bedtime stories for ds1 5.5

[Codswallop]

we have done milly molly mandy (!)
horrid henry
captain underpants

are considering Dahl

want chapter - y type books with the odd pic thrown in please

my ds dont rate DKs either - I find him hard to read out loud

That's the one Coddy- Mrs Cocoa Jones bangs on the wall to get MNLS when it's 11 o clock.

Some of our favourites (apart from MMM, HH and so on) are Teddy Robinson (separate story chapters as in MMM), much loved even by ds aged 9, Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf books (ditto) and Mary Poppins. I know that doesn't sound so good, but it's actually very imaginative and well written with a good dollop of naughtiness (always goes down well) and magic. I just started Five Children and It, but the language is quite old-fashioned. If you want a real chpater book I would second Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and maybe The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe. I think ds was 6 when I read that to him.

Yes to Roald Dahl! I have read to ds1: C and the CF, The Giraffe, The Pelly and Me, The Twits, James and the Giant Peach, the BFG, The Enormous Crocodile, The Minpins, George's Marvellous Medicine, The Magic Finger, Matilda, and Fantastic Mr Fox. I am saving The Witches and Danny, Champion of the World til he's a bit bigger (he's 7). And I didn't bother with Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator cos I think it's pants.

Ds1 alos adores Dr. Seuss - though not chaptery, more to be read in one sitting. If you haven't read anything other than The Cat in the Hat, there's a lot more to him than that. Ds1's favourites are:

The Lorax, the Sleep Book, On Beyond Zebra, Oh the Places You'll Go!, the Sneetches and Other Stories, If I Ran The Circus, Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky you Are, I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew, Oh the Thinks You Can Think, Horton Hears a Who, Horton hatches the Egg, Yertle the Turtle, If I Ran the Circus...and of course the Grinch!

He also LOVES Jeremy Strong - I got a box-set of 8 books for his birthday (from Red House) and we have read all but two now. Ds1 has enjoyed: There's A Viking in my Bed, The 100 Mile an Hour Dog, Fatbag the Demon Vacuum Cleaner, My Dad's Got an Alligator, The Karate Princess, My Granny's Great Escape, My Mum's Going to Explode.

Have just amazoned Jeremy Strong - ooh he's written loads, feel a shop coming on, we just started our second to last Giant Jim and the Hurricane!

While I remember the Narnia books fondly, having re-read them recently I think they are a bit dry and wordy (for my son at least).

Oh and he loved the first three Harry Potters, drifted a bit in the fourth, and we gave up completely on the 5th (not enough Quidditch!)

Sorry, got a bit carried away then - can you tell I was a librarian in a previous pre-child incarnation?

My tip re Roald Dahl is don't read Matilda to your 5 yr-old the week before he starts school! Yes, I really did that. (In my defence I wasn't familiar with the plot.)

A Bear Called Paddington (first in series)
Michael Bond

The Velveteen Rabbit (a classic)
Margery Williams

Mr Majeika (first in series)
Humphrey Carpenter

Bottersnikes & Gumbles
S A Wakefield

Dahl is great, definitely. Marthamoo, isn't the great glass elevator pants? Quite agree, esp. compared to the rest of his work. Agree also about the naughty little sister stories, though the ones I have are printed in double spacing, which is odd, so they're not as long as they might look from picking up the book in the shop. We've recently read Charlotte's Web, which ds loved (being too young to say oh it's a girl's book but I'm glad I got it in before he started saying that kind of thing) and a lot of other Dahl. I've recently re-read The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe - for myself, not to ds - and loved it but actually, I think maybe it's not a read aloud book but an imagine-it-in-your-head book. I'm thinking of trying the Famous Five soon just because I loved Enid Blyton as a child and wanted to go to Mallory Towers but I'm not sure I'll be able to read it with a straight face. Also codswallop, my ds still loves Beatrix Potter and what we call the Long Tom Kitten (the one where he is wrapped up by the rats, we called it long because it was for a 3 yo bedtime story) and all the others. I'm amazed at Potter's enduring appeal despite the archaic language.

www, ds1 loved Beatrix Potter too! It's amazing, isn't it, as the language is so archaic. I suppose that "hero/heroine in a tight spot" has universal and timeless child appeal. Ds1's favourites were Tom Kitten in the Roly Poly pudding story (and woe betide me if I tried to skip any of the tedious wainscotting bits!), the two bad mice trashing the doll's house, and Jeremy Fisher. He used to dress up in his wellies and cagoule and sit on a cushion (lily pad) fishing. I thought he was possibly the only child in the 21st century to refer to wellies as galoshes!

I read Charlotte's Web to him on holiday last year - I was a bit woried about Charlotte's dying but he took it in his stride (I was completely choked though).

