Books to Read With Your Grandchildren (Even When They're Far Away)
Family Reading
How to make reading aloud work over a video call, which books survive it, and a short list of picture books worth keeping at your house.
Reading to a grandchild who lives an hour away is easy. Reading to one who lives a plane ride away takes about ten minutes of thought and then becomes the best part of the week.
I've watched grandparents do this well, and the ones who make it stick all do the same few things.
Keep a shelf at your house
Buy your own copies. Not the ones you gave them - the ones that stay at yours, on a shelf they can reach. Children who visit twice a year still build a relationship with a book they know lives at Nana's house, and the second visit starts where the first one ended.
Two or three picture books is enough to start. Add one every birthday.
Read the same book at the same time
For reading over a video call, agree on the book in advance and both have a copy. Then your grandchild can hold theirs and turn the pages with you, and the screen becomes a window rather than a performance.
Ten or fifteen minutes is plenty. The trick is to do it on the same day each week so it becomes a fixture rather than an event - Tuesdays after school works better than "whenever we can".
Choose books that survive not being pointed at
Over a call you can't put your finger on the picture, so the best books are the ones where the story carries the meaning and the child can follow by listening:
- A clear, single problem - they can hold the whole plot in their head without the pictures doing the explaining.
- Repeating refrains - anything with a line they can say along with you. This is what makes a call feel like a game rather than a lesson.
- Not too much text per page - a page you can read before they lose the thread of the image on their own screen.
- A warm ending - you're the one who says goodnight, in effect. That matters more over a call than in person.
Let them do the talking
The grandparents who do this best spend about a third of the call reading and the rest asking. "What would you have done?" and "who else should come along?" work at any age, and they're the reason a call becomes something a child asks for.
If you want more of those questions written down, I keep a list of twelve to ask while you read together - they work just as well down a phone line.
A short list worth starting with
- Cuddles Loses His Home - gentle enough for a three-year-old on a call, with a problem they can state themselves.
- Penny and the Silver Stream - for a five- or six-year-old who's ready for a proper adventure.
- 25 Easy Baking Recipes For Kids - the one to bake from on a visit, rather than read down a line.
All of them are on the books shelf here, and every one is written to be read aloud rather than read silently.
One thing for you, not them
If you're the one reading, it's worth having something on your own shelf too. My husband and I both took up new interests after the children left home - mine was writing these books - and there's a whole site of practical, unhurried guidance for that stage at Awakesol, including the sort of books that suit a grandparent with an hour to themselves.
Reading to a grandchild is one of the few things that gets better with a little planning rather than more effort. Same day, same book, ten minutes, and the shelf at your house.
The book lives at Nana's. That's the whole system.