Books, Podcasts & Magazines Part 1: Bright Kiddos

Do you have a kid who flies through books faster than you can go “click-click” on a Kindle? Is it tricky to allow them to access knowledge at a high level but to stay within kid-appropriate intensity levels? Do you need more interesting podcasts for curious kids this summer? Or how about some magazines and news options? Take a look at these suggestions and see if you get any fresh ideas for your list.

Podcasts for Kids (and kids-at-heart, too!) These are great for time in the car, or during “down” time.

• Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe: Note: this is intended for an adult audience, but curious kids love it. Just keep in mind ads and a bit of humor are not specifically with kids in mind. Discuss black holes, quarks, quazars and more with the dynamic duo of a particle physicist and a comic book creator.
• Smash, Boom, Best: An entertaining debate show for kids. They will learn about spotting logical fallacies along the way.
• Wow in the World: Humorous, silly and packed full of science.
• Brains On: Award-winning science podcast for curious kids.
• Greeking Out: Presented by National Geographic Kids, the retelling of Greek Mythology. Note: I have NOT listened to this one, yet! But loads of families have recommended it. The others are personal recs.

Keeping Your Reader Well-Stocked without Breaking the Bank

Pro tip: Specific books on your kid’s wish list aren’t always available at the library, and for kids who read fast, purchasing books can really, really add up fast. When my daughter has the time, she can read 500 pages a day. That is an expensive hobby. If you haven’t yet, look into the Libby App. You just need a library card to sync with it, and you can check out kindle/electronic books and audio books for free. Bonus: you can sync multiple library cards. If there are a few counties around you with different library systems, get library cards there. Sync the additional library cards to your app and you will have even more book options readily available. If your child has a documented disability that affects reading, such as dyslexia, you can also get a subscription to Learning Ally. (Make sure your zoned school district doesn’t offer it to you for free, first.) Learning Ally gives you access to tons of audio books with alongside electronic book. They use volunteers to create recordings for books that do not have published audiobooks. They also use computer readers. While I prefer professional narrations, it is great that this will give you access to a variety of books for a very low cost. Bookshare is another option for low-cost book access. One more tip: visit “half price” or resale book shops.

Navigating Appropriate Content for Young, Advanced Readers

Your child is ready for higher-level reading, but it can be difficult to know if the content is appropriate for your child. Each family is different so I’ll leave the part of deciding what is appropriate at what age entirely up to you. Especially, with gifted kids, there may be overexcitabilities or high sensitivities present that you need to support. It can also be too difficult to keep up with reading ahead with everything your voracious reader is reading, so what can you do?

(Click here if you want to learn more about gifted overexcitabilities.)

The Overexcitabilities of the gifted were first outlined by psychologist and psychiatrist Dr. Kazimierz Dabrowski and includes five areas: psychomotor, sensual, imaginational, intellectual and emotional. Think of these as areas of intensity. As an example, a child with imaginational overexcitabilities may be someone who after reading an intense book, their imagination may be so vivid that they become too frightened to sleep at night with their own imaginational visions of what might be under the bed.

Here are some steps you can take to help you figure out if a book is a good fit. First, read the cover, back and inside covers. If you feel you need more information, check if the book is on Common Sense Media online. This will not only give an age suggestion, but more importantly it will let you know what to expect in the book, so you can gauge for yourself. Unfortunately, loads of books are not on Common Sense Media. This includes new literature that hasn’t been reviewed yet, as well as books your child may read but were written for young adults or adults. The next step if you need more information would be to look over reviews of the book on Goodreads and Amazon. Last, if you need additional clarity, google the book name plus things like, “what age level appropriate content” or “age reader,” and see what comes up. For adult books where you are still unsure, consider doing the books as a read aloud, or read ahead of your child. To read ahead in a hurry, get the audio book and alter the playback speed to 1.5x or 1.75x and listen through. An example of when reading ahead can help: Sci-Fi written for adults will sometimes have a single sex scene buried in the book somewhere. Maybe the whole entire novel is pretty clean except one single, explicit page. But, reading ahead will give you a chance to manage it.

Helpful Book lists

• Read Brightly– Really great curated book lists for every young reader. The link sends you to an example- 12 Kid-Approved books for Advanced Fourth and Fifth Graders.
• Mensa for Kids Excellence in Reading Lists– you don’t need to be a member of Mensa. The list is available for anyone to read! Don’t ignore the younger level books if your child is a more advanced reader. There are some gems. For example, The Hundred Dresses, by Eleanor Estes. For reading in older age groups, check for intensity/mature topics.

• Bookshark-Bookshark is a full curriculum. Specifically, I have found some interesting historical fiction suggestions in their history curriculum, which is listed online. I didn’t utilize the full curriculum personally, but we did find some new ideas on their list.

