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Yes, I know. Forcing my kids to read certain books is just guaranteeing they won’t like them. (This theory has not worked for snacks and desserts, however. They like their forced cakes and ice cream just fine.) However, I have several brilliant ways around this!

1) When the kids get old enough, we can read these books aloud before bedtime. Even better, I will make Hapa Papa read the books. That way, it kills two birds with one stone! (I doubt Hapa Papa has read more than ten unassigned books in his lifetime.) 

2) I will tell the kids, “I don’t think you’re old enough to read this book yet.” Then, I’ll leave it out in a conspicuous place and hope they will give into curiosity and “rebel” by secretly reading the books under the covers at night.

3) Read a lot of books in front of them.

I’m not talking about kiddie books, of course. I’m talking about meaty, classics. Books that I have read over and over again over the decades – and they just get better and better. For the sake of limiting this list, (because otherwise, I’ll just keep going), I will assign the arbitrary number of six.

Here then, are six books (pretty much all of them are series) in no particular order that I can’t wait to share with my children.  I have handily linked them to Amazon with my affiliate links for your convenience.

– The Chronicles of Narnia Series by C.S. Lewis (7 books)

– The Black Cauldron (The Chronicles of Prydain) Series by Lloyd Alexander (5 books)

– The Dark is Rising Series by Susan Cooper (5 books)

– The Lord of the Rings Series by J.R.R. Tolkien (4 books)

– A Wrinkle in Time Series by Madeleine L’Engle (4 books)

– The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling (7 books)

Now, of course, I cheated. This is really a list of thirty-two books. But come on! You can’t start a series and NOT FINISH IT!! Especially when it’s high fantasy! Sorry I am feeling lazy today. I purposely didn’t explain why I love these books. But I figure most people are aware of them. They’re not really that obscure and I believe every single one of these series has at least one movie adapted from it so pull from your general pop culture movie knowledge, ok? Or, you know, just follow the links.

If you are interested in what books I read and review, you are welcome to follow me on Goodreads. Just be forewarned. Just as with Facebook, I only friend people I know in real life.

Your turn. What books do you want to share with your kids? Tell me in the comments. If you’re feeling particularly ambitious, you can even include why.