In January of 2017, I found myself with Jim Trelease’s Read Aloud Handbook and Reading Magic by Mem Fox in my nightstand pile. Both were inspiring reads. Read Aloud Handbook offered a ton of research, stories, and examples about the benefits of reading aloud to children. Reading Magic broke the process of learning how to read into simple, compact formats. Both were educational for me to read, not just as a mom who is interested in homeschooling, but especially as a mom who thinks literacy is an important foundational element of our society.

It was at some point in Mem Fox’s Reading Magic that I read: children cannot begin to learn how to read until they’ve heard 1,000 books. The statement fascinated me simply for the reason that it was quantifiable. And challenging. I wondered to myself whether each of my children had heard 1,000 books over their respective years, and concluded that the only way to know for sure would be to start counting. Also, specifically for my younger two kids, who I was in the process of teaching how to read, I thought the journey into 1,000 different books would be an interesting experiment.

So I grabbed an old composition notebook, and started recording the titles of the books we read. Each page offered room for the listing of one book title per line, and three columns, one for each of my kids, where I could tally-total each time they heard the book. Along the way I started putting heart icons beside books I loved, stars beside books that were educational and even allowed myself to complete cross-out books that I was embarrassed to even count. (Lego Ninja Warrior, I’m looking at you.) I only recorded books on the front of each page, so on the back of each page, I started making notes about the reading progress I was seeing in each kid. There was really only one rule to the challenge: the books had to be 1,000 different books. (The study Fox was citing in her book indicated that there could be multiple readings of the same book to reach the 1,000 total, but hey, it’s not the first time I’ve been known to be overly ambitious in my goal-setting.)

Friends have asked about what progress I’ve seen in my kids if any. Probably the biggest observation is that around book number 569, my four-year-old almost read Green Eggs and Ham to me in its entirety. She’s probably heard the book less than ten times in her entire life, and has had minimal phonics instruction, so I was delighted to see her interest. And perhaps that’s been the best payoff of all: in less than six months, all three of my kids (ages 7, 5, and 4 when we started this) have developed longer attention spans, no longer ask us to turn on the TV, and have shown a significant interest in reading. Books litter the floorboard of our car, our bedroom carpets, and our coffee tables. Developing life-long learners, and lovers of books, no longer seem insurmountable. The 1,000 books have helped me see that this is easier–way easier–done, than said.

With that being said, here’s the list of books we’ve read.

Icon Key:
♥ = Loved it.
★ = Educational.

Frequently Asked Questions:

• Do you count the books your oldest reads to himself? No.
• Do you include chapter books, or is this picture books only? I include whatever I read to them. If I read a chapter book to them, it’s on the list. But the list is primarily picture books.
• Do you include board books? Yes. My kids still love them. The Little Presidents board book came in very handy during the recent election season.
• Do you include easy readers? Depends. Some early reading/easy reading/leveled reader types of books are great. But if I found myself feeling “meh” about it, I didn’t include it on the list.