So you hope your kids grow into lifelong readers…

No one is born a reader.

It might seem like some kids come out of the womb with a book in their hands, while others are born with a severe allergy to libraries and bookstores. But any child can grow up into a lifelong reader.

A kid becomes a reader because they are formed by the stories and and characters and knowledge they discover in books. They become a reader because reading isn’t just another task to complete; it’s a way of life. Reading is part of the fabric of their closest relationships and best memories. It’s at the heart of their insatiable curiosity and boundless creativity.

“Older kids and teenagers who describe themselves as committed readers tend to have families that read to them since they were young, kept books around as their interests changed and made reading together a genuine priority.”

— William Dee Nichols and Michelle Kearney, University of Maine

So how do you nurture a love of reading and make reading a way of life for your kids… especially when there are so many other things vying for their attention?

Well, one way we’re quite fond of around here is through a family book club.

What is a family book club?

The family book club is a close cousin of the family movie night. In the same way you’d pick a date with your family, choose a movie, and sit down together with popcorn or pizza, you pick a date, choose a book, prepare some snacks, and read aloud together.

Bonus: depending on the book you choose, a family book club takes considerably less time than a movie night!

At its simplest, a family book club is a chance to share a story with the people we love most. What you choose to do beyond that—if you choose to do anything beyond that—is totally up to you!

Leilani Curtis, long before she joined the Read-Aloud Revival team, told me that she’ll always remember the family book club she did for The Man with the Violin, a picture book based on the free concert that violin virtuoso Joshua Bell did in the Washington, DC subway. She read this book with her daughters and husband, before they sat down to a spaghetti dinner (a key detail at the end of the story) while a Joshua Bell playlist soared in the background.

“It was that simple, and that memorable, and I just loved it,” Leilani told me. She also shared that she grew up in a family where reading was present and valued, but viewed more as an individual activity. She appreciates how family book clubs have helped her make reading a thing the whole family can enjoy together.

A family book club also helps you strengthen your family culture. By reading together, you and your family gain really valuable reference points, which turn into inside jokes, shared vocabulary, and even moral frameworks.

Who is a family book club for?

All families can benefit from a family book club! Whether your kids are 2, 8, 12, 16, or all of the above, everyone gets something out of reading together.

One of the great things about a good book is that it can draw us all in together. While it may be difficult for your 12 year old and 16 year old to see eye-to-eye over the after-dinner chores, they are on the same team rooting for Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin as they fight The Black Thing in A Wrinkle in Time. Various elements of the story will strike us in different ways; we’ll learn to see the world through not only the lens of the characters, but through one another.

A family book club offers more benefits depending on age or stage of life. Younger kids get to enjoy the routine of reading together. Older kids get to take a break from tweenage and teenage pressures. Parents get to slow down and savor focused time with the whole family.

We tend to overcomplicate enjoying stories with mixed ages. Just like Pixar movies or classic Disney cartoons have something for everybody, so do many picture books and middle-grade novels. It might surprise you just how much fun kids of any age (not to mention parents) can have when reading a great story together.

Leilani also pointed out that reading together as a family has helped her to get to know her kids even better than she did before. She told me that through the conversations that family book clubs catalyze she’s “actually gotten to know my girls better, and they’ve gotten to know me better. I’ll ask them a question thinking that I already know the answer only for them to completely surprise me!” That’s just one way books help us make meaningful and lasting connections our kids.

What should your family book club read?

Pretty much anything you’ll enjoy reading aloud is fair game. Picture books are our go-to (yes, even with older kids) because they are contained yet immersive experiences for everyone. They’re written with the intention of being read-aloud and shared, so they often contain more complex vocabulary and language patterns than titles written with the developing reader in mind.

Picture books often help kids of all ages (including the grown up kind) think and talk about their emotions in ways they couldn’t before. And because they’re meant to be shared, picture books offer an invitation to explore those emotions together. Picture book biographies and other non-fiction picture books are superb introductions to subject matter kids wouldn’t have known about otherwise.

In a column for The Guardian, Joel Snape noted, “Picture books are a great leveller: anyone can jump into them, anywhere they like, with no need to trudge through the boring early bits to get to the juicy stuff.” Snape himself is now swapping time he spent scrolling social media for time spent flipping through picture books.

We also love middle-grade novels that can be read together over days or weeks. History books and biographies also make for great book club options.

So how does a family book club work?

There is no right or wrong way to do a family book club as long as you’re gathering your family and reading together. But here’s a suggested structure to help you get started and find what works for you.

First, choose your date and time.

How many times have you said you wanted to do something with your family but never got around to it? If you’re like me, it’s more times than I care to admit in public.

That’s why when you commit to starting a family book club, you’re going to be specific about the day and time that it’s happening, and you’re going to put it on the calendar where everyone can see it.

Like any new habit, your family book club experience benefits from repetition. I recommend putting at two meetings on your calendar to start so that you can establish a pattern before you make any big changes. Try monthly to start and then adjust frequency as necessary.

Second, choose your book(s).

Again, anything you’ll enjoy reading aloud is fair game.

If you need some surefire wins, check out our book list of read-aloud favorites. Or this list of first novels to read aloud. Or this (perhaps surprising) list of math read-alouds. Or this list of picture book biographies about writers.

Once you know when you’re meeting and what you’re reading, focus on the 3 Rs: read aloud, relate, and remember.

1. Read Aloud

When you’ve got everyone gathered, read and enjoy the story. This is the foundation for everything else. We make reading a way of life when we make enjoying stories the core of the experience.

Even for kids who read independently, being read to has significant academic, communication, and psychological benefits.

If you do nothing else, reading a book aloud as a family is incredibly valuable all on its own.

2. Relate

Once you’ve read through the story (or, say, a chapter in a longer book), invite your kids to take a closer look.

If it’s a picture book, spend some time with the illustrations and look for hidden clues or details you didn’t notice the first time through. You can also read through the book a second time to fully take in the story.

If it’s a longer book, choose a few details or sentences that stood out to you and ask your kids to do the same. Discuss why those caught your attention.

Use open-ended questions with no right or wrong answers to help your kids feel seen and heard. It’s not a quiz—it’s an opportunity to wonder, get curious, and connect ideas with you. If discussing books with your kids is a bit overwhelming, check out our free guide to talking with your kids about books, including three conversation starters you can use with any book.

3. Remember

Reading aloud is already an immersive experience, but you can make your family book club even more memorable by creating incorporating more of your senses. Share a cozy treat around the table, listen to some music that complements the story, or do an easy craft or or quick writing project.

The more senses you include in the book club, the more they’ll remember the time spent together.

Give it a try!

First things first, put your first family book club on the calendar. Visit the library, your local bookstore, or simply a bookshelf at home and select your book.

Sharing books helps us know and love each other better, and a family book club gives us the gentle structure and time set aside to make reading a way of life for our families.

If you love the idea of a family book club but getting started with one feels overwhelming, we’ve got you covered. Get two of our favorite family book club guides and take the guesswork out of the whole thing. Enter your email address below, and we’ll send them straight to your inbox!