My wife and I have always made it a priority to read to our children–I’m sure most of you do the same, and yes, I do the voices. I would like to think that this habit has helped lead to our second grader’s ability to read at a 5th grade level. Â Every night, before bed (unless someone has misbehvaed), we gather on the bed and read.
We recently finished reading the book, The Tale Despereaux (soon to be a major motion picture that doesn’t resemble the story we read) which took several weeks. “Despereaux,” with its lack of pictures and abundance of chapters, was a departure from our usual bedtime fare.  Overall, the book was very good, but had some very dark themes for younger children.
This got me thinking – what are some of your, and your kids’ favorite children’s books? Â I’ll start the list off with some of my family’s favorites, and encourage all of you to add your favorite books and mini-reviews in the comments. Â Our very own book club.
Our favorite family books in no particular order:
- Where the Wild Things Are – Maurice Sendak
- Just about any Dr. Seuss, but especially: The Cat in the Hat; Green Eggs & Ham; Hop on Pop; There’s a Woset in my Closet
- Micawber – John Lithgow
- The Remarkable Farkle McBride – John Lithgow
- How I Became a Pirate -Â Melinda Long
- Olivia – Ian Falconcer
- Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me - Eric Carle
- Knuffle Bunny – Mo Willems
- The Giving Tree (Always reminds me of Bart Simpson repeatedly writing on the chalkboard, “The Giving Tree is not a chump”) – Shel Silverstein
- My second grade daughter loves all of the Junie B Jones books
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I’m having to reach back into memory
- The Lion’s Paw
- The Three Little BushPigs
- The Wishing Chair
- The Magic Far Away Tree
- Pilgrim’s Progress
- Fox In Socks
- A Fish Out Of Water
- Scuffy the Tugboat
Oh man, there are so many. I can’t remember them all. Crazy how I’ve never thought about it, but there’s already a trail of great books our kids have been introduced to. Cool!
Too bad the Dr. Seuss books aren’t translated to Swedish, means they are out of reach to our kids. We enjoy almost anything by Astrid Lindgren, especially the short stories (there is much more than Pippi). As a grown upI really enjoy reading the Moomin books to the kids but sometimes these books are too slow for the kids but when you get in the mood they work really well.
I just checked with Amazon and there is at least one Mama Moo-book translated to English, these are wacky but great suits kids from 3-7 (http://www.amazon.com/Mamma-Moo-goes-down-slide/dp/9127106195).
By the same author there are the “Pettson and Findus”-books which are also great. Wonderful images and wacky enough for kids and adults: http://www.amazon.com/Pancakes-Findus-Pettson-Sven-Nordqvist/dp/190345879X
For Josh (3yo):
The Cat in The Hat;
Fox In Socks;
There’s An Ouch in my Pouch!;
For Jay (10yo), normally with him helping to read and Josh listening:
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
My Brother’s Famous Bottom
The Twits (yes, I do the voices).
Thanks for the suggestions, I’ll have to look at some of them!
Keep blogging!
Dungeekin
Great list- we love everything by mo willems- particularly the elephant and piggie books, but the pigeon ones are great, too. Also- if I built a car by chris van dusen. Great books to read with beginning readers are the we both read books. They go up to 3rd grade I think- http://www.webothread.com
I’m trying to get the 7 year old to read more chapter books, but every once in a while she reverts back. However, her favorites are.
Diary of a Wimpy Kid – Heffley
Falling Up – Silverstein
Long Long Ago – weird collection of Irish folk tales
The Cat’s Quizzer – Seuss
The 4 year old is reading the My (letter) Book series a lot (Jane Belk Moncure) which is good for his letter recognition, but he also loves anything with dinosaurs and the simpler Seuss books.
Wow… so many wonderful memories. The Magic Schoolbus series is important as is Calvin and Hobbes … one sticks out – Seven Silly Eaters – see http://tinyurl.com/4xkdwg
Enjoy – Forever!
Patrick (8) love the Matt Christopher sports books. As a first and second grader he loved Henry and Mudge.
Erin (6) is reading beginner books like Dr. Seuss and other.
I hate to put a damper on things, but I never liked Where the Wild Things Are – as a kid or as a parent.
Chris and the rest of Dad-O-Matic: from a dad who has travels A LOT for business, often for many days at a time – here’s one way to carry on the bedtime reading “tradition”: make photocopies of your child’s favorite books and bring those on the road with you. At the regular time set aside just 10 minutes to call them and read the book to them, with them “reading” along with the actual book in their hands. I did it with two of my three (hadn’t had the idea on the first one) and found it a great energy boost to even me to have that connecting time with the kid daily. Time zones is often tricky, but nothing beats sharing a few RELEVANT minutes with your kid – so much better than having mom put them on the phone and asking how their day at school was. At three or four they don’t see that as relevant – but their favorite books or a brand new book IS relevant.
I did this for a number of years and watched as some of my co-workers did it, then after an industry trade journal did a profile of me and mentioned this I heard back for industry peers that they, too, were now doing this.
Reading is SO important. SO is the library card and swapping books with friends.
My favorites? Dr. Seuss, of course, the Peter Rabbit series, and I always enjoyed the Magic Schoolbus and Franklin the turtle, probably more than my daughter.
Thanks Bill – awesome idea. Add Skype and a webcam, and the experience could be enhanced even more.
There’s a great small book company in Cambridge called Barefoot Books that has quite a few books that my sons (< 3 yrs) love. In particular “How Big is a Pig” and “How Loud is a Lion.” Highly recommended.
They’re pretty ravenous readers, some other favorites:
- The Very Hungry Caterpillar
- Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see (and the other variations)
- Pat the Bunny
- Five Little Ducks
- Duck in the Truck
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its nice to know that the practice of reading books for kids before sleeping is still alive. Many parents today are so busy that they forgot to practice that so called “bedtime stories”. Kudos to both of you, just continue what you are doing, that will bring your kids into the right track.
its nice to know that the practice of reading books for kids before sleeping is still alive. Many parents today are so busy that they forgot to practice that so called “bedtime stories”. Kudos to both of you, just continue what you are doing, that will bring your kids into the right track.
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