Read Alouds

[Lorie]

I'm looking for suggestions of novels to read aloud to high school students across the content areas? There is a big push in my district and teachers are required to read aloud twice a week to their students; as the reading specialist, they are coming to me for suggestions. Thank you!

[Misty]

Perhaps you could try something by a local author. I live near Clemson, SC, and our students really enjoy Ron Rash. They find it intersting that our area is included as the setting of many of his novels and short stories. Good luck! -Misty

[Journeywoman]

How old are the kids? HS freshmen or HS seniors?

My husband and I read aloud to each other. Here are some of our favorites:

The Hobbit
Great Expectations by Dickens (This is really amazing read aloud, so much so that we are in the middle of Tale of Two Cities. Remember that this is how people read Dickens, as a weekly bit in a newspaper, often read aloud in a group.)

For HS Seniors may I suggest
The Great Santini
The Lords of Discipline both by Pat Conroy.

Hope this helps.
JW

[Crystal]

King of the Lost and Found by John Lekich is very funny and great for reading aloud. His previous book The Loser's Club has been very popular with high school teachers and librarians.

[Elaine]

Thanks for the advice! I'll check it out.

[bjneary]

Lorie, I also think the many novels in verse are good because for those that have short attention spans, the free verse is great at getting to the point. So Sonya Sones, Ron Koertge, Mel Glenn are great. Also, some books "Fat Kid Rules the World", "Bucking the Sarge" and any of Laurie Halse Anderson books and Sharon Draper books. Everone else has posted some great comments- I am reading King of the Lost and Found and that is great too!

[Heather Marie]

Hey Lorie. Good read aloud books, from my experience, have lots of imagery and aren't too long, no more than 200 pages. Some I've done with my 10th and 11th graders are these: Motorcycle Diaries by Ernesto Che Guevara; Animal Farm by George Orwell; excerpts from any of David Sedaris's books; The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky; The Color of Water by James McBride; Lord of the Flies by William Golding. I also read Krik? Krak! aloud last year and had a lot of success with it. The unit was mostly about cultural storytelling which lends itself to oral tradition and read alouds as well as lots of historical context. I've also found that most plays are great read alouds, although they require multiple people to participate. Good luck!

[Jessica]

i teach a younger set of kids, but one thing that i did with success is let the kids decide. i choose like 5-6 books i love and read the first chapter of each to them and then for an assignment they had to fill out a ballot (which included writing a paragraph to explain their vote) for one of the books.

[Alexis]

I'm a bookseller and I always recommend Daniel Pinkwater's The Education of Robert Nifkin. It's one of his high school stories--short and hilarious but also realistic.

And what about good thrillers? M.T. Anderson's Thirsty is about a guy who realizes he's turning into a vampire--it's actually a great metaphor for adolescence. Really smart humor, very compelling.

These are both books that have GREAT beginnings.

[J-Lynn Van Pelt]

I've been doing read alouds for years with middle and high school students. The most successful have been Holes by Sachar, Esperanza Rising by Ryan, Anything in the Harry Potter Series, Tears of a Tiger by Draper (tough topics, but so worth it--the discussions are amazing!), anything in the Alex rider series by Horowitz, The First Part Last by Johnson (very quick!), Ella Enchanted by Levine, and Night by Elie Wiesel (my class attendance went way up!, An Abundance of Katherines by Green, Anything by Tamora Pierce.