To think that some children's stories are awful to read aloud?

[VioletBam]

Enid Blyton I'm looking at you.

Also...while I love My Naughty Little Sister...the way the stories are written are terrible to read out loud.

It's a very specific style that author has....sort of child-like...Enid bloody Blyton though!

Just churned my way through 2 chapters of The Magic Faraway Tree and God! It was hard going.

Those short sentences...how she mentions everything umpteen times.

You have to sing Bear Hunt, not read it - then it makes more sense and is more fun. Look up the song on YouTube if you don't know it already.

I found Roald Dahl hard going. I gave up on Blyton after one - dd had to reread it herself.

My faves when she was v small were Debby Gliori - Big Bear and Little Bear, but they're for toddlers.

When she was 4/5 I enjoyed reading Lemony Snickett to dd. Alice in Wonderland is good too, but you have to skip the first 5 chapters (and maybe a few more).

I don't like the way that Michael Rosen does We're Going on a Bear Hunt (just because our way was different :)), but I agree it needs to be done in a sing song sort of way.

One of those ones that you get to know so well you can do on long journeys with adapted words for whatever you see. In our book the bear was very upset.

We also liked a book called the . Especially the 'Wham, Bham, Thump!'. Oh and also Horace the Bear, which I remember being read by my grandfather. It was a bit gruesome though, as Horace gradually ate a large family, one by one!

I don't like the fact that Michael Rosen claims to have written We're Going on a Bear Hunt, but that's a whole other rant. See also Little Rabbit Foo Foo.

Has anyone ever read Oops Says Olly Bear? My kids used to LOVE that, it was a lovely one to read. One of those random jumble sale books that really earnt it's 10p.

Julia Donaldson's rhymes often don't work with my Irish accent, especially the 'r' that she often assumes at the end of words ending in 'a'. This is quite common in children’s books though - for example, gopher and sofa simply can't rhyme in my accent and the rhyme where it occurs doesn't scan either. It's hard to find books that I can read aloud entirely successfully.

I'm muttering to myself in a fake Irish accent to see if I can make gopher and sofa not rhyme abbie. I think my accent is wrong cos I can't do it

Oh, the Supertato books are quite good too. DH and I like doing them in really melodramatic voices sometimes whoever isn't reading does sound effects

The worst, from any author, is a speech followed by 'she said angrily', 'he whispered' etc. FFS, if I'm meant to read it in a particular voice you could at least tell me at the beginning!