Favorite Books Series for Kids (Fiction) If you have a kid who just flies through books, series give you a little more time before your kid runs out of books to read. Any of these on my list would also be amazing as read-alouds or audio books. We have all of these on audio book, except Wings of Fire. They were just fabulous for road trips as the family took a book journey together while on our physical journey. (In high school, I read A Tale of Two Cities specifically while we visited London and Paris, so I think I enjoy that kind of book-travel connection.) Some of these the kids have listened to maybe even a hundred times. So, we have definitely gotten our money’s worth. For those types of books, we like to purchase the audiobook on Audible. We also have paper copies and/or kindle versions. Note: Little House on the Prairie and The Trumpet of the Swan are NOT good nap time audiobooks. The Prairie books have occasional fiddle tunes and Swan has trumpets. These will abruptly wake your kid up from their nap.

• Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
• The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis
• Harry Potter, by J.K. Rowling. Jim Dale’s audio narration is great. Note: The series grows more intense and dark with each book. Some families will find their child is ready for the first book or first three, but not ready yet for the rest of the series until they get a little older.
• Mysterious Benedict Society, by Trenton Lee Stewart
• Mr. Limoncello’s Library, by Chris Grabenstein
• Percy Jackson, by Rick Riordan. Note: Due to intensity, look into what age is right for your child.
• Warrior Cats, by Erin Hunter
• Wings of Fire, by Tui T. Sutherland. Note: these have lots of dragon violence! Some kids may not be ready, yet.
• E. B. White’s collection of books aren’t technically a series, but if we clump then together we can cheat them all in!! PS. the audio books for Charlotte’s Web and Trumpet of the Swan offer a lovely narration by White himself. The soft and kind lilt of his voice is a wonderful match for the books.
• Motorcycle Ralph, Henry Huggins, Ramona Quimby series and other books by Beverly Cleary.
• Eragon, by Christopher Paolini. Interestingly, the author was a homeschooled 15-year-old when the first book in the series was published.
• Land of Stories, by Chris Colfer
• Fablehaven, by Brandon Mull. This series is great for kids who would love deep fantasy but without it getting too dark or intense. It is “safe.”
• Little House on the Prairie, by Laura Ingalls Wilder. *Be prepared for some important discussions about race issues. For instance, the Wilders take over land belonging to indigenous people in an earlier book, and in a later book, Mr. Ingalls dresses in “black face” for a comedic act. The audio narration by Cherry Jones is wonderful.

Very First Chapter Books: *These will work well before your child is quite ready for chapter books like The Magic Treehouse, I Survived, or Beverly Cleary books. Note: these are series!

• Dragon Masters, by Tracey West
• Kingdom of Wrenly, by Jordan Quinn
• My Father’s Dragon, by Ruth Stiles Gannett

Emergent Readers: *Note, of course there are tons and tons of books out there. The Mo Willems books were really important to my family, especially as dyslexic learners. In that emergent reading stage as the lighting bulb was just beginning to turn on and connections were made, they offered a little independent or nearly-independent reading that was enjoyable. They are simple, yet funny and lovely.

• Elephant and Piggie books, by Mo Willems.
• Pigeon Books (Ie Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus), by Mo Willems.

Graphic Novels and Comics:

• New Kid, by Jerry Craft- Great for tween to middle school age.
• Dogman, by Dav Pilkey. Bonus: Dav Pilkey shares about his dyslexia and ADHD on the inside cover of every book.
• Bea Wolf, by Zach Weinersmith 
• Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Waterson. (Purchase the full set! I promise, this is a winner and can be read and reread.) Great illustrations, humor, and there is so much strong vocabulary and opportunity for inference- your child will enjoy this for years to come and will likely raise their SAT score reading it.

Tweens

• The Ranger’s Apprentice series
• Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card. (There is a series. We especially love this one and Ender’s Shadow.)
• Foundation, by Isaac Asimov
• The Martian (Classroom Edition), by Andy Weir. You can, of course, choose the regular version, but fyi it is packed full of f-bombs and a small amount of sexual content.
• The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (Young Readers Edition), by William Kamkwamba. I have no idea what is different in the young readers vs adult version, as we read the young readers. It was great and we really enjoyed it. It is a true story and has intense parts, so my guess would be that the intensity is lessened.

Magazines for Kids

• Oyla Magazine Geared towards 12+, but fine for all ages if your child loves science.
• National Geographic Kids (younger kids)
• Stone Soup (digital magazine) This also has great publication opportunities for aspiring young writers!

News Options for Kids

• The Week Jr Elementary-aged kids.
• Up First with NPR. Hey, this is NOT a kids’ show. It’s regular ole’ NPR. But it’s a decent option when you’re ready to start doing the news along with your child. It is also short enough that you could take a listen first to see if the day’s news is suitable for your kiddo.
• I know this sounds obvious but…a newspaper! The magic of the newspaper is that there is no access to random ads and pop-ups and whatever else on the internet or even radio and tv. It is just whatever is printed on the paper in front of you. It is also so cute to find your little kid sitting cross-legged on the sofa, reading the paper. Depending on the age of the kid, read it with them. It is also reasonable to prescreen it to see if there is a specific story you should talk through together, or skip altogether. It’s okay and pretty easy to remove a sheet if your child isn’t ready for a certain especially intense story, just yet. My tween likes The New York Times.
• Newsela subscription. Newsela is news for kids, with news stories curated to their age range. They have an audio feature as well as font size options for accessibility.