For book club leaders
Six steps to a first meeting
- Pick a level or a list. Choose one book everyone can read, or let each child read their own at their level. The levels index and the kids' lists do the finding; a club kit gives you the questions.
- Print the sign-up sheet. Twelve names for a living-room club, twenty-four for a classroom or a library group, with a column for each child's Peabody level.
- Hand out the chart. Each child gets a challenge chart (Winter Break, 100 Books or the bingo card) to colour at home, or uses the tracker on a family device.
- Read for two weeks. Two weeks is long enough to finish a book and short enough to keep a group together. Read-alouds count for the youngest.
- Meet. Thirty to sixty minutes: a snack, a quick round of 'one thing I liked', the kit's questions, and something to make or act out.
- Certificates. At the finish line, and only there: a child who finished the challenge gets the certificate, printed from the tracker or filled in by hand.
The longer version: How to start a kids' book club.
Club kits (82 stories)
One meeting on one of Peabody's free stories that every child can read on any device: the short version, six questions with notes, three facts, an activity and a reading plan, from the story's own answer layer. For example: Lion and Mouse · The Fox and the Crow · The Elves and the Shoemaker · The Emperor's New Clothes · Alice in Wonderland · Theseus and the Minotaur. All the kits, by level. Reading a longer classic over two to four meetings? Its chapter checkpoints say where to stop each time, with questions that never give away what comes next (138 classics).
Every reader on a different book? The any-book club kit has question cards that work for any book, six discussion roles, a theme club planner that gives each reader a book at their level, and ballots for the next book. For a class bingo, the bingo card maker prints up to thirty different cards, the book tasting kit turns the room into a café for books, and the read-a-thon kit runs a day or a week of reading with a reading-month calendar.
Free reading reward programmes for kids, 2027
Peabody doesn't run a reward store: the research on rewards says to keep prizes small and the praise warm, and the challenges end with a certificate. If a family or a class wants a prize, these are free, and each one asks something different of a child. Each was read on its own page on 31 Oct 2026; few have 2027 dates yet.
- Pizza Hut BOOK IT!: asks a child to meet a monthly reading goal set by the teacher (or, at home, by a homeschooling parent in the BOOK IT! app); gets a certificate for a free one-topping Personal Pan Pizza each month the goal is met (homeschool families: five certificates a month at most). When: the school year, October to March; summer runs June to August.
- Chuck E. Cheese reading trackers: asks a child to colour in a printed tracker as the child reads (the reading tracker is a pizza to fill); gets 10 bonus Play Points for the whole pizza coloured, in a restaurant; the page's reading calendars name no reward. When: no dates on the page.
- Your public library's summer programme: asks a child to log reading over the summer, on paper or in the library's app; gets what each library chooses; often free books and small prizes (Dayton Metro Library's 2026 gave a book on the first day and another at 30 days). When: summer; the libraries' shared 2027 theme is 'Mysteries Await at Your Library'.
- 1,000 books before kindergarten at a library: asks a child to a grown-up logs every book read to a child under school age, re-reads included; gets at St. Louis County Library: a sticker at 100 books, a free book and a small prize at 500, a free book and a drawstring bag at 1,000. When: all year, birth to kindergarten.
- The national Summer Reading Challenge: asks a child to read 12 books of the child's choice (grades K to 8) on a downloadable tracker, then submit it online; gets a certificate and a small prize, and an entry into a draw. When: 2026's closed 4 September 2026; no 2027 challenge listed on 31 Oct 2026.
- The Reading Agency's Summer Reading Challenge (UK): asks a child to set a reading goal and read any books, visiting the library after each one or adding it online; gets stickers and rewards that vary by library, or digital badges, and a certificate at the goal. When: 2026's began 20 June in Scotland and 4 July in England and Wales.
Book club names and snacks for kids
Let the club pick its own name on the first day: read a few out and vote with the ballots. Keep children's own names out of it, so nobody is left out. Some to start with: 📖 The Page Turners · 🐛 The Bookworms · 🏃 Chapter Chasers · 🔍 The Story Seekers · 📚 The Spine Squad · 🦉 The Night Owls · 🌀 The Plot Twisters · 🔖 The Bookmark Club · 🚀 Readers' Rocket · 🏮 The Lantern Readers · 🐉 The Dragon Readers · 📕 The Cover-to-Cover Club · ✨ The Word Wizards · 🦔 The Hedgehog Book Club · 🍪 Tales and Snacks · ⛵ The Reading Crew.
Snacks that go with a story make the meeting feel like an event, and each of these goes with one of Peabody's free stories. Ask every family about allergies before the first meeting, keep it nut-free, and have water on the table.
- Porridge oats in little cups, with honey or fruit for Goldilocks and the Three Bears: taste it: too hot, too cold, or just right?.
- Gingerbread biscuits for The Gingerbread Man: eat them before they run away.
- A pot of vegetable soup, everyone adding one vegetable for Stone Soup: the story is about sharing what you have.
- Bread rolls with butter or jam for The Little Red Hen: ask who helped make them first.
- Carrot sticks and lettuce for The Tortoise and the Hare: a race snack, eaten slowly.
- Cheese and crackers, then fruit for The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse: a plain country plate, then a fancy town one: which is better?.
- Grapes (cut in half for little ones) for The Fox and the Grapes: these ones are within reach.
