Definitely The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall. It was introduced to me by a speaker at a workshop who also admitted she had put off reading it for months because of the cover. It’s now one of my favorite read-alouds for my 3rd-graders. The rest of the books in the series have equally “boring” covers, but once I introduced the series, my stronger readers were eager to read more.

Laura Casey from Portland, Oregon just shared that their school library came up with a unique idea to help with this. Students volunteered to read the books and made new covers. The new covers were laminated and put on the books, increasing interest in the oldies but goodies.

There’s a book that I love when talking about the life cycle of trees called “The Dead Tree” by Tresselt. Neither the title or the illustrations are too engaging, but the information is presented in a very understandable way, and makes all the important points for kids to know.