost half) of this very-well-researched presentation of the current research into reading, the sorry state of our educational system (I want to move to Finland) and how parents and educators can individually contradict these bad influences by READING MORE!!!

My kind of book!

On a slightly more serious note, if you're interested in learning about what the deal is with received language, how kids learn vocabulary, and how to put your kid on the top of the scrap heap called life, read this edition of this book.  The other editions are of course out of date, so I'd only recommend them if you are interested in seeing how the history and the research developed (which I was, and I thought was fascinating, but then I'm a nerd).

I'm sure that this record will be seeing the evidence of the other half of the book as soon as I get a chance to dig into the lists and learn of interesting titles I've missed.