- Celery with cream cheese and raisins for The Ant and the Grasshopper: ants on a log, saved up for winter.
- Green beans or sugar snap peas for Jack and the Beanstalk: count how many it takes to reach the sky.
- Turnip or carrot slices with a dip for The Enormous Turnip: pull together.
- A pile of soft pancakes for The Princess and the Pea: a stack of mattresses you can eat.
- Tiny sandwiches cut very small for Tom Thumb: lunch for someone the size of a thumb.
Sheets to print
- Book club sign-up sheet
- Book club meeting plans
- Weekly reading log: seven days, a title, minutes and a grown-up's signature
- Monthly reading log: a square for every day of the month, and a signature at the end
- Reading bingo card: 25 kinds of books, a free centre
- 100 books chart: a hundred squares to colour, one a book
- Class reading log: thirty rows for a teacher or club leader
- Class challenge wall chart: thirty readers, ten squares each, for the classroom wall
- 100 read-alouds sheet: a hundred circles to colour, one a story read aloud
- Reading certificate, blank to fill in by hand
- The class tally on the board: numbered seats instead of names, +1 a book, the class total climbing to the goal on the projector, kept on your device
- Reading bookmarks: each child makes one (a log, challenge squares or questions to ask while reading), four print on a sheet
- Book report templates, kindergarten to high school
Challenges to run with a group
- Winter Break: Read through winter break, 19 December 2026 to 3 January 2027: 10 books if you are 5 to 7, 6 books if you are 8 to 10, and 4 longer books from 11 up. Every book climbs you a step up the snowy mountain.
- January: Read every day you can in January 2027: a book, or twenty minutes of one, colours in that day's square on a 31-day calendar. Twenty coloured days is the finish line; every day after that is a bonus.
- Reading 2027: Read through 2027: 52 books if you are 5 to 7 (a book a week, and read-alouds count), 30 if you are 8 to 10, and 20 longer books from 11 up. Every book puts a spine on the year's shelf, and each month has a kind of book to try.
- Summer: Read through the summer of 2027, 1 June to 31 August: 20 books if you are 5 to 7, 12 books if you are 8 to 10, and 8 longer books from 11 up. Every book puts a spine on your summer shelf.
- 100 Books: Read 100 books and colour in a square for each one, on a 10 by 10 chart. It has no end date: some children finish in a winter, some in a school year.
- Book Bingo: A 5 by 5 card of kinds of books (a true book, a fairy tale, a book about a pet, a book that happens at night). Read one that fits a square and it gets a stamp. The middle square is free.
- Series Challenge: Pick one book series and read it to the end, in order, or a shelf of Peabody's own classics (ten fables, fairy tales, myths, legends or world tales, easiest first). Every book you finish puts a spine on your shelf.
- Read-Aloud 20: Twenty books read aloud to a little one, a patch of the reading quilt for each. For children who cannot read yet and their grown-ups.
- A Thousand Read-Alouds: A thousand books read aloud before school starts, one dot each on ten shelves of a hundred. The same favourite counts every time it is read, and every hundred prints a certificate. No end date.
Or make your own: pick what counts, the finish line by age, the dates and a name, and share one link or a QR poster. Your readers run it in the same tracker. Running a summer programme at a library or school? The summer kit has the take-home pack, a desk tally of sign-ups and finishes, the report for your board and finish codes to check.
On a shared classroom or library device, each child picks an animal face (up to six a device). For a bigger group, the paper chart and the class log do the same job.
Levels and lists
Books by level lists Peabody's free stories at each of its nineteen reading levels, with the kids' lists and series that fit. To place a child, the levels page has three quick questions, and Peabody Teach's level finder takes a closer look. For the whole room: Peabody's kids' book lists by grade, genre and need, and Teach's reading tools for fluency and sight words.
Lists and quizzes
Ten book club questions for any book · Stories for a first book club · Ways to pick a book at the right level · All the Top 10s · Reading quizzes for the children
Questions a leader might ask, answered
Do minutes count, or only books?
Peabody's challenges count books, because a child can see a book fill a shelf; a minute is hard to picture and needs a grown-up to trust the timer. The January challenge is the exception: a book or twenty minutes a day. If your school counts minutes, the weekly paper log has a column for them.
What if the children in my club read at very different levels?
Let each child read their own book at their own level and meet about a shared question (a brave character, a surprising ending, a book you would give a friend), or give everyone the same kind of story (a fable, a fairy tale, a myth) at their own level and talk about what that kind of story does.
Does a book read aloud count?
Yes, for the youngest readers: Read-Aloud 20 is all read-alouds, and in Winter Break and 100 Books a read-aloud counts for readers 5 to 7. For older readers, a book counts when they read it themselves.
Do I need accounts or an app for the children?
No. The tracker keeps each child's log on the device they use, under an animal face rather than a name, and it prints. A club can run entirely on paper with the chart, the log and the certificate.
Should there be prizes?
Peabody's challenges end in a certificate and a chart on the wall, not a prize to buy. If your group gives something, a small shared treat for the whole club at the end keeps it about reading rather than about who read most. Nothing on Peabody ranks children against each other.
How do I check a child really read the book?
Mostly, you don't need to: a club is for talking about books, and children who have not read the book find that out at the first meeting. The kit's questions are open ones that a reader can answer and a skimmer cannot fake for long.