Literary Gifts for Children

December 15, 2021

With the holidays upon us, everyone is busy shopping for the perfect gifts for their children. If you are anything like me, you want to build a love of reading in your children. So what do you do when their wish lists are full of video games and action figures? You find them a different or interesting book!

Books always make great gifts. They can be personal, they can open new worlds and expand minds… I don’t have to convince you of the wonder of books. 😉 I always try to find some out-of-the-ordinary book for each of my children – some of whom are bookish and appreciate it, and some who aren’t and lovingly roll their eyes at my attempts but usually end up enjoying the book gift anyhow.

For the 3-6 Crowd:

We are HUGE Mo Willems fans here – his books are sweet, hilarious, and fun. Everyone in our family, from 4 to 40+ enjoys them!

We are also huge Jan Brett fans – not only are her books gorgeous, but lovely to read aloud as well.

And of course – there are the perennial favorites for this age group:

For the budding artist:

Ralph Masiello has some really fantastic How-to-Draw books. They are really stunning and easy to follow – even my non-artist’s enjoy them and can easily follow the directions to complete a lovely piece of art.

But maybe you’re child would prefer something a bit more open-ended. If your child loves to draw but often struggles to find something they’d like to draw – these are perfect:

Maybe your child likes art but doesn’t need any drawing assistance. You may want to introduce them to different forms of art, or some of the great artists:

For the budding writer:

My daughter really enjoyed Ralph Fletcher’s books. They are highly readable and filled with tips and tricks to help writers at any level. Rather than feel “schoolish” the author speaks directly to the reader, giving the feel of a friend sharing advice rather than a teacher instructing a pupil.

Similar to the drawing journals above, these journals gives you a variety of prompts to give young writer’s plenty of ideas to write every day:

For the fantasy fan:

This is my oldest daughter’s favorite fantasy series. She insisted that I include it on this list.

The Chronicles of Prydain Boxed Set

Some of our other favorites include:

But there are lots of other fun Fantasy books that make great gifts:

For the kid who just loves to read, here are some fantastic reads:

For the mythology fan:

Just cool books:

This should hopefully cover something for everyone! Happy holidays and happy reading!

Emily Cook is the author and creator of the secular homeschool curriculum Build Your Library, a literature-based K-12 program infused with the teachings of Charlotte Mason. She writes full-year lesson plans as well as shorter topical unit studies. Emily has been homeschooling her four children in Southern NH for 21 years. She is passionate about reading aloud to children of all ages and loves to share her love of literature with others. She and her family also make incredibly dorky videos about homeschooling, books, and more on Youtube at ARRRGH! Schooling. You can follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. You can also check out her author page on Amazon.

Looking for something? Try our Search!

Literary Gifts for Children