I can't see him loving the Mallory Towers books like I did though

Oh, if I can instil a love of books into my boys I will feel satisfied I have done a half decent job of motherhood.

we have just finished the first famous five book - very exciting, all about the secret island and treasure and dungeons - and both dd (6)and dds1 (3.5) were enthralled. Have done olga da polga, milly molly mandy, fantastic mr fox, my naughty little sister and charlottes web. also other blytons - eg the magic wishing chair. we are starting on mrs pepperpot soon (the worst witch was rejected by dd on the basis that "I don't like witches". fair enough).

I have a nearly 6 DD and a newly 4 DS, and the bedtiem books we have read recently are:

The faraway tree (by far their favourite)

Charlie and the chocolate factory (they liked this a lot)

Harry Potter (didn't really take to it - they loved the film though)

Lots of poetry (which has the added advantage of being quick) - including 'who flushed granny down the toilet', 'my step-dad is an alien', 'who puts bogies up your nose' etc etc.

The toothfairy also was a good book - especially around the time that DD lost her first tooth.

I find it hard to believe the timeless appeal that the Enid Blyton books have. Am currently reading Noddy with my dd(8), have read many of the short stories to them (yes, I kept my own ), and now they are asking for the Secret Seven. Am thinking of starting a whats your favourite Enid Blyton book thread.

Marthamoo, that's the one we call The Long Tom Kitten, the one with Tom in a roly poly pudding with smuts in it Me too about Charlotte dying, it didn't bother my ds either but upset me, tears in my eyes etc. Ooh pph, Mrs Pepperpot! Had forgotten all about her, must do her soon. And the Secret Seven.

I must admit I have a problem with Enid Blyton. We started off reading the stories to ds1, and yes he loved them. But I was quite shocked by the racism within them, and the constant and persistent sexism. For a while we would read them to him, but spend some time talking about the racist and sexist issues within them ... but that doesn't work once they start reading them for themselves.

DS1 was hooked by them, and would have happily read nothing else. We didn't ban them completely, but just introduced him to other authors to make him realise there were better choices out there.

A good alternative to Enid Blyton - secret clubs, mysteries to solve, spies, adventures, etc. is Caroline Lawrence's Roman Mysteries series. The first one is the Thieves of Ostia It's set in Roman times, and they are great fun. There's a good amount of latin words, so some younger children might be put off. I would say they are maybe suited to reading aloud to a child from, say, age 6 or 7 onwards.

Does anyone remember "My Friend Mr. Leakey" by JBS Haldane (otherwise the very famous marxist geneticist) - about a little boy's adventures with a slightly subversive magician? Briefly published by Penguin in the early 70s, with Quentin Blake illustrations.

I'd love to find it again (where are you clever LIZS with your sourcing talents) (but suspect it too will turn out to be unthinkingly racist or something - I do agree about how books that were just accepted when we were young can really shock now - particularly have noticed the anti-semitism of E. Nesbit).

thanks you all so much for your suggestions.

btw are some definitel better to leave for him to red himself in a couple of years?

whaddaya think?

pph how do yu know the order of the famous five?

flat stanley

lol how can i live for 33 years nad not know about flat stanley!

a MUST when I was a nipper. there are follow-ups to it, it's by Jeff Brown & I just bought my niece (aged 5) a copy for easter instead of chocolate, far better for her , it's in paperback quite big writing with nice illustrations, got it in waterstones

Codswallop, my experience is that reading a book as a bedtime story encourages them to read it again to themselves when they're older, not discourages them. So I wouldn't reject any book on that basis.

The only thing we have found is that reading a demanding book too early can make them reluctant to try it again later. For example, DS1 enjoyed Lion, Witch & Wardrobe ... but didn't get on with The Horse and his Boy, and now declines to read or listen to any C S Lewis. But I still find it hard to predict what will grip them and what will bore them at any particular stage. We still have hits and misses. But we are getting better at diagnosing them, and giving up earlier rather than later on a 'miss', so as to preserve it as a possibility for the future.

rosin thats what i feared - that it would turen him off
windi n the willows was like that - actully very archaic lang

Here you go binkie- lots of copies of Mr Leakey , though not all in the UK. I used to work in the lab where Haldane had previously worked

I loved Enid Blyton so much. Ds, two, also loves Beatrix Potter. So sweet the image of your son, Marthamoo. Galoshes! How marvellous. How old is he?

I don't really know the order of the famous five, but this one is the one where Julian, Dick and Anne meet George ("if you call me Georgina I won't answer!) and Timothy for the first time, so it was a bit of no-brainer.
BTW these are all my old books we are reading as well - my mother presented me with two enormous boxes of my childhood books last year, didn't know she had them! Treasure!

All the horsey/pony ones still to come - Mary O'Hara anyone? The Green Grass of Wyoming, My Friend Flicka, Thunderhead? God, I bet they aren't even published anymore. I LOVED them when I was about 8/9

I hated the horsey ones, I liked malory towers

sad how unlike the books bloody boarding school is.! did have midnight feasts though!

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