What are your favorite booklists?

What a great question!  And it's one I get ALL the time!

There are hundreds of booklists out there, so how do you begin to sort through them, and find the good, true, and beautiful choices?  I certainly don't have an exhaustive list for you to work from, but I do have some tried and true resources that I highly recommend!

For years and years, our family has wandered through libraries, armed with books full of booklists, and they have truly shaped our family AND our home bookshelves.

Each child would take one list, look the books up in the library's system to their heart's content, and then fill a basket with possibilities.  The memories we have of lingering in the library are still some of our favorites!  And, even though the library has changed in many ways, I pray that these treasures will bless your family as you wander the aisles, or build your own library bookshelves full of treasures.

As you can see from the books offered here in my shoppe, almost everything I stock has been curated from lists that we have loved for years.  This includes a few different curriculum lists, like Beautiful Feet Books, Simply Charlotte Mason, Five In a Row, and My Father's World.  And, of course, our top favorite list comes from my dear friend and mentor, Carole Joy Seid, of Homeschool Made Simple, who has shaped much of our reading years.  

In addition to those curriculum-based lists, I have also enjoyed finding new treasures from people like Sarah Mackenzie at Read Aloud Revival, Amber O'Neal Johnston at Heritage Mom, and Nicole at Sabbath Mood Homeschool.

Of course, it is always helpful to look through award winners, too, like Caldecott Book Winners or Newberry Award Winners, or the authors who won the Laura Ingalls Wilder award!

And, then, my most favorite way to peruse lists is by---you guessed it!---looking through books about books!  I have a whole bookshelf dedicated to this very thing, and these booklists are priceless to me.  I will never part with them! I pray that someday, I'll be entering libraries (or walking into my own library nook) with my grandchildren carrying these same beloved copies.

Here are my TOP TEN favorite books about books (with incredible booklists inside!):

• Honey For a Child's Heart, by Gladys Hunt.  
• Honey for a Teen's Heart, by Gladys Hunt.  

Both of these guides have wonderful booklists that will delight every age, from toddler to teenager, and includes a description of each and every title!  Chapters are divided by age, and then by genre. These have been by far our most dearly loved and well-used references of all.  

• Books Children Love, by Elizabeth Wilson
• Give Your Child the World, by Jamie Martin

Two more resources that have shaped our reading lives are from Elizabeth Wilson and Jamie Martin, both of whom not only give great suggestions, but have spent years and years reading to their own children and grandchildren---which always sparks my curiosity to hear what has shaped another family's reading life!  Books Children Love is divided by fun genres, such as animals, celebrations, biographies, nature, special needs, and of course literature---and these creative divisions made it my daughter's FAVORITE resource to carry to the library.  Give Your Child the World is divided up into book suggestions that celebrate and inform us of the nations of our world, helping us to "raise globally minded kids one book at a time", another value that we cherished greatly in our home. 

• Who Should We Then Read? by Jan Bloom
• Book Girl by Sally Clarkson

What do I even say about these two?  They are truly a GIFT!  There is something special about getting book recommendations from those who are true book lovers themselves, and both of these show it!  I have had the honor of meeting Jan Bloom many times over the years, as I shopped from her at homeschool conferences and learned about so many wonderful books from her.  If you don't have this TREASURE of a booklist, you must get it!  It includes years and years of her careful work of cataloguing and annotating every book you could think of in the world of classic literature for all ages.  And, of course, Sarah Clarkson is a bosom friend to me--I have no doubt if I ever did get to sit for tea with her, we would have much in common.  Her book describes her "journey through the treasures and transforming power of a reading life" and has so many wonderful recommendations inside!

• The Read Aloud Handbook, by Jim Trelease
• The Read Aloud Family, by Sarah Mackenzie

These two resources were not ones I had at my disposal when my children were young, but they are ones I have repeatedly visited and learned from in recent years! If I had all the time and space here, I would share a hundred quotes with you from these two incredible authors, and defenders of the power of reading as families. Not only will they offer you tons of great booklists to learn from, but they both offer inspiring perspectives on the treasure of reading aloud--and reading GREAT books--that will make you want to build a great library, and read aloud to your kids forever!

• Reading with Children, by Anne Eaton
• Realms of Gold in Children's Books, by Bertha Mahony and Elinor Whitney

I'll end with these two, not because they're less valuable to me, or less helpful to families---but because they are both older books and may be harder to find.  As a lover of old books that have stood the test of time, I ADORE these two books full of suggestions.  There is nothing like perusing a booklist from 1940 in Reading With Children, and seeing that many of the books we love and cherish are included there.  Ms. Eaton says that "it has been her untiring aim to help the Lincoln School boys and girls not only to use books, but to find the joy of books for no other end but the pleasure itself". DREAMY. And, what a delight to also read the first words of the editors who published Realms of Gold in 1929, who say, "the booklist which makes up Realms of Gold has grown out of the work and activities of The Bookshop for Boys and Girls, Boston, which opened in 1916 with its special interest then as now in books for young people".  Again, DREAMY. I just swoon and squeal and imagine what that bookshop was like.  And, then I go immediately and smell the old pages and get teary over the treasures of each chapter.  

So, as you can see, I'm a sucker for a good booklist, and I'm indebted to so many who took the time to write about and carefully curate their favorites over so many years. These authors and readers and mothers and teachers and bookshop owners and professors are the backbone of Yellow House Story Shoppe...and of our family's legacy of stories, adored and enjoyed in every era of life together.  I pray the same will be true for your families!