Mumsnet Talk

I want to be breezy.

Reading is great right? Any sort of reading yes? Even books about puppies and unicorns and princess unicorns and boarding schools for unicorn princesses? And RAINBOW FAIRIES. may curses rain down upon you you tiny little winged bastards

I want the benign smiling face of library joy, not the Argh! Nooo! Really? Face, with the hopeful fingering and glances at the Michael Morpogos.

Tips gratefully received.

DS is just turned four and keeps bringing back My Best Book of Early Man. "Look Mummy, it's a book about naughty gorillas!"

I read utter tripe from the library growing up. We had tonnes of books at home (all good stuff) so at the library I would go nuts. I read the entire stock of Point Horror etc as a teenager. I'm a librarian now, and pretty well read although I still read some trash. I tell myself that reading the rubbish books helps me recognise when something is good. When I worked in the public library I liked overhearing the mums trying to get their DCs to choose something else then talking loudly at the counter about how "of course, we read <insert something worthy> at home".

Ha I use to read sweet valley high and the babysitters club from the library. Complete and utter crap but oh so satisfying. And free.

@ gorillas.

OK, that is good Alma, about needing to read the rubbish non classics to become more discerning. So this is normal then? The wanting to read variations on a theme of unicorn over and over again? How can I get them to read some more gender neutral stuff? The abundance of glittery covers makes my teeth itch.

Whoa! Sweet Valley High! [flash back]

Too old for sweet valley high, but have patience. Your DC will outgrow the unicorns on princesses with fairies for pets. Honestly.
My DD was obsessed with a mouse called Arthur. I had to ask the school librarian to stop letting her get them out.
She is a voracious reader now.

Sympathies OP.

I felt the same when DD picked a Bratz DVD from the DVD section of our local library.

And then played it every day until it went back.

Unless there is a hamster wearing a tiara on the front cover, dd won't read it. She even admits the books aren't that good, but says that she can't help herself. It's a phase everyone goes through, isnt it? <hopeful smile>

There is now a sweet valley high update book about the twins at thirty and what they all did after school which I most certainly did not pre order on amazon and stay up reading

Enjoy the fairies while they last. In hindsight I am deeply impressed with my mum's ability to maintain breeziness when I came home from the library with a collection of literary erotica aged 14.

All reading does not have to be 'worthy'. Let them read all sorts of trash, and then throw in the odd recomendation... "I read this when I was you age, why don't you have a look ?" type thing.
I'll read the odd classic, and have to read documents and reports for work, but I'm still disappointed if there's not a long wait in the Drs or hospital, when I@ve just picked up a trashy magazine

I sympathise- I hated ds reading 'Horrid Henry'- badly written crap-but it did the job, he got hooked on reading and moved on to the far more appealing 'Mr Gum' series, after which there was no stopping him. Dd1 has just discovered Rainbow fairies too <sigh>

They have to own their own reading. They are in charge; they will be crap at it for years and years but they are building up their own reading life. It is the MAIN thing you need to be a reader.

FWIW I read school stories almost exclusively and now have an English degree from Oxford (and am also a librarian <waves to Alma> [oo nested brackets <faints>] ). I read mostly good stuff now. Lots and lots of it and it's all mine.

Hahahaha @ hamster in a tiara. Oh yy anything like that is a magnet to the dds.

So Rhonda what were the twins doing age 30?

BackForGood have tried the casual references but so far the draw of the bejewelled hamsters is too strong. I know reading trash is fine but when there are other seemingly better stories out there on the shelves I dunno I just get a bit angsty that they don't even want to try them.

At my year 7 parents evening, at the Grammar school no less, my mum was asked by my English teacher what I was reading.

She has never let me live down the book

"The Colour of her Panties" (in my defence, it's fantasy/sci fi NOT erotica)

Even more ironically, I'd read Wuthering Heights the week before.

Poor Mummy

ds read loads of the beast quest books when he was 7/8/9. He's now 12 and admits that they were quite rubbish and all the same

Raah Mr Gum is brilliant isn't he. They got given two of the series recently and really enjoyed me reading them to them. Back to the library today and it's unicorns all the way.

mrsg, you are right. They must own their own reading, yes. What I took out a Michael Morpogos though, casual like, and left it casually in a casual place?? No?

Yes I want to know what happened in SVH but I really don't want to read it

Leave them around where other people can see them. I feel your pain re Rainbow fucking Fairies. And the tiara-wearing hamsters. This too will pass. Really. Eventually.

Am rather longing to read 'The colour of her panties' now.

Have you tried Olga da Polga? I bought them for DD when I couldn't face another rainbow fairy unicorn and she loved them and I figured that since I loved them when I was young, I can refer to them as "children's classics" should anyone happen to ask...

Olga is divine (DP was rather at the Loose Guineapig Morality too, the visits from the father of her children with whom she has enjoyed a brief but fruitful liaison).

Pushing books on children is a sure-fire way to make them start seeing reading as a chore. All age-appropriate reading is going to improve reading skill. In fact if the child chooses books that they enjoy reading, and end up reading them quickly, they will improve their fluency which is a skill a lot of children struggle with. Fluency is by far one of the best skills a child can have as it helps them greatly in exams and in studying in later life.

I bet you'd be pretty peeved if someone came along and told you your book choices weren't good enough and you should start reading books about particle physics. It would be quite insulting on a personal level. Children see it that way too, reading is a personal activity and you shouldn't interfere with their choices.

Sparkly fairy series books - useful in their way, I think, for building confidence and discernment, and the joy of getting through tons of books. They do outgrow them. DD's at granny's this weekend and I hope she's taking the opportunity to plough through the entire set of The Famous Five.

I don't like Michael Morpurgo though

but I devoured the Rhanna series way too young so what do I know

<waves> to fellow librarians