During the school year my kids read every day, partly because their teachers assign daily reading as homework and partly because it’s part of their daily routine. Since regular reading provides so many learning benefits (e.g. improved vocabulary and spelling, better academic performance, and enhanced language skills), I do what I can to promote daily reading even when my kids are on a break from school. I stock up on age-appropriate books at the start of summer to make sure they have plenty of reading material on-hand. There are some great book collections for kids available from Scholastic that make it easy to fill your child’s personal library at a discount.
Pre-K
Before your child can read is the best time to introduce your child to books. Not only does reading to your child provide valuable bonding time for both of you, you’ll be laying the groundwork for good reading habits and skills later on. Scholastic’s Board Book Pack comes with 25 books that are perfect for babies and toddlers. With everything from classic nursery rhymes and songs to new early learning favorites, this bundle is full of books that delight little ones.
Books included in this collection are:
- Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
- One Sheep, Blue Sheep
- Rain, Rain, Go Away
- Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star
- Let’s Get Dressed!
- We Belong Together
- A Color of His Own
- Wet Pet, Dry Pet, Your Pet, My Pet
- The Real Mother Goose Board Book
- Pat the Bunny
- Potty Time!
- I SPY Little Letters
- I Love You Through and Through (Board Book and Plush)
- I Love You, Little Bear
- I SPY Little Numbers
- You Are My Sunshine
- Clifford’s Bedtime Story
- The Itsy-Bitsy Spider
- The Tale of Peter Rabbit
- Are You My Mommy?
- Read to Your Bunny
- The Bear Went Over the Mountain
- Old Mac Donald
- Giraffes Can’t Dance Book and Plush
- A Cuddle for Little Duck
Kindergarten
Emerging readers love fun rhymes, familiar characters, and silly stories which is why Dr. Seuss, Little Golden Books, and Fly Guy are so popular with this group. Scholastic carries boxed sets of each of these three series which results in a substantial savings over buying the books individually.
1st Grade
First grade is such a wonderful reading age! Kids are able to read more independently and the book choices for this age are so fun. I love the first grade library collection from Scholastic because it has so many of my kids’ favorites – Junie B. Jones, Magic Tree House, Magic School Bus, and Judy Moody to name a few.
You’ll likely recognize most of the books in this set since they are such popular titles:
- Junie B. Jones’s First Boxed Set Ever! (1-4)
- Magic Tree House Boxed Set (Books 1-4)
- Magic School Bus Value Pack
- Lotus Lane Value Pack (Books 1-4)
- The Judy Moody Star-Studded Collection: Books 1-3
- The Notebook of Doom Pack (# 1-7)
- Pet Hotel #1: Calling All Pets!
- Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
- Bink and Gollie: The Completely Marvelous Collection
- LEGO Friends: A Puppy Tale (Comic Reader #1)
- Fiercely and Friends: The Big Something
- Fly Guy Presents: Firefighters
- Henry and Mudge: The First Book of Their Adventure
- Missy’s Super Duper Royal Deluxe #1: Picture Day
- Dragon Masters #1: Rise of the Earth Dragon
- Little Rhino #1: My New Team
- Monkey Me #1: Monkey Me and the Golden Monkey
- Rainbow Magic Special Edition: Bailey the Babysitter Fairy
- 3-D Thrillers: Sharks and the World’s Scariest Sea Monsters
- Eerie Elementary #1: The School is Alive!
- The Sugar and Spice Fairies #1: Lisa the Lollipop Fairy
- LEGO Legends of Chima: The Legend Begins (Comic Reader #1)
- The Amazing Stardust Friends #1: Step into the Spotlight!
- Zombie Butts From Uranus!
- LEGO Ninjago: Way of the Ninja (Reader #1)
- Marty McGuire
- Nate the Great
2nd Grade
As kids’ reading skills continue to improve, so does their selection of reading material. My kids loved series with silly characters and creative storylines. Their favorites in 2nd grade included Ramona, Flat Stanley, Black Lagoon Adventures, My Weird School, and Captain Underpants. They also loved books about strange facts which is why I also recommend the Get the Facts pack.
3rd Grade
By third grade, your child is ready to expand his or her horizons. This 3rd Grade Award Winners & Classics Collection is full of titles you’ll remember from your childhood, plus new standouts. It includes a wide variety of age-appropriate books — from the 2013 Newberry winner The One and Only Ivan, to Peter Pan and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry—to help little readers into new genres and themes.
The books included in this set are:
- Mr. Popper’s Penguins
- Shiloh
- One Crazy Summer
- Charlotte’s Web
- The One and Only Ivan
- Bridge to Terabithia
- Nothing but The Truth
- Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
- Anne of Green Gables
- Grimm’s Fairy Tales
- The Phantom Tollbooth
- The View from Saturday
- Peter Pan
- The Adventures of Nanny Piggins
- Pinocchio
- Titanic: Voices from the Disaster
- The Adventures of Robin Hood
- Great Expectations
- The Doll People
- A Single Shard
4th Grade
Fourth grade is the age when I noticed a burgeoning intellectual maturity in my own kids. Though their bodies won’t start to show the signs of the transition to adulthood for a few more years, in fourth grade their minds take a big step forward. If you succeeded in expanding their perspectives in third grade to new genres, they will have a whole world of new reading material to delight and fascinate them now.
Scholastic has two different collections for 4th grade readers. The literary classics collection contains amazing literature that should really be on any child’s reading bucket list. Titles include:
- The Secret Garden
- The Dreamer
- To Kill a Mockingbird
- The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse
- Little House on the Prairie
- Beezus and Ramona
- Julie of the Wolves
- Alice in Wonderland
- A Year Down Yonder
- Jane Eyre
- Becoming Naomi Leon
- The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
- A Little Princess
- The River Between Us
- Enter Three Witches
The adventure classics collection has equally well-known titles but with plots packed with action. The books in this collection are:
- Holes
- The Time Machine
- Dear Mr. Henshaw
- My Side of the Mountain
- Swindle
- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
- The Little Prince
- Peter and the StarCatchers
- The Invisible Man
- The Tale of Troy
- The Door in the Wall
- Gulliver’s Travels
- The Legend of Luke: Redwall
- The Last of the Mohicans
- The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural
5th Grade
The 5th Grade Award Winners & Classics Collection includes 20 noteworthy books to whet a fifth grader’s appetite for reading. Old favorites include Black Beauty and Old Yeller—joining newer ones like Carl Hiaasen’s Hoot and Al Capone Does My Shirts.
The titles in this collection are:
- Hatchet
- Where the Red Fern Grows
- Drama
- A Christmas Carol
- Maniac Magee
- Hoot
- Sounder
- Old Yeller
- Walk Two Moons
- Freak the Mighty
- The Watson’s Go to Birmingham-1963
- Al Capone Does My Shirts
- The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg
- Pictures of Hollis Woods
- Out of the Dust
- The Music of Dolphins
- Black Beauty
- Waterless Mountain
- Words in the Dust
- The Haunting of Gabriel Ashe
Middle School
Once hormones kick in, it can be hard to find books to capture a middle schooler’s attention. Some stories though, pull readers of all ages in and can easily keep your middle school child engaged all summer. My kids’ favorite series in middle school (and frankly, some of my all-time favorite series too!) included The Hunger Games, Divergent, and The Maze Runner.
If you haven’t read these series already, trust me – you’ll want to buy the whole series from the start because once your child starts reading them, he or she will want to move immediately onto the next one to find out what happens next.