Thread of assistance for people who find it tricky remaining breezy about the books their dc choose in the library.

[Slubberdegullion]

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.

DD2 read masses of those dreadful Animal Ark books housemum Kittens in the kitchen, puppies in the pantry, Bunnies in the bathroom etc etc aaargh!

I used to read whatever books were on the shelves, childrens' and adult (sometimes VERY adult!) alike. In retrospect I will never understand why Enid Blyton, James Herbert and Jilly Cooper were all allowed to live on the same (child-height) shelf! Don't think it did me any harm, I just devoured everything.... I will prob take this approach with my own kids but may have more of a 'child-friendly' ethos!!

I do still have an abiding love for Terry Pratchett though and any child of mine who doesn't like his books is getting disowned :)

DD liked the Animal Ark books too. I thought they were fine tbh, much better than the Rainbow fairies in that they're more varied in plot & not that painfully written (and also quite 'sound' IYKWIM). She had a few on tape and I would certainly take them as car-journey listening over the Secret Seven any time

webwiz, DD1 had a thing for the Animal Ark ones too, till we started taking the piss got fed up with them and called them all Tiger in the Toilet . Maybe there's some kind of hypnotism in them that makes them want to do maths later on ?

I forced DD3 to start indepedent reading by refusing to read Sodding Rainbow Fairies (SRF?) to her. Now she can't do anything without a book in her hand.

I've still got my copy of forever by judy blume

I can't stand JW and CC and having moved on from Rainbow/pet fairies they are all DD2 will read.

She won't read HP or Northern lights (she's seen the film) or read Percy Jackson or black beauty or James Heriott (sp) which I'm shire she'd love.
No she's brain washed my Tracy bloody Beaker into what 10y girls read.
She's the best reader in her class she gets 100% in comprehensions. Surely she could be more adventurous.
< bangs head on wall>
her dyslexic big sister will try most things, having read and reread twilight even though she couldn't read until she was 10!

I think that the alliteration in the titles is appealing to budding mathematicians who like order in the world Ishall

I think if any jewellery wearing guinea pigs had been around when DD2 was younger I sure she would have wanted to read those

DD1's problem is that she just can't choose what to read. Going to the library was some sort of torture with me shouting "just choose anything!" Now that she's 20 if she asks me to go into Waterstones with her I refuse.

I'm very much of the view that any reading is good, as long as they're getting the reading habit. After all, how many adults can say hand on heart that they never read the grown-up equivalent of hamsters in tiaras?

My DD doesn't read at all. It pains me greatly.

Grown-up equivalent of hamsters in tiaras - all the Twilight books, read in indecent succession. I don't know what came over me.

Currently unable to leave an Agatha Raisin omnibus alone after one book ... two ... on the third and suspect I will read the four and final one, then download some more.

DD likes sparkly fairy shit, but has come to realise that mummy does NOT put on her best reading performance when forced to read them. She had one for Christmas with the proviso she reads it herself ... we will see. She has just finished a proper chapter book, which was unutterably tedious (it was about a kitten, albeit not in a tiara) but she is SO proud that she finished it. She's nearly 8 and a good reader but has NO stamina.

I will continue reading to her until she has to beat me off with a stick - it's not like there are any other opportunities in life for me to read Terry Pratchett out loud in ridiculous accents, after all.

Arf @ Twilight = hamsters in tiaras. So true.

Well this thread if nothing else has reassured me that the scourge of rainbow fairies will pass.

DD is nearly 12 and has a reading age far beyond that. I want to steer her away from anything too sexy at the moment - any recommendations please?!

Ds1 aged 10 just finished his first Michael Morpurgo book last night. He was in floods of tears and needed a very big hug, but has insisted that he still wants to read War Horse next. More hugs needed, I suspect .
DS2 aged 7 loves reading Cows in Action/ Astrosaurs/ Astrosaurs Academy (all by the same person), although has recently got the latest Clumsies book which he has been waiting avidly for.
I rememebr reading complete trash as a child (remember going through a phase of reading Mills and Boon aged about 13!), infact I still do at times, but I agree that I think for kids any reading is good. I am however glad that mine seem to have outgrown Captain Underpants

My mum used to let me choose whatever I wanted and would take out several at the same time on her ticket "which I could read if I wanted to, but ask first" which would be left around or she would read avidly on the sofa. Her choices were always the best ones and the ones I reread though I would never admit it even now.

At home I was allowed to read anything I wanted from her shelves. She put a whole load on the top shelf randomly without saying anything . I was halfway through Pride and Prejudice before I realised they weren't 'naughty' books . Master of child psychology my mum. The dubious books were at eye-level.

I let DD (6.5) take whatever she likes out of the library but I won't read books aloud that I don't like, so the ones I like get lots of attention and she is left to read the dross by herself. Did encourage her to learn to read much faster.

Thetokengirl - the Cows in Action joke book is fab - dd's best school reading book yet IMO :)

(disclaimer: I have a somewhat childish sense of humour and I also like Captain Underpants )

mine read loads of trash - rainbow magic, hamsters in tiaras but the best thing we EVER did was buy them cheap reading lights from Argos. Now they read Famous five, Lemony Sniketts, The dark is rising series and mmmmm Harry blinking Potter (sorry but a bit "He said", they did, "she said" for me....) for 30 min before "lights out".

I read all sorts of shite as a child. Read proper stuff too. I vividly remember my mate bringing mills and boons books into school when were 13, so we could look for rude bits.

The cool kids were all doing the rude stuff.

Anyone remember those Flowers in the Attic ones? Not kids books, but read as a kid.

Reading is overrated anyway. Trust me. Only leads to English degrees and journalistic penury. OTOH an English degree does mean you can have an artless juxtaposition of Gory Thrillers with the complete works of Chaucer, and DP's Truly Dreadful Fantasy Fiction with the sonnets and sermons of John Donne. (Adult equivalent of leaving around Morpurgos, obviously.)

Oh don't say that motherinferior, it's a terrible calumny on books. DH and I and all our friends are voracious readers and very very few of them ever got sucked into English Literature degrees - and those were probably down to bad parenting IMO. I refuse to believe that a few thousand books will lead an otherwise healthy child astray.

It is probably bad parenting, you're right; in fact I myself am a third generation English graduate with - sob - more in my family on both sides too. Which means really that I had no hope, it's effectively predetermined, dreadful role models and no options of better things....

My Mum's (boarding) school issued a list of all banned books. The girls would search out the books on the list and then they would be handed round the school. As a result she never banned us reading anything and we did all go through a stage of reading absolute rubbish as young teenagers. I was addicted to Virginia Andrews, Shirley Conran, Jilly Cooper, Jackie Collins etc etc, my sister read horror. Our English teacher said most kids go through a stage of reading rubbish before they move on to adult books.

Of course I'm still at the age where I can control the books the girls get out of the library so it's still the golden age here.

Dontcallmebaby that's my exact plan. Books that I like, I put my all into reading - every character has a different accent, for example (accents are my party trick ). Shit books like Disney Princess I will read one chapter in a bland way that befits the writing. They soon learn

Actually DD (5) and I had a pretend fight the other day as I said I am never reading another Rainbow Fairy book. She said, fine she is going to read them all herself then. Maybe it works after all...

I read some total tosh as a kid. And I loved it, the best worst things I read were the Mary Ann things by catherine cookson that my step-grandmother adored. And yes, hidden Jilly Coopers etc when I was a bit older.

I keep telling myself that mermaids = ponies and fairies = school. But I don't really believe it. Haven't decided what hamsters = ?Enid Blyton? They were looked down on when I was a kid - Secret Seven anyone? But now people seem to think they were ok.

motherinferior are you me??

Oh, hang on, I have a career in public sector penury, and DH reads science fiction instead of fantasy, but still ...

I have some really quite 'interesting' books dotted around, thanks to having taken a course in transgressive literature at university - I'm sure they're going to pop out and haunt me one of these days.

I used to read Mills & Boon when I was 12. I'd buy them in the charity shop and read them during quiet reading time at my Convent school! I'd read the rude bits out to my friends :o

Back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth (at any rate, before properly computerised loan records) I worked out that you could bend the "6 books at a time" rule. Take out 6 books on Monday. Repeat Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.... Bookworm bliss.