To think bedtime stories should not be emotional?!

[Cadela]

This is lighthearted!

Just read Dd the Paper Dolls and got slightly choked up at the boy chopping them up, full on holding back sobs at the memories bit with granny 😭 Trying to read a bedtime story with a massive lump in your throat is a nightmare!

The other one that does it to me is ‘The Girls’ when they all come back to the tree all grown up.

In my defence I’ve been an easy crier since pregnancy and happy to show Dd all emotions but sobbing during bedtime isn’t what I planned 😂

Is there a bedtime book that does it for you too?

I wasn't moved at all by Paper Dolls.. much as I tried to be??!

Love You Forever and Puff the Magic Dragon. Can just about get through them now, but I first read Love you Forever to my DC at about 2 weeks old so that combined with baby blues meant I was a snot-nosed wreck for ages!

I can't even think about the last line without welling up 😳

I Love You Little Monster is pretty emotional. Not a book but Tee and Mo and the Big Boy Boots song had me in floods

Shirley Hughes 'Annie Rose is my little sister', with all the poignant illustrations, it ends something like ' because she's my little sister and I'm her brother, and we'll go on being that forever, even after we're grown up!'

Cue me howling every time to kids' bemusement.

Also could not get through 'The Places You'll go' without bawling.

Sometimes I test whether I need to up my HRT by singing Sunrise Sunset and seeing how far I make it.

I have never read Pepe Dolls without crying. I just can’t do it. The granny bit kills me.

I'm a complete ice queen but DH generally does the stories and he cries at nearly everything. He can't even read snail and the whale without crying.

peepo- innocent enough until you realise that it’s set in the blitz and the dad’s off to war!

agree with dogger.
don’t even consider goodbye mog if you’re a cat lover.
gets worse as they get older, just been jointly reading Goodnight Mr Tom with my 10 yr old- made him do the really sad bits.

Same here! They find my reaction hilarious and don't find it moving at all.

There’s also a really sad one about a stunted christmas tree that doesn’t get picked for a house, then a homeless boy picks it out of a bin and plants it in a box under a railway arch. It ends well but it’s a good way to ruin the festive spirit!

I foll up with The Lorax too - I can't get through 'unless some one like you cares an awful lot ...'

Also Dr Seuss OH the Places you'll go

And I love you forever, totally had me sobbing

Don't go near The Velveteen Rabbit OP!

The Little Prince and Charlotte's Web!!

Quite an old picture book now but Bye Bye Baby by Alan and Janet Ahlberg used to set me off. It has a happy ending.

*Shirley Hughes 'Annie Rose is my little sister', with all the poignant illustrations, it ends something like ' because she's my little sister and I'm her brother, and we'll go on being that forever, even after we're grown up!'

Cue me howling every time to kids' bemusement.*

Same!

We still can’t read grandads island. It’s on DC2’s reading list this term. I crossed telling their teacher why we couldn’t read it with them.

This is brutal!! Not a happy story at all, and not suitable for children's bedtime reading IMHO

Once there were giants used to get me every time

I love Shirley Hughes and the Ahlbergs. Just can't beat them. Takes me right back to my childhood.

Weird. Literally just read "The Girls" and "The Boys" tonight...they always give me a lump in my throat too!

Definitely Oh! the Places you will Go! By Dr Seuss

You'll get mixed up, of course,
as you already know.
You'll get mixed up
with many strange birds as you go.
So be sure when you step.
Step with care and great tact
and remember that Life's
a Great Balancing Act.
Just never foget to be dexterous and deft.
And never mix up your right foot with your left.

And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.)

KID, YOU'LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!

So...
be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray
or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O'Shea,
You're off the Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So...get on your way!

Oh I loved it as a child and firmly believed if I loved my bear enough he'd become real - sadly at 54 years old it's looking unlikely.

DH and I had to tag team reading that chapter aloud. We both kept crying. DC was oblivious to the emotional trauma!

All children's books make me cry. I've no idea why. Even if it's just characters being nice to each other, don't even have to be sad!

The Patchwork Cat makes me cry, that one I can't actually read aloud at all. (or in my head tbh) I'm not going to describe the plot because last time I did that on a thread like this I accidentally made another poster cry!

Actually I've thought of 2 that do get me. The Mousehole cat and the little house by the sea Benedict blathwayt. Clearly it's the sea that moves me!