Gifts That Encourage Kids to Love Reading

Reading is one of those things we know matters—deeply, fundamentally, in ways that shape a child's entire inner life. And yet, for many children, it doesn't come easy. Not the mechanics of it (though those take work too), but the wanting of it. The sitting still. The choosing a book over a screen. The building of the habit that, once formed, becomes as natural as breathing.

The good news is that a love of reading is almost never born out of discipline. It's born out of delight. And delight, as it turns out, can be gifted.

The right gift at the right moment can transform a reluctant reader into a devoted one. It can make a child feel like reading belongs to them specifically—that there's a whole world of stories that was waiting, with their name on it, for them to arrive.

Here's how to build that feeling, one thoughtful gift at a time.

The Reading Nook: Giving Reading a Place to Live

There's something almost magical about a dedicated reading space. When a child has a corner that is theirs—just for reading, just for disappearing into stories—reading stops being a chore and becomes an escape they chose for themselves.

The Nest or Canopy

A reading tent, a canopy over a beanbag, or a small curtained nook transforms a corner of a bedroom into a private kingdom. Children who won't read at a desk will read for hours in a space that feels hidden and cozy. Add a few pillows, a soft blanket, and a good light, and you've built something better than any toy.

The Reading Hammock or Bean Bag

Comfort is criminally underrated in reading culture. A squishy bean bag or a child-sized hammock says: reading is rest, and rest is allowed. Many children who resist sitting at a table will happily lose track of time when they're curled up in something soft and low to the ground.

Soft Lighting That Makes It Feel Secret

Harsh overhead lighting is no friend to the reading mood. A string of fairy lights, a small LED reading lamp with a warm glow, or a clip-on book light makes reading feel intimate and special—especially at night. The ritual of clicking on the reading light is its own signal: story time begins now.

Bookish Gifts That Honor the Reader in Them

A Bookmark That Belongs to Them

A beautiful, personalized bookmark is a small thing that means more than it should. Maybe it's their name stamped in leather. Maybe it's a wooden slice with an engraved quote they love. Maybe it's a ribbon bookmark sewn in their favorite color. Whatever form it takes, it tells a child that their place in a story matters enough to mark.

A Reading Journal

For slightly older children, a reading journal—where they can record books they've read, draw their favorite characters, write down sentences that struck them, or rate their reads with a hand-drawn scale—builds the habit of paying attention to stories. It also creates a beautiful record of their reading life that they'll love looking back on.

Bookends That Tell a Story

A pair of bookends shaped like animals, castles, rockets, or characters from their favorite series gives books a physical home on a shelf—and signals that books are objects worth displaying with pride. It's décor that doubles as encouragement.

A Library Card Holder

If your little hero doesn't yet have their own library card, a beautiful card holder to keep it in makes the library feel like a membership to something exclusive and wonderful. Pair it with a trip to the library to choose their first stack of books and you've given them a ritual they can repeat for life.

The Gift of Being the Hero of Their Own Story

Here is the single most powerful thing you can do for a child who is ambivalent about reading: put them inside a story.

Not as a passive reader watching someone else's adventure, but as the protagonist. The one the story is about.

At OnceUponMe, you can create a personalized storybook where your little hero isn't just reading about a brave, curious, clever child—they are that child. Their name is woven into every chapter. Their personality shapes the adventure. When they open the book, there is no distance between themselves and the story. They're already in it.

This matters more than it might sound. Many reluctant readers have, at the core of their resistance, a quiet belief that stories aren't really for them. That books are for other kinds of children. A personalized story dismantles that belief immediately and completely. Of course this story is for you. It has your name in the title.

And once a child has experienced what it feels like to be a hero—once they know that the world of stories is big enough to hold them—they start looking for that feeling in every book they pick up.

Book Subscriptions: The Gift That Arrives Like a Letter

There is a specific joy in receiving something addressed to you in the mail. For children, this joy is essentially unmatched.

Monthly Book Boxes for Kids

Services like Owl Crate Jr., Book of the Month (kids editions), and various independent subscription boxes deliver age-matched books—sometimes with small extras like bookmarks, puzzles, or character-themed activities—every month. The arrival becomes an event. The child learns that new stories keep coming, that reading is not a finite supply but an endless stream.

Curated Reading Lists as a Gift

If a subscription is more than the budget calls for, a handwritten reading list—curated specifically for this child's interests, age, and personality—is genuinely moving to receive. "I made this list thinking about everything I know about you" is not a small thing to say. Add a card to the first book on the list and you've given them a roadmap to a year of reading.

Reading Lights: A Small Gift With a Big Effect

The clip-on book light is one of the most underestimated reading gifts in existence. For children who are allowed to read past bedtime "just for a little while," a good reading light becomes the accomplice to hundreds of chapters they technically stayed up too late to finish.

Look for lights with warm (not blue-white) LEDs, a sturdy clip, and a rechargeable battery. Some come in fun shapes—animals, rockets, stars—that make them a delight to own even before the reading begins.

Gifts for the Reluctant Reader

If you're shopping for a child who genuinely resists books, these gifts are particularly powerful:

Graphic novels. For children who feel daunted by pages full of prose, graphic novels are a legitimate and beautiful entry point into the reading life. Series like Dog Man, Amulet, Hilo, and Raina Telgemeier's work have pulled countless reluctant readers into lifelong habits. They're not "easier"—they're different, and that difference is often exactly what a child needs.

Audiobooks paired with physical books. Following along with a physical book while an audiobook plays develops reading fluency and comprehension while making the experience feel more like entertainment than work. A subscription to Audible Kids, paired with the physical books, is a gift combination that genuinely works.

Books about things they already love. This sounds obvious and yet it's constantly overlooked. A child who loves football, a child who loves horses, a child who loves building things—there are books written for exactly them, and finding those books is an act of love that says: reading isn't separate from who you are. It's an extension of it.

A personalized story about their real passion. A story from OnceUponMe can be built around what the child loves most—sports, animals, space, cooking, music. When the things they already care about appear in a story where they are the hero, the idea that reading might be for them clicks into place in a way that no amount of encouragement can replicate.

The Longer Game

A gift that encourages reading isn't just a gift for now. It's a gift for every year that follows. Because children who love reading grow into adults with wider empathy, deeper curiosity, richer inner lives. The reading nook you build this holiday becomes the corner where they process hard feelings and dream big dreams. The personalized story you give today becomes the memory they carry into adulthood: someone made a story for me.

You're not just picking out a present. You're building a reader.

And that, honestly, is one of the most generous things one person can do for another.

Start the Story Today

Create a personalized book for your little hero at OnceUponMe.com. Choose their name, their personality, their favorite kind of adventure—and watch a story take shape that was made entirely for them. It's the kind of gift that doesn't just sit on a shelf. It opens a door.

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Looking for more inspiration? Browse our full Holiday Gift Guide for Kids or explore Grandparent Gifts That Bridge the Distance.