The Best Bat Books for Kindergarten Read Alouds

Are you looking for some engaging read alouds to add to your October lesson plans? Try reading about bats with your students! In this post,  I’m going to share some of my favorite bat books for kindergarten that you can share with your class this fall. 

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Benefits of Bat Read Alouds in Kindergarten

There are many reasons why bats are such a fun topic to read about with your kindergarten students:

• Spark Curiosity – Bats are fascinating animals! You can use this to your advantage and help students get excited to learn more about bats! The best read alouds are those when students are engaged in the story, and there’s just something about bat books that grabs (and holds) their attention at carpet time.
• Seasonal Fun – Bat books are perfect for the Halloween season! They aren’t directly related to the holiday, so you can enjoy bat books with your students in October even if you don’t celebrate Halloween in your classroom. (After you've planned out your October read alouds, check out my post with Thanksgiving book recommendations for November!)
• Build Background Knowledge – If you are planning an entire bat unit for your students, read alouds are a great place to start! You can help students build background knowledge about bats that they can then use throughout the unit study.

Since bats are such a fun animal to read about in class, you’ll notice that there are MANY different book choices out there. It can be overwhelming to narrow it down! That’s why I wanted to share my absolute favorite bat books to read with kindergarteners. Hopefully this post will save you some time skimming through book options in the library or online.

6 Must-Read Bat Books for Kindergarten

My all-time favorite bat books for kindergarten are a combination of fiction and nonfiction. In my classroom, I always liked to introduce bats to my students using nonfiction books. This made the fictional stories even more interesting for students, since they could more easily understand the characters in the books.

1. Bats by Gail Gibbons

When I want to use a non-fiction book to help my students learn about a new topic, Gail Gibbons is my go-to author. Her writing style is perfect for kindergarten students! Her books also contain a lot of non-fiction text features like diagrams and labels that you can share with students as you read. 

Although she uses illustrations, this book about bats shares a lot of interesting facts in a kid-friendly way. You can supplement this book with another non-fiction text so students can see actual photographs of bats.

2. Bats by Elizabeth Carney

This book is part of the National Geographic Kids series of nonfiction books. I love the bat photographs in this book, along with the nonfiction text features that you can use to model reading strategies with your students. This brightly-colored book includes red labels on the diagrams, which helps them stand out to students when you use it as a whole-class read aloud.

3. Bats by Nicole Iorio

This is another great nonfiction book to help students learn more facts about bats. This book isn’t quite as brightly-colored inside as the previous book, but it also focuses a bit on bats being nocturnal. With the nighttime feel and the content of the text, this book would be a great option for a nocturnal animals unit!

4. There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat! By Lucille Colandro

We all know and love the Old Lady series of books by Lucille Colandro, and this one is no exception! This book gives students a chance to listen for rhyming words and follow along with the predictable patterns of the story as the Old Lady swallows a variety of Halloween objects. 

After swallowing her fill, she swallows a wizard to cast a spell so she can yell “Trick or Treat!” This is a great book to enjoy with your class for Halloween. (If you don’t celebrate Halloween in your classroom, this is a book that you’ll want to skip.)

5. Nightsong by Ari Berk

This book has some of the best illustrations of any read aloud I’ve ever used in kindergarten. In this story, Chiro needs to learn how to fly, but he’s nervous about going out into the dark world alone. His mother assures him that there are other ways to get around and sends him on his way. 

As Chiro tries to navigate on his journey, students can see echolocation in action. The illustrations depict what it is like for Chiro as he gradually figures out how make his way through the dark forest alone. As students listen to the story, they will be able to make text-to-text connections to any nonfiction books about bats that you’ve read together already.

6. Stellaluna by Janell Cannon

This is a classic read aloud for kindergarten and it’s a classic for a reason! This sweet story follows Stellaluna the bat as she gets separated from her family and ends up with a family of birds. Stellaluna has a hard time being a bird due to all of her bat traits!

This book is great to read after a nonfiction book about bats, since students will be able to identify some of the parts of bird life that would be hard for Stellaluna. For example, eating the bugs preferred by the birds is challenging because Stellaluna is a bat that eats fruit.

Eventually, Stellaluna reconnects with her bat family and learns how to be a bat while still staying connected to her bird family. This sweet story with a happy ending is always a hit with kindergarteners!

Take a Closer Look at These Kindergarten Bat Books

Would you like to take a closer look at all of these bat books for kindergarten? Check out this video where I flip through the pages of each book and give you a few more ideas for using them in your classroom.

Save These Bat Read Aloud Ideas

Be sure to save this post so you can come back to it later! Just add the pin below to your favorite kindergarten board on Pinterest!