Point blank, I don't want my kids growing up to be terrible, closed minded, uneducated people. For context, I live in the south. My kids are seven and eight. I am not religious but say the Lord's Prayer every night because at this point it is tradition and routine and if they so choose to be religious in the future I will support them there. They're great kids, respectful, gentle souls who I truly want to guide on the right path. I would really like to find a list of books that I could be reading at night that could help shape them into wonderful human beings for the future. I remember my dad, who is also a wonderful soul, read me goosebumps as a child. So far we've done the first few books of Harry Potter. Narnia. A lot of younger books. But the current situation here, I want to try my best to shape their minds into where we are going.
Age appropriately is the goal
by Open_Breakfast_9610
4 Comments
I would start with the Newberry book award winners. That is a spectacular list of books that have been thoroughly vetted and are the appropriate age for your children. The more recent books are full of diversity and will help your kids to think about things outside of diary of a Wimpy kid.
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C Wrede. The whole series is about defying convention to do what is right for you – a princess runs away to live with dragons, a witch fights for her right to have cats that aren’t black and put cheerful flowers in her garden, Rumplestiltskin starts a boarding school to take care of all the babies he “wins” from gold spinning, the giant from Jack tires of pillaging and becomes a consultant, etc.
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry and the series it is a part of by Mildred Taylor might be a good start to helping your kids understand some of the racial dynamics that have happened in the south just in the past 100 years. I know I read it as a kid but I can’t remember if I was quite that young so you may want to preview to make sure it’s age appropriate (some parts can be a little bit scary, there’s definitely some violence)
I grew up on a lot of the Newbery Award winning books – there’s a full list [here](https://abqlibrary.org/newbery/All). Some of them again may be more appropriate in a couple more years but there is a lot of great historical fiction that will help them learn about things outside their normal circle of interaction
Tamora Pierce books maybe!