We LOVE books over here! Finding wholesome books for children can be hard, but I do my best to choose high-quality literature to read to my children and for my children to read.
It is important to me that my children read books that uphold our moral beliefs, especially when I know they will be read over and over again. Check out the best places I have found for buying wholesome books for children.
Then scroll down for a pre-k through 8th-grade book list with our favorite read-aloud book recommendations! I have included links to make it easy to start your very own collection of wholesome children’s books. Download the book list for free and have it handy next time you are book shopping!
Best Places to Buy Wholesome Books For Children
- Salem Ridge Press – I am not sure whether their website offers up-to-date information since I first discovered them in 2013, but you can see their mission statement there. I order their books republished by Salem Ridge Press from Amazon. We own several now.
- Lamplighter – They have very old classics and unique books republished for Christian readers… we own just one of them so far. It is written in an Old English style.
- Bethlehem Books – A new discovery for me, but they are all about restoring wholesome & classic books for children.
- YWAM Publishing – We add about 10 of their books to our collection each year that we attend our local homeschool conference since they have amazing conference specials!
- Beautiful Feet Books – Living history books. We own several of their books and love them!
- Christian Book (dot) com – a Christian book distributor that carries so many Christian books, from Bibles to textbooks to fiction!
- Costco – Yes, Costco often carries classic literature for children! Especially during back-to-school and the Christmas season. Since they change what they have quite often, you won’t always find great books there, but it’s worth checking out!
- Amazon – If you know what you are looking for, then search Amazon for it. You can find used books for super cheap, which is nice when searching for a hard-to-find or out-of-print classic!
Our Favorite Read Aloud Books For Children Pre-k through 8th Grades
These are books that uphold traditional roles and biblical values. They are especially great for children in pre-k through 8th grade. I enjoyed reading them out loud, but my children have continued to read many of them through high school!
As a large family, I think it is important that we find books that children of all ages AND their parents can appreciate. Even though comprehension levels will vary based on age.
Choosing to enjoy short stories, novels, and books from a variety of genres should be encouraged. This starts with us as moms and we teach this to our kids by example.
Note: I do not necessarily recommend every book by each author.
Little Golden Books – Our favorites of these include: Little Mommy, Daddies, and My Little Golden Book About God.
Virginia Lee Burton – Our favorites are: The Little House, Mike Mulligan & His Steam Shovel.
Holling C. Holling Books – Delightful drawings and stories based on history.
Thornton W. Burgess – These are nature-based and NOT Christian based, but are generally fine. With a little self-editing and/or discussion, I find them okay. My kids love them. We own several of the “The Adventures Of …” series about animals.
The Little House Books -I got my first set when I was 9 years old. We have a new set and I read through them about once a year to my kids. I like to read Farmer Boy first, as a stand-alone book, and then read the rest as a series.
E.B. White Books – Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, and The Trumpet of the Swan are all books I’ve owned since childhood and have now put on the bookshelf for my kids. Charlotte’s Web was always my favorite.
Imagination Station Series – These are books I discovered a few years ago. We like them a lot. I think they are comparable to The Magic Treehouse series but are imagination-based instead of magic. These are from Adventures in Odyssey/Focus on the Family. We have books 1-15 so far.
The Chronicles of Narnia – I was introduced to this series by C.S. Lewis by my second-grade teacher in public school and have loved them ever since. I had NO idea that they were meant to be a Christian analogy until a few years ago … and to be honest, I don’t consider them to be so.
Mandie Books – Another series I have had since I was young. I only have books 1-6 and hope to get more since there are a lot of books in the series. They are full of mystery and adventure.
Emma Leslie – Historical fiction for upper elementary and older. We really like them.
G.A. Henty Books – These are amazingly in-depth, long novels set in various time periods throughout history. They really are incredible, but might not be everyone’s cup of tea.
Carry On, Mr. Bowditch – this is a stand-alone book that may top the list for my all-time favorite read-aloud. It is definitely worth adding to your library!
Best Read Aloud Books For All Ages!
I hope you add some of these treasures to your library! Where have you found high-quality, wholesome books for children?
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Mostly Amazon these days. We lost our local bookstore a few years ago.
Amazon is often my go-to, too!
Amazon , Books a Million or we have some used book stores still around that we can find great books at!
I have found that Ollie's carries a great section of kids books.
We use book depository over here because the others cost too much in postage! I do love ebooks as well, but I prefer my children to read proper books at the moment ( maybe in the future we'll invest in ereaders for them all). We also purchase a lot of books second hand!
Have a lovely day
Blessings
Renata:)
A couple other sources of good, clean Christian books for the family are Light of Faith Resources (which is my brother’s business) and http://www.readanotherpage.com which is my sister’s website. She writes Christian Fiction books that are appropriate for the whole family. You can also find her books on Amazon. If you’d be interested in doing a review for her on one of her books, she’s looking for bloggers to do some reviewing for her. 🙂
I’ll check them out, thanks!
I recently found a whole set of Elizabeth Gail series! I remember these Christian young adult books from my girlhood.
Written by Hilda Stahl, it’s about a foster girl living in a Christian home, and each book is a different mystery.
I found the set at Value Village thrift shop!
Thank You for the list of books and where to purchase them. We have the entire Mandie series. Love them. I just finished a 10 book series “Adventures Of The Northwoods” . . Ages 12 and up will enjoy them. I received the “Narnia set for Christmas and am starting the series. As you can see I enjoy reading children’s books too.
Marion
Hi Clarissa. The list of books are very interesting. CBD(Christian Book Distributors ) is a good source of books for children as well as adults. The books are cut down from the original price. Have you read the Elsie Dinsmore Books? I have read them.
Marilyn
Nice choices. Thank You for the list.
Marilyn and Marion
Love Christianbook.com!! I bought SO many books when I was homeschooling, and now I’m looking to get stuff for all of my grandies!
What an awesome resource! I love good wholesome books, especially for my kids!
Definately marking this list!
I love book lists
I look forward to my emails from Clarissa West. She is a very down-to-earth woman. I love reading your blog and hearing about your farm life. God bless you.
Thank you, Maggie!
Thanks for adding your suggestions as there were several I wasn’t familiar with. We like listening to the family hours lamplighter theater and have had pretty good luck so far getting gently used book from thriftbooks to go along with our curriculum and have plenty of readers on hand.
Your blog posts are an interesting read!
Christian Books are great.
Marilyn
Great post!
Crazy times we are living. If my kids were still school age, I would highly consider homeschooling them.
Clarissa, thank you for these helpful resources, especially the one for language arts. I have been struggling teaching this subject to my son this whole year. Thank you!
– Colleen
A lovely gift to share with family.
I look first at Christianbook and then on amazon. We are in Canada and Christianbook tends to be the cheapest, even though it’s a US based company.
Thriftbooks is my first choice for books, but sometimes you gotta buy new- or buy gifts 😉
Titus2.com, which is the Maxwell Family have some great books, The Moody Series is fantastic. My daughter loved them!
We often search used book sales and even second hand stores for good reads.
Thank you for the resources, lists.
I love finding books used at ThriftBooks, AbeBooks, BookFinder, and our somewhat-local Christian homeschool curriculum store!
Thank you for ALL the wonderful tips and info you offer. Thankful for you too! 🙂
We ordered a Thanksgiving collection from http://www.bigskylifebooks.com. They only sell wholesome books on their site. My kids loved the books.
Mud Hen Mama also has quality wholesome books. Our local Christian school uses them for their book fair. 🙂
mudhenmama.com
Thanks for sharing, I’ll check it out.