Books for Kids in Big Families
During this meal some efforts were made to deal with the question of the Psammead in an impartial spirit, but it is very difficult to discuss anything thoroughly and at the same time to attend faithfully to your baby brother’s breakfast needs. The Baby was particularly lively that morning.
I love reading stories of big families to my kids. There is just something special about a child meeting a character in a similar situation as their own. Especially if your child’s life is a bit off the beaten track.
These days, life in a big family is life off the beaten track. It can also be a little… overwhelming… for everyone.
Kids in big families- especially the older kids- are often asked to contribute quite a lot. My kids probably do more around our home than just about all of their friends. Of course, our house is also full of joy six times over, and I wouldn’t trade the sibling relationships I watch blossom every day for the world.
Even so, we’ve got a lot of little folk running amok over here, and that means it’s often loud, messy, and chaotic.
If books are to be our companions (and: of course they are), then they ought to meet us where we’re at.
We meet a character in a story and instantly feel kinship. We realize that we’re a lot less alone in the world than we otherwise thought we were.
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I love that when we’re reading a book like Five Children and It, my kids laugh out loud at the boisterous little Lamb of a baby. They giggle over the toddler’s antics, and smile affectionately when a character sighs over her daily household duties.
They get it.
If a book has mischievous toddler twins? Well, that’s a no-brainer around here. We’re all in- and every single one of us is laughing through the whole thing.
(Actually, even if you don’t have a pair of twin tyrants running about, but you’re feeling weary and overworked- grab The Seven Silly Eaters and give it a read. You’ll be glad you did.) ;)
Here is a list of my favorite books for kids in big families. It’s just one category in our free Read-Aloud Revival Booklist.
The Mitchell’s Five for Victory and the Moffets are awesome big family books.
Laddie by Jean Stratton Porter and Caddie Woodlawn are two of my families favorites
“The Family of Fourteen, grow a pumpkin”. Is a great picture book we’ve been reading all month about a big multigenerational mouse family growing a pumpkin all together. I wish I could post a picture the illustrations are just darling. Make sure you get the translated version unless you can read Japanese.
Read and loved lots of these as a kid! Other good ones with large families are Happy Hollisters and Hilda Van Stockum’s The Mitchell’s series. https://www.bethlehembooks.com/mitchells-five-victory-1-e-578
I’ve been going through show notes and lists this evening…my children’s “wish list” on amazon went from 97 to 213: Thank you!
I’d love to know of any books that have triplets in them. Our oldest daughter is 6.5, followed by our triplets (2 boys and a girl) that are 4.5, and baby boy bringing up the rear is 13 months old. I’m always on the lookout for books, as you said, that have similarities with my own childrens’ lives.
We’ve read some of these, but there are some that we need to check out. Thanks for the great list! We love reading aloud in the evenings.
Loved “The Saturdays” by Elizabeth Enright. It’s part of the Melendy Quartet
For a picture book I highly recommend The Tiny King by Taro Miura. It has Bright, Beautiful illustrations and highlights the King’s lonely, dull life before he got married and had ten children, and what the difference it made once he had them.
The Happy Hollisters series is great!
The Family from One End Street is good – though like E. Nesbit the sentences get a bit long for a read-aloud! Lots of fun scrapes from a pre-war English family of seven children though.
Somehow I missed this post! I love that there is a whole collection of books for big families. How fun! My kids are only just starting to realize that having six brothers and sisters isn’t “normal” so it’s fun to read stories where it is (sort of!). We’ve already read “Five Children and It” and “All of a Kind Family” – looking forward to checking out some of the others!
Love this! Having grown up in a big family and now starting one of my own, this “genre” is dear to my heart–but somehow I’ve never read 5 Children and It!
I actually wrote a blog post about big families in literature–maybe you can discover something new, too! 😊http://faithehough.blogspot.com/2015/05/what-were-reading-book-about-big.html?q=books+with+big+families
Looks like you have quite alot we’re familiar with and love :-)
Might have some more here though you may already have them on your list, off to read it :-)
http://sevenlittleaustralians.com/posts/books-large-families/
I love Edith Nesbit’s books! Her Story of the Treasure Seekers is another great one. For those interested: I recently wrote an article about books that won’t teach your kids to hate their siblings. You can find it here. http://thefederalist.com/2016/07/05/books-that-wont-teach-your-kids-to-hate-their-siblings/
Brothers at Bat is a great story about an all brother baseball team!!! https://smile.amazon.com/Brothers-Bat-Amazing-All-Brother-Baseball/dp/0547385579?sa-no-redirect=1 Its true too!!!
Lovely collection, thanks. I also love What Katy Did and The Melendy series by Elizabeth Enright.