Read-Alouds for the First Day of School
Here’s a consolidated list of books recommended by teachers for reading aloud on the first day of school, in response to a fifth-grade teacher’s request through Scholastic Teachers’ Facebook page:
One of the teachers reading the 100+ comments to this post asked for a more concise list of the recommendations shared there. Since Scholastic doesn’t seem to follow up on these discussions, I’m sharing the list here. (The first column shows the number of recommendations for each book, if multiple teachers mentioned it; books that were recommended once are then listed in alphabetic order.)
| 16 |
First Day Jitters | Julie Danneberg | |
| 7 | Oh, the Places You’ll Go! | Dr. Seuss | |
| 6 | Thank you Mr. Falker | Patricia Polacco | |
| 4 | How Full is Your Bucket? | Tom Rath | |
| 3 | The Kissing Hand | Audrey Penn | |
| 2 | A Bad Case of Stripes | David Shannon | |
| 2 | Chrysanthemum | Kevin Henkes | |
| 2 | The Crayon Box that Talked | Shane DeRolf | |
| 2 | Don’t Eat the Teacher | Nick Ward | |
| 2 | The Dot | Peter Reynolds | |
| 2 | Help, I’m Trapped In the First Day of School | Todd Strasser | |
| 2 | Hooray for Diffendoofer Day | Dr. Seuss | |
| 2 | One | Kathryn Otoshi | |
| 2 | The Recess Queen | Alexis O’neill | |
| 2 | The Three Questions | Jon Muth | |
| Alexander’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day | Judith Viorst | ||
| Anansi and the Moss Covered Rock! | Eric A. Kimmel | ||
| Bad Dog | Nina Laden | ||
| The Best Place | Susan Meddaugh | ||
| “Big Kids” (In the Land of of the Lawn Weenies) | David Lubar | ||
| Brand new Pencils, Brand new Books | Diane Degroat | ||
| The Class from the Black Lagoon | Mike Thaler | ||
| Courage | Bernard Waber | ||
| Do Unto Otters | Laurie Keller | ||
| Double Trouble in Walla Walla | Andrew Clements | ||
| Earthquake Terror | Peg Kehret | ||
| The Edmund Fitzgerald | Mary-Jo Wargin | ||
| Enemy Pie | Derek Munson | ||
| A Fine Fine School | Sharon Creech | ||
| Froggy Goes to School | Jonathan London | ||
| The Giggler Treatment | Roddy Doyle | ||
| Giraffes Don’t Dance | Giles Andreae | ||
| The Giving Tree | Shel Silverstein | ||
| Goodnight Opus | Berkley Breathed | ||
| Have You Filled a Bucket Today: A Guide to Daily Happiness for Kids | Carol McCloud, David Messing | ||
| Hey, Listen to This: Stories to Read Aloud | Jim Trelease | ||
| Holler Loudly | Cynthia L Smith | ||
| How I Spent My Summer Vacation | Mark Teague | ||
| The Important Book | Margaret W Brown | ||
| The Incredible Book Eating Boy | Oliver Jeffers | ||
| Jackalope | Janet Stevens | ||
| Jazz Baby | Lisa Wheeler | ||
| Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse | Kevin Henkes | ||
| Llama Llama Mad at Mama | Anna Dewdney | ||
| The Lorax | Dr. Seuss | ||
| Martina the Beautiful Cockroach: A Cuban Folktale | Carmen A Deedee | ||
| Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten (K) | Joseph Slate | ||
| Miss Nelson is Missing | Harry Allard | ||
| Miss Rumphius | Barbara Cooney | ||
| The Monster at the End of This Book | Jon Stone | ||
| Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You: … Wonderful Noises | Dr. Seuss | ||
| Mr. Lincoln’s Way | Patricia Polacco | ||
| Mr. Peabody’s Apples | Madonna | ||
| The Name Jar | Yangsook Choi | 1st | |
| “Names” (from The House on Mango Street) (9th) | Sandra Cisneros | ||
| Never Spit on Your Shoes | Denys Cazet | ||
| The Night Before Kindergarten | Natasha Wing | K | |
| Nothing Ever Happens on 96th Street | Ellen Raskin | ||
| On Beyond Zebra | Dr. Seuss | ||
| The Paperbag Princess | Robert Munsch | ||
| Say Something | Peggy Moss | ||
| Scaredy Squirrel | Melanie Watt | ||
| SkippyJon Jones | Judy Schachner | ||
| The Sneetches | Dr. Seuss | ||
| Stephanie’s Ponytail | Robert Munsch | ||
| Tacky the Penguin | Helen Lester | ||
| The Teacher From the Black lagoon | Mike Thaler | ||
| Teacher From the Black Lagoon – | Mike Thaler | ||
| Today I Feel Silly | Jamie Lee Curtis | ||
| The Twits | Roald Dahl | ||
| Verdi | Janell Cannon | ||
| Walk Two Moons | Sharon Creech | ||
| The War with Grandpa | Robert K Smith | ||
| What was I Afraid Of | Dr. Seuss | ||
| Who Moved My Cheese | Spencer Johnson | ||
| Who Stole My Cheese? (parody) | Ilene Hochberg | ||
| Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge | Mem Fox | ||
| Yo! Yes? | Chris Raschka | ||
| Zen Shorts | Jon Muth |
Wow, thanks for doing this!
Thank you!
I was thinking a list would be awesome and there it was! Thanks so much.
Great list. I’ve read many myself over the years, but I always go back to Hooray For Diffendoofer Day. After reading this story, we discuss what makes OUR school so great and what we can do as citizens of our school community to make our school the very best it can be.