An awful lot of childrens books are utterly crap aren't they?

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Honestly, we got 15 books from the libary last week and another 20 this and about 2 of them are ok and the rest are utter drivel.

Anyone agree?

Oh, I love the Mr Men books I laugh out loud at them. Tonight Mr Worry had been worried all morning about a leaf on his roof. What's not to laugh at at that?

That's it! It was in the children's library and dd wanted me to read it as she's a big fan of his drawings. It never occured to me that it had such an adult theme.

Blimey that would have poleaxed me coming across it unawares in the children's section

it is an incredibly moving and powerful book

DS loves Mr Men. DH has recently read through the 44 we have got at bedtime. Thankfully I didn't fall for that! Hoewver when DS turns up for some reason without a reading book he sometimes chooses to read one to me. Yawn. But I liked them as a child.

i love 'the mole who knew it was none of his buisness' but i've got that sorta humor.

dds also got a book about a dog thats farts, its got a whoppee cushion thing in it and makes the noise!! i think that's brill too!!

i cant stand the virginia miller bartholomew bear books, dd loves them tho! it's that 'nah' noise that gets me!!!

Some of them are OK, Tinker, but when you have the entire lot, it's very noticeable that a lot of them are dire. We like Mr Tickle for example

In DD's school they write a Mr Man book in Y4. DD's class had to make up their own Mr Man/Little Miss and write a story around it; the current Y4 seem to have re-written using the existing characters looking at the work on display. DD had lots of fun doing it, particularly because she was off ill following an operation and DTP'd it using MS Publisher

But I agree there are some dire books - but also some excellent ones. I've decided I am stuck, intellectually speakng! - at enjoying children's books as I enjoy DD's books so much. It started with the Hungery Caterpillar that I remembered from my own childhood but discovering new books has been fantastic. And I loathed poetry/rhyming books as a child (Dad used to read me the rhyming Rupert Bear and I used to read the prose underneath) but I now love Hairy McLary & co and other books with rhythm

I like that cats one. A lot So do the Inferiorettes.

I'm afraid the Mr Men ones make me feel as if someone had drawn fingernails down the blackboard of my mind (I know I've said that before about other things). Those girlywurly ones just make me want to vomit.

But I also think there is some fabulous stuff out there. I like children's literature. A lot.

I dislike The Tiger Who Came To Tea a lot. I was so expecting to like it as it is my old copy - most of the family's children's books are not 'mine' as i'm the youngest of 3, but it came out the year before I was born - also i love the Judith Kerr books for older children. But I just thought it was dull tbh, and find the 'mum' character deeply depressing. The only page on it I like is the one where they're walking down the street with