I have written before about the read aloud and its power for older students. I have written about how read alouds brings us all together, how they offer us a new language to speak as we build our community. How read alouds allow us to step into a world we might not know or invite others into one that we already live in.
Since founding the Global Read Aloud in 2010, I have been responsible for selecting a read aloud to be shared around the world. The task always feels heavy. The task also brings a lot of joy, but as I have mentioned, the task of selecting the books to be read aloud have also made me curious; what is already being read aloud in the United States? What are the corner texts that, we as communities, keep coming back to year after year? What do our students get to experience from year to year as they travel through our classrooms?
Rather than just be curious, I figured I would ask. So will you help me out by taking this survey and sharing it with others? I tried to make it easy to take but still offer up valuable information. I will share the results once I have enough responses, because once we know more we can learn together.
Pernille Ripp 
I read a lot of books that go with our Social Studies curriculum in 5th grade like NightJohn by Gary Paulsen or Winter of Red Snow, which is from the Dear America series. However, I really like to throw in some books that they wouldn’t pick or ever read on their own. For example, our library discarded a book called The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs about 10 years ago. The cover did not tempt any readers to pick it up, which is why it was being discarded. I grabbed it and read it to my class because the blurb sounded good. It is an AMAZING book!! I read it to every class now without fail. I get to use many different “voices”, the messages are so thought provoking, and the kids ALWAYS love this book. It’s also a chance to prove you can’t always judge a book by it’s cover. Of course, I mix in some new reads too, like your suggestion Dear Martin, but I had to self edit as I read that one. Some words were not appropriate. š