Do books for little children ever make you cry?

[PrettyCandles]

I'm a soft moo - Once There Were Giants sets me off every time.

DD2's favourite book at the moment is Tom's Tree - all about a little boy who plants a tree but it grows so slowly that he grows up faster and he's not able to see the tree in it's full glory until he returns with his own son . . . Gets me every time!

I can't remember the name of it, and it has long since been banished to the back of the loft, but it starts...

"There once was a baby with no..o...o Mummy. He washed himself. He cooked for himself. He even changed his own nappy!"

Accompanied by charming drawings of a dear little baby doing all these things. I wanted to adopt that baby right away, and it still makes me feel a bit choked, even though the baby finds a Mummy and Daddy in the end.

Ginger's Adventures!
It was a ladybird book when I was little with the most dreadful rhymes. Ginger (a dog) is given away but escapes and comes back to the little boy who loves him.

And no one's mentioned Lassie come home, yet, must be a tear jerker for some of you.

All the dc have cried over The baby who wouldn't go to bed. It's the bit where he "stands quite still, all alone with the sleeping world around him."

Goodbye Mog gets me more than the children. I think they're thinking more of the new kitten.

oh, oh, Peepo

I must have read it aloud about 400 times, but every time I got to the last page, it would go like this:

he sees the landing mirror
with its rainbow rim
and a mother with a baby just like...h..h..him
he sees his

his cot all ready
his kissnnng hmmm gnight
and his ball....and his...his...t

my poor kids

I'm sniffing now

it makes me think of my nanna and granddad, and my mum being little

my mum, however, thinks I'm soppy as arseholes

Koala Lou. Koala lou's mother is always saying 'koala Lou, I do love you', until she has so many other babies she doesn't have time to say it anymore. So Koala Lou tries to win the bush olympics so that her mother will say it again.

God, I'm crying just writing this.

For an older book, a little princess.I used to get a headache every time I read it from crying so much.

The Velveteen Rabbit. When the rabbit gets put on the fire, I'm gone every time.

I always cry when I sing Puff the Magic Dragon to the dcs. So much so, I have had to event my own last verse where they all get happily back together again. Bugger the meaningful message about growing up and moving on.

Annie Rose is My Little Sister

Something about "because she's my sister and I'm her brother and we'll always be that way. Even when we're grown ups."

Waaaagh

Oh yeah, and A Little Princess - the bit when she gives her buns to the beggar child, even though she's starving herself. DCs look at me like I'm a loon

Ohh, Peepo.

When I was a children's librarian, many years ago, I used to read that book, and long, and long, and long, to have children of my own so that I could read it to them.

And when I did, after many long years, have my own children, someone bought me a copy. And then I was the 'mother with a baby, just like him'.

Pause to mop up.

I also cried (in public) the first time my children encountered a Father Christmas at a toddler group -- because I remembered all those years when I thought I would never be able to tell my children about Father Christmas.

Oh goodness me, how sentimental am I?

I cried nonstop from when she was sent up to the garret.

I had to stop reading the last chapter of the House at Pooh Corner as I was sobbing too much!

Peepo also gets me every time.

I'm glad you started this thread OP, as now I know what not to read.

No matter what

I read it for the grandchildren at my dad's funeral. I still crack up just looking at it, and typing this is starting me off.

FFS! Just reading this has had me choked up sobbing

I knew I should have left this thread alone. I've now ordered "bye bye baby" and know it's going to have me in tears, especially being 30 weeks pregnant...

Ok, so I used to be fine at Peepo - now thanks to SpringHeeledJack it's going to get me every time!

I find the last chapter of House at Pooh Corner painful - but not in a soppy way. It made my teeth itch the one time I read it to dd. I might try again tho'.

Glad I'm not the only soppy one .

Thing is, I can read these books to myself. I love the ending of that Pooh one, when CR is going off to school. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling. And I had no problem when I picked up Once There Were Giants in the shop and read it to myself. It's when I read them aloud to my dc that I go all to pieces.

I might try some of these books myself - especially this 'Dogger' which I have never even heard of before.

Oh, how about Harry The Dirty Dog? My brother's favourite book when we were little. I never cried over it then. Now, though...

SpringHeeledJack thanks for that. Now even thinking about the book is setting me off.

Peepo never used to make me cry until I found out...wait for it....that it's based on Allen Ahlberg's childhood- he IS the baby...

End of Little House in the Big Woods - 'now could never be a long time ago'
Tom's Midnight Garden
Peter Pan - I'm old now, Peter.

On the Shores of Silver Lake, when the dog Jack died.

Can't believe you have 100 posts and no mention of A Bridge to Terebithia - the saddest book of all time - I think you have to be at least 10 to read it though.