Fantastic Books to Read With Your Kids in November

We are serious book lovers over here. My husband has two tall book shelves full of his books upstairs, I have two tall book shelves in the house full of my books, and my children have four bookshelves, and many boxes and tubs, full of books for them all around the house. In fact, whenever we are at a thrift store or garage sale, it’s hard for all of us not to come home with an arm load of books.

As we are also homeschooling, books give us a way to learn, to see the world from a different perspective, to get lost in an exciting story, and even prepare our minds and hearts for bedtime. And what a perfect month November is for reading! We get to share the story of our beautiful country and how it began, talk about the changing of the seasons, the life-cycles of plants, hibernation, migration, habitats, and even the importance of being grateful for all that we have.

Just like I shared our list of fun books to read in October, full of stories about the pumpkin life-cycle, leaves, trees, and Halloween, I’m now sharing with you our list of great books to read in November.Each month of the year truly has a lot to offer children in the way of craft and snack themes, seasonal changes, great holidays, and other educational opportunities. It’s hard not to get into all of the fun and excitement of each month, even as I’m teaching my little ones about the months themselves.

Let’s delve together into some of the best books for children during the month of November and see if any of them catch your attention.

In this precious children’s book, the author does a fantastic job of telling the story of Thanksgiving. She walks kids through the whole story from those that wanted to leave England because they weren’t allowed to partake in the religion of their choice, including a nice story of their long trip over the sea, and what happened once they found land, ending up with the amazing Thanksgiving feast at the end among friends. What would Thanksgiving be without the real story of Thanksgiving? This book, among many others allows me to talk to my small children about the real story in a kid-friendly way.

In this book by Wendy Silvano, it’s November and almost time for Thanksgiving, and this turkey is scared of becoming dinner. So he teams up with the kids to come up with some clever disguises so he doesn’t become the family meal. You should see some of the clever animal costumes he and the children come up with. I love how this book ends. Very cute and funny book! This is one of my son’s favorites around this time of year.

Thanksgiving is the perfect time to consider all that we are thankful for. We have all been blessed with so many wonderful things. However, everyone tends to stick to the basics of family, food, and your home when thinking of things to be thankful for during the month of November. I love how this author helps children to understand that there’s so much more to be thankful for than just the basics.

The bear in this story wants to shows his animal friends how thankful he is for them, but he doesn’t have any food or presents to give them. Is all hope lost? Should he just give up? Nope. He decides that he can go fishing and gather food for his friends to make a big feast for them. He invites everyone over to share the food he has caught, but it turns out that everyone else was just as thankful for him and brought their own gifts. Your child is going to love how this book turns out. We sure did!

What a beautiful book full of amazing illustrations! This book depicts a loving group of family and friends that have the interesting family tradition of spending Thanksgiving deep in the woods. They plan for months, gather everything they need all month and cook up delicious dishes to share that day, and then head out for a fun and love-filled day in the woods with people that care about them. This is a beautiful story that is sure to inspire you to create some unique Thanksgiving traditions of your own.

This is a great book for talking to your children about hibernation. There are many different animals that sleep over the winter, and Hedgie was one of them. But just as he was getting sleepy and heading for his den, all of the animals started talking to him about everything he was going to miss. He was tired of missing all of the winter beauty, but try as he might to stay awake and see everything, he at last had to give in. Jan Brett has some of the greatest child’s story books. These are books my child reads again and again all year long, regardless of the season.

This is such a great book, especially for curious little minds that ask why about everything. It discusses hibernation, migration, and storing for the winter to give your children a well-rounded view of all of the wonderful hidden things that go on during the winter amongst the animals. My son loves the great illustrations that go along with the story, and it has inspired us to look even deeper and search out even more resources on these various topics.

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As wonderful as this author is including beautiful rhymes about all that happens in the fall season, we read this book together for the beautiful watercolor illustrations. The pictures are incredible and lend to us talking about what’s happening in each picture and the adventures we’re going to have together doing the same. It’s a book that sparks your imagination, ignites your inspiration and motivates you to go have some adventures of your own. I highly recommend this one!

What I really enjoy about these books is that there are tons of great pictures and the author includes fun facts on each page. She goes into details like what is happening to the weather in regarding to the sun, she includes a weather chart, and goes into what happens in the rest of the world weather-wise during this season. And she keeps it all very kid-friendly.

Oh man this book is funny! This author has a great series about “the visitors” that’s great, but in this book we get to follow a family of bears through all of the fall holidays and activities. They go on a bike ride, visit a county fair, go trick-or-treating, and even have a huge Thanksgiving feast of their own, all without being seen by humans. They must really enjoy the fall for them to work this hard to get to enjoy all that the season has to offer. That’s okay, we love it too! Your children will hopefully laugh as hard as mine do at all of the bears antics.

This book is a sweet story about a little girl and her cat being awoken by the full harvest moon of fall. The get out of bed and go on an adventure outside where they get to experience the active nightlife of all of the animals on her farm. She gets to see animals hunting for food, gathering food and preparing for winter, and even animals playing in the moonlight. Thank to this little girl, we get to see what happens after dark on a farm in the fall. This is a precious story!

My little boy just loves tractors and pumpkin patches and this wonderful book is both. In this story Tractor Mac sees a pumpkin festival getting set up at his friends farm across the way. They have a hayride, games, activities, a corn maze, a pumpkin patch, and tons of families and happy children. He gets jealous of his friend because he wants to have the same kind of fun at his farm, but he’s stuck gathering apples. You and your children will love how the friends work out a deal so that they can both enjoy all of the fun. I love it when books have morals at the end!

This colorful book talks about everyone, including the animals, that gathers or harvests their food for the winter. The farmers gather up their fall fruits and vegetables, like apples, pumpkins, corn, cranberries, and squash, and you can even witness all of the ways they store it and ship it around the world. We get to watch the bears storing up honey, grubs, fruit and roots in their bellies to keep them through the winter while they sleep, along with squirrels, beavers and other animals gathering and storing their own food. We love it!

In this amazing, beautiful family book, the author walks everyone, adults and children alike, through the story of Thanksgiving from a Godly perspective. She divides up the story into manageable pieces, spattering personal stories and facts through for the adults, and even provides a CD to listen to together as a family. This has been a tradition of ours for many years, reading through this book together. I love that my oldest is finally old enough to understand most of it and start asking his own questions.

Among all of the fun things we do to celebrate the fall season around our home, like baking yummy treats, picking up leaves and doing tons of great fall crafts, picking our pumpkins, carrots, and other fall veggies we’ve grown, and playing in the snow, we also love to curl up with a hot fall drink and read together.

We really get into the spirit of the season at our house. We decorate our home in beautiful fall colors, pick apples, peaches and pears, and make all sorts of yummy treats with them, and we even do a thorough fall cleaning, pulling out the next size clothes and storing away the old ones for the kids. It’s an exciting time. Reading books together has been a great way to sit down, relax, and talk about the fall and Thanksgiving together.

I hope that this list of all of our favorite fall books inspires you to sit down and read with your children this season. They are inexpensive enough to grab a handful of them off of Amazon for your kids and start reading them right away. We have always enjoyed this part of the season immensely and I know that you will too!