to want to pull my fingernails out one by one rather than read the cr*ppy books my son keeps choosing?

[IlanaK]

I love reading to my kids at night. Ds1 is going through the whole of the Swallows and Amazons series and I am thoroughly enjoying reading them to him.

Ds2 however wants things like Astrosaurs and Cows in Action. I try, I really do! But by page 3 I want to stick my fingers in my eyes, rip my fingernails out and scream! Really, I just can't do it anymore!

Am I being unreasonable?

yanbu - thomas the naffing tank engine has mysteriously gone missing in this house

and Mummy's are NOT allowed to read Mr Men books as they are special daddy books hence the name

Ha ha, no you are not being unreasonable!

DD has a book called "Balloonia" which is the biggest pile of toss I have ever had the misfortune to read in my life, and I will only read it every other night. It's like nails on a chalk board.

I am storing away the Mr Men 'rule' for later use

I find factual books about anything with an engine has a kind of mind numbing quality.

The astrosaurs are killing me too, one badly written paragraph at a time

I feel your pain. Thomas the Tank Engine, Dora the Explorer, Spot ... there's some really crap books out there.

dd is currently stuck on The Encyclopoaedia of The Human Body. Ah, my brilliant pfb, I thought on Day 1. Now, Day 37 and counting, I cannot tell you how fed up I am of intoning, "Here's the nervous system... here's your skeleton... this is a neuron.... look! This is where your poo comes out!"

I would do ANYTHING for a plot...

I know what you mean. I felt the same about Rainbow Fairies with DD, and we are now experiencing Dinosaur Cove Hell with DS.

And sadly I know the guy who writes Astrosaurs (one of them, anyway) and he writes much better stuff - it's his bread-and-butter writing to survive.

DC1 - read everything he asked for
DC2 - read lots of what she asked for
DC3 - only read what I feel like reading
DC4 - never gets read to

DD loves those fairy or unicorn books that come in a series, I dread story time.

Actually, not surprisingly, my kids have ended up being early readers in a desperate attempt to read crap.

lo @ anything for a plot!!

DD is stuck in the world of pixies. gnomes and fairies, in Enid Blytons books atm. Lots of places called Ho Ho, undeserved spankings and lotsof 'you ougn't do that ...'

!!!!

I actually like the Mr Men books and think they are well written. They are nice to read outloud. It is not the content of these books so much (though that is bad enough) it is the way they are written - or the absolutely terrible way they were written.

lepirate I quite enjoy Enid Blyton because it takes me back to my own childhood, but some bits make me gag!

The other night in the Faraway Tree, "Mother" had been ill in bed for days. Her main worry was not swine flu, but whether she was going to be able to keep up with the laundry. Some medicine from the magic place sorted her out quickly. This was evidenced by the fact that she could soon be heard cooking and cleaning in the kitchen and "it was lovely to hear"

Talking about the Mr Men books did you know that in the latest one, Tess turned down a marriage proposal from Mr Tickles because she didn't want to take on his surname. [grin}

No neither did I till me 8 year old told me.

Oh the fairy ones, the titles are bad enough, have never had the misfortune to read one they are ridiculous though, really scraping the barrel for titles. I think we should bring out a mumsnet series from a combination of the baby names section and active conversations. Ursula the Unreasonable Fairy, Belinda the Bumsex fairy

gwen and tess the gifted and talented twins

I hate the flower fairies and my dd's know that the Mr Men will never be read by Mummy, luckily Daddy is game for that YANBU, as an earlier poster said, it gets them ready to read themselves early!

Message withdrawn

My dad just read me whatever he felt like reading at the time - I'd had huge amounts of Dickens read to me by the time I was 7. And then he was suprised that I wanted to study English Lit at University.

Don't get me started on the rainbow fairies or tiara princess books - I can never remember which ones I've read to DD2 as they are ALL THE SAME!! OP I have to say, faced with those, I much prefer Astrosaurs, and that is saying something.
DD1 is now onto Harry Potter which is much more in my comfort zone, but DD2 is still on fairy / princess books. Agh!

Dora books are mind numbing and have been hiden in the hope that DD forgets they ever existed.

I was most impressed at Mr Men especially Mr Tickle with the introduction of the word pandemonium into DD's vocabulary.

I recently bought DS2 two Roary books as its his current obssesion favourite. They are simple easy books for me him (does anyone else stifle yawns after the first page of reading to DC's?) but I got quite cross at the constant 'saids'

"Blah, Blah" Roary said

"Blah Blah" Big Chris said

"Blah Blah" Roary said etc etc

I'm not very good with the correct written form of English but thsi just didnt scan right to me

Grendelsmum my friend does that with her ds -she read him Jane Austen!

DH hates reading aloud fullstop, therefore he doesn't care what he reads because he hates it all. I OTOH love it so I am super-fussy. DD knows she ain't gonna get Rainbow Fairies from me so there's no point in asking.

OP, yay for Swallows and Amazons!

Your feelings are not unreasonable, but alas tis mummy duty to read the shite your kids like. x