The fondest memories most of us have of reading aren’t of reading. They’re of being read to.
For me, it’s the bunk bed.
When I was six or seven I got a bunk bed and, even though I could read to myself by then, I still insisted on a bedtime story. So every night my poor mum would climb up the ladder, balance herself somehow, and read to me. I thought I was the coolest kid on the street. Looking back, she was one wobble away from A&E.
That’s what family read aloud books do. They turn ordinary nights into the bit you remember. Grandparents getting all the voices wrong. Parents falling asleep mid-sentence before the kid does. The dog edging onto the bed.
They’re a different kind of book. The kind the adult enjoys reading and the child loves to listen to. Which, if you’ve ever read The Gruffalo for the eight-hundredth time, you’ll know is rare.
So what makes a good read-aloud?
Three things, mostly.
First, rhythm. The best read-alouds are written to be spoken. Read a paragraph in your head. If you stumble, you’ll stumble out loud too. Try it before you commit.
Second, voices. Characters you can actually do a voice for. A wheezing witch. A squeaky dormouse. A villain who needs to sound like a scary grandparent. Half the fun is the adult having a go.
Third, age range. A good family read-aloud works for the seven-year-old and the four-year-old in the same room. The youngest can drift in and out. The oldest can still feel like they’re getting their own book.
Six family read aloud books
All six tick the boxes above. The genres are deliberately mixed so something should suit most houses.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
My first ever acting role was Violet Beauregarde’s dad in a community play. Which means this book has been a fixture in our house for a while now.
Most families know the bones of it already, which makes the first read easy.
Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory has been locked up for years. Then five Golden Tickets are hidden in five chocolate bars, and whoever finds one gets to come inside. Augustus Gloop wins one (the boy who eats anything). Veruca Salt wins one (spoiled rotten). Violet and Mike Teavee make three and four. The fifth is Charlie Bucket, who only gets a Wonka bar once a year for his birthday, and whose family is so poor he can barely believe it.
Inside the factory, every spoiled kid gets exactly what they had coming. And the Oompa Loompas turn up to sing about it afterwards. The songs are a hoot to do with a kid in the room. Pick a voice, commit to it, give the dance a go.
Chapters are short, the voices write themselves, and it works across a wide age gap. Which is exactly what you want from a Roald Dahl.
Fortunately, The Milk
Fortunately, The Milk
A dad pops out to the corner shop for milk. Half an hour later he’s still not back. When he finally walks through the door, the milk is intact and the explanation is… a lot.
What follows is the story he tells his kids. He saw a silver disc hovering over the road. Got beamed up. Then came aliens who wanted to redecorate Earth, a pirate captain, vampires, a hot-air balloon, and a time-travelling stegosaurus called Professor Steg. All while keeping a careful eye on the milk.
It’s funny on every page and short. Could be finished it in 45 minutes flat. The chaos keeps the four-year-old laughing. The older sibling will catch the running joke. Every disaster ends “fortunately, the milk…”
For Gaiman’s spookier side next, Coraline is the one.
The Butterfly Lion
The Butterfly Lion
Fair warning. You might need a tissue or two and a cuddle to round it off (but it’s worth it).
This one’s for the older end of the read-aloud lineup. Nine and up, ideally.
If your child loved Kensuke’s Kingdom, it’s from the same Morpurgo shelf.
Bertie is a boy growing up on a remote farm in the African veld. One day he finds a tiny orphaned white lion cub on his land. He rescues it, raises it himself, and the two are inseparable. Then he’s sent to boarding school in England, and while he’s away his parents sell the lion to a circus. Bertie swears he’ll find his friend again. The butterfly lion is the image that keeps that promise alive.
Best as a one-chapter-a-night book and i’m pretty sure your child will still be thinking about it afterwards.
The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents
The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents
Maurice is a talking cat. His clan of rats can talk too, and they’ve worked out a scam. The rats infest a town, make themselves so annoying the townsfolk are desperate, then a boy called Keith turns up offering to clear them out for a fee. They split the money and move on.
It works fine until they arrive in the town of Bad Blintz. The town already has a rat problem, and two shifty rat catchers who claim to have it covered. Something is living under the streets. Maurice, Keith and the rats end up in something much bigger than a scam.
The slapstick comedy will have the kids howling and the asides from Terry Pratchett are great for the adults. Chapters are a bit longer than the others on this list, so it suits a family that already reads aloud regularly.
Henry Huggins
Henry Huggins
Some nights you’ve got time for one chapter and no more. This is the book for those nights.
Henry is an ordinary boy on Klickitat Street, 1950s Portland. He’s just been complaining that nothing exciting ever happens. A friendly stray dog sits down next to him and eyes his ice-cream cone. Henry takes him home, names him Ribsy, and the two are inseparable. One day Ribsy’s old owner turns up wanting his dog back.
Each chapter is a whole adventure in itself. One before bed and everyone’s satisfied. No cliffhangers, no “one more chapter please”. And Beverly Cleary wrote a stack of these.
Who Let the Gods Out
Who Let the Gods Out
If your child has tried Percy Jackson and wanted something funnier and more British, this is the one.
Elliot wishes on a star. A constellation crashes into a dungheap on his farm. The star is Virgo, and she is fairly sure she’s perfect. Together, they accidentally release Thanatos, the Daemon of Death. They need the King of the Gods and his noble steed to fix it. What they get is a chubby Zeus and a high horse Pegasus.
Best for ten and up. There are four more in the Maz Evans series if this one lands.
A slightly younger line-up
If the kids in your house are younger than seven, these three might be a better option.
For the youngest in the room, the Beatrix Potter Illustrated Collection. Stories are short. The language is old-fashioned but rolls off the tongue (think Peter Rabbit, Mr McGregor, Squirrel Nutkin). And the older sibling secretly still loves it.
Gorilla by Anthony Browne is a picture book that rewards older readers too. It’s tagged age 5, but the artwork has layers an older child will spot. The gorilla’s eyes, the photo on the wall, the recurring patterns. You’ll find new things on the third read.
And if you want poems out loud, The Puffin Book of Nonsense Verse edited by Quentin Blake. One before bed. Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll inside, plus dozens more.
Where will your next family adventure take you?
Finding something for the whole family is a faff. Hopefully one of the picks above works.
If none of them quite fit, the Little Reads library has 3,000+ hand-picked books to dig into. £7.99 a month after a 7-day free trial. Cancel anytime.
One honest note: Little Reads is built for kids who are already book-mad. If yours is still finding their feet with reading, there are apps for the phonics-and-reading-levels stage that fit better.
And if you’re the only one in the house up for reading aloud, that’s fine too. Hand them a chapter and see what they think.
If this list landed, there’s Short-chapter bedtime books for the quick-fix end, and What to read after Roald Dahl for more funny chapter books.