Do you cry whilst reading to the children?

[MrsNormanMaine]

I just read The Story of Holly and Ivy (Rummer Godden) to my children (5 and 3) and burst into tears. I do get very into the reading and I loved it when I was a child. Maybe due to recent bereavements (parents) or just being older and a parent myself - or being a sentimental nutter - but have you sobbed openly due to being moved by a story you are reading to your children? How did they react? What did you say?

My daughter was concerned and sweet, my son thought it was hilarious but was also very sweet and tried to get me to read the same bit over and over to see if it kept happening. All in all I think it added something!

I did the same thing reading The Diddakoi (when the Does were going to send Joe to the knackers). Must stop with Rummer Godden!

This www.amazon.co.uk/Someday-Alison-McGhee/dp/1847380883/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1227478028&sr=8- 1 ...

Mabana, thanks for reminding me of the childs garden of verse.

that first one is so sad and atmospheric.

My dd1 (3.10) likes me to sing her an ABBA medley instead of a lullaby.

I am to say when I get to "And when you get the chaaance, you are the dancing queen, young and sweet only 17" ... reminds me too sharply of my own youth (though I was never sweet and am a crap dancer). DD1 boogies and twirls on, ignoring her idiot mother.

Pathetic

Amazing Grace - I defy anyone with a young daughter not to have a real lump in the throat after that one

Tiger who came to tea - "but he never did" - gets me now!

'Guess How much i love You' and 'I forgot to Say I love you'. I fill up everytime and we have had the books for years.

My nephew brought one of his books a few wks ago for me to read when he came to stay.'Some dogs do'. How the hell he didnt notice i was crying i will never know. How touching is that book.

Also whenever i read A.A.Milne's Vespers as it reminds me of my own mother reading it when my sister and I were children.

I'm glad I'm not the only one!
I can't stop myself sobbing every time I get to the last line of "Guess how much I love you". Sometimes before, because I know what's coming.
I must have read it 100's of times, but it never fails.
Don't think DD has noticed.
There are others, but I forget.

Oh yeah, The Selfish Giant. (Actually reading thread now.)
I'm new to it, and I wasn't expecting it to do that to me!

The Dear Grandma Miffy book makes me bite my lip and take a breath.

As does the first world war book Ginger and something.

The little match girl
The little Prince
The Happy Prince

so many of the others on here I'm crying now (and off to AMAZON tomorrow to get my dcs some lovely books!)

Definitely the bit at the end of the Railway Children when Bobby is at the station shouting "My Daddy, my daddy, my daddy!" And also the bit in one of the Little House on the Prairie books where Jack the dog dies.

Puff the magic dragon - esp the song. It's so sad that I'm not sure I should expose dd to it at all!

Oh agree with Lockets, there is nothing that gets me more in the throat than the end of Winnie the Pooh when he and Christopher Robin go off to their special place and CR tells Pooh that he's leaving to go to school and everything is changing and is all so... so... sniff... SAD. I well up just thinking about it

Have recently been reading "We're Going on a Bear Hunt" to DS (nearly 2). At the end I feel sad for the bear - wandering home on his own, and was telling DS "oh poor bear, he just wanted a hug". No response from DS.

15 mins later DS was standing on his change mat, having his pjs put on, when his mouth turned down, lip wobbled and tears started streaming from his eys and he wailed "poor bear, bear just wanted a hug" and collapsed into tears. Cue me to weep. We composed ourselves until half way through his bottle when again he dissolved into tears.

For both our sakes I now explain that the bear is going home to his mummy and daddy for a hug.

It was a defining moment for me - and his reaction moved me deeply.

'The Lonely Tree' I borrowed it from the library and ignorantly started to read it to the kids, I didn't know that it was a book to help kids with bereavement. The young tree makes friends with the old tree and they all go to sleep for the winter, in the spring, the young tree wakes up and looks for his friend but he doesn't wake up, he has died. The kids still ask me to read it 'No, because it makes Mammy cry' they plead on 'Stop it, or I'll cry right now, don't even mention it' and so on and so on, and and 'bunny my honey' about the bunny who gets lost and looks for his Mammy, and Moneky Puzzle for the same reason.

I'm with mcfee on the Railway children - have goosbumps just thinking about it now! Also, I know it's not a book, but I cannot even have a DVD/video of Dumbo in the house since having the DCs...that bit where she's got her trunk through the bars of the cage and she's rocking him to sleep and singing......oh my, oh my...

Ditto with the Railway children, the bit on the railway station, especially on the film makes me sob, because my father died 18 years ago and it upsets me so much, also ditto on guess how much I love you. Another book which gets me is "Twas the night before Christmas" which I read to my DS every christmas eve. It makes me get a lump in my throat because I had it read to me as a child every christmas eve and it brings back so many happy memories. Which I know is an odd reason to cry but it does it to me every time!

DH left me reading The Velveteen Rabbit to the baby. He came back into the room to find me gibbering incoherently. Alarmed, he sat down by my side and held my hand. "It's..just...so... sad," I explained. He thinks I'm bonkers, so I'm glad I'm not the only one or should that be .

End of Winnie the Pooh - me too! I haven't been able to read that to any of mine since getting to the end of it when DD1 (now 15!) was fast asleep in her cot and therefore didn't see me blubbing. Another story that DD2 loved and asked for over and over was "Tell me something happy before I go to sleep" by Debi Gliori. If I read it now to the younger ones I well up. With DS, it was a book called My Friend Harry, about a little boy and his toy elephant, that started me sniffing.

I've read the Narnia stories to all my children and the end of The Last Battle is always difficult to read. Before that, though, the departure of Reepicheep the talking mouse from Voyage of the Dawn Treader had youngest DD in floods of tears and she started me off, but fortunately I was able to reassure her (fans of CS Lewis will know what I mean but I don't want to spoil the story for those who haven't read it or are looking forward to the next film!)

Love You Forever completely finishes me off every single time - like proper sobbing, snotters, the works ....

DD just ignores me but DS (7) is a bit of a drama queen so forces himself to 'well up' too.

I used to work in a nursery and always had to do story time as the kids sat quietly for me(!) and couldn't get through Some Dogs Do or Guess How Much I Love You, but the worst was always What Colour Is Love? by Linda Strachan

"What colour is love?
Every colour, all around,
Because nothing else matters when it's love that you've found"

My godson read it at his parents wedding, was sobbing...!

I can suggest if you like this sort of thing The Happy Prince - 'swallow, swallow, little swallow, pluck out my eye!!' about a statue who can stand over the city and see all the poor and suffering little children. He asks a little swallow bird to pluck all his gilt paint, the jewels in his eyes etc.The swallow delivers the bits to the poor for medicine and food. In the end he has nothing left to give and he is all bare so they melt him down. I have never read it to my own but my mum used to read it to me. It was utterly heart rending -complete with sad colour plate illustrations. Why she used to read it I do not know. It is by Oscar Wilde. And the original (not Disney, obviously) Little Mermaid where she turns to foam on the sea in the end. Tragic. Feel really down now!!

These have been known to jerk a tear, especially the Papa one: "Papa, Do You Love Me?" and "Mama, Do You Love Me?" by Barbara M Joosse.

I never managed to finish reading Love you Forever to my dd - couldn't get the words out for sobbing.
And since ds was born, find it impossible to sing Two Little Boys without breaking down.

Well, finding out that I'm not the only blubbing bedtime story reader around has cheered me up. I started to worry about myself when I welled up during the first chapter of Swallows and Amazons yesterday. (Think it was because we're reading from the copy my dad gave me, sniff)

"If you are lost in the wood, in the wood, I will find you"

"And they sang to the sea as they all set sail, On the tail of the grey blue humpback whale."