good books to read to my 3 year old before bed please!

[TheNatty]

hi my son has just turned three and is rapidly growing out of "picture" books.
i would like to start reading him a big book that would be a chapter a night, ifuswim.

what sort of books would be suitable? he is quite grown up for his age and will listen to a book read to him when there are very few pictures.

ideally id like this to be special time for me and him as he is quite difficult atm, i have a younger dd and a baby on the way and i fear he is feeling pushed out.

thanks guys

My naughty little sister? Might be just the thing (unless your dd is angelic!)

The Gruffalo, or anything by Julia Donaldson

We have ...

The Gruffalo

Dr Seuss' - sleep book / ABC's / The thinks you can think.

Grumpy Cat

Not really a chapter a night, but these are some of our favourites:

Hairy Maclary books - or anything by Lynley Dodd. The Slinki Malinki book has DD in hysterics
Ludwig and the Chocolate Biscuit Tree
I don't want to go to bed
Monkey Puzzle
The Smartest Giant in Town
Ladybird fairytales - current faves are Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood, Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella (she loves to be scared but we have also gone through phases of The Elves and the Shoemaker, Princess and the Pea, The Ugly Duckling
The tiger who came to tea
Lots of Little Tiger Press books, can't remember them off the top of my head but there are some really nice stories

Hope that helps.

the ladybird stories sound good.

we have the gruffalo, grown out of im afraid, still too picture booky for him.

I've just thought - what about Teddy Robinson? That would be my no. 1 choice for a longer book to read to a small child.

Apart from that I'm afraid these are mostly rather old fashioned, but early 'chapter' books that my dd liked listening to were:

• Clever Polly & the Stupid Wolf (and sequels)
• Danny Fox
• Puffin book of Stories for Under Fives / Stories for Five Year Olds etc
• Milly Molly Mandy (too girly perhaps?)
• Flat Stanley
• Arabel's Raven

You can see that the Takver household is not startlingly up to date

takvar that sounds good, thanks, will check out mylibrary and see which they have

I second Teddy Robinson - my nephew LOVED them at that age. He'd go round persuading everyone to read to him so he could hear them all every day.

Teddy Robinson! I'd forgotten about him! Thank you (again - q.v. One End Street in the other thread!).

I used to love that sort of book - anything about teddies or dolls getting up to things by themselves was a guaranteed hit.

another vote for naughty little sister (DS1 3.10 loves those stories)

Also Flat Stanley, Paddington (paperback rather than picture ones perhaps)

Having said all that, at the moment DS1's absolute top favourite is the highway code

high way code! lol kids eh!

i am going to pop to the library tomorrow and have a look around for those suggested, was also thinking enid blyton stories? or do you think still a bit to grown up for him?

DS will be 3 next week, and we have just started chapter books. My Naughty Little Sister was a big hit, as was Teddy Robinson and Olga da Polga. I'll be giving Mary Plain a go too.

Theres a lot of longer picture books too - Bedtime for Frances, Dogger are ones that have a lot more words

My lot(boy twins 5 and dd 4) love:

all the Julia Donaldson books
the Oliver Jeffers books(especially The Book Eating Boy) The Pencil by Alan Ahlberg has been a recent hit
the Lighthouse Keeper books
the Katie Morag books
the Simon Bartram books
the Winnie the Witch books
Flat Stanley
George's Marvellous Medicine
and I've just bought one of the Mungo books by Timothy Knapman which looks good

DD 3.5 loves:

(Again) all the Julia Donaldson books
Charlie & Lola series
Plop, the Owl who was afraid of the Dark
Paddington (though they're quite long)
Animal reference books (kids encyclopaedia type things)

would highly recommend guess how much I love you, if you haven't already got it. I know it's not a chapter a night type of book and probably not as old as you're after, but such a lovely story and the message in it might help at the moment, given your situation. DS is 2 and we've just had 4wk old DD. I do worry at the moment that he's feeling he's not getting as much attention and we read this to him every night and he's even started saying he loves mummy, daddy, baba, nana, taidy etc.

Also, how about Beatrix Potter? a friend bought DS a lovely hardback treasury book, it's a bit too old for DS yet, but you could get through a chapter a night on this one.

Message withdrawn

CMOT Mary Plain was way over my 3yo dds head... I think the world has changed too much since they were written, so we're going to try again in 12 mo time...
She does adore Moomins though...

Also- bog standard fairy tales... we have a book by Val biro that is just the right length and level for her.

What about things like The Little Prince, Captain Underpants books and The Rover Adventures by Roddy Doyle.

Also this book is wonderful.

Oh and this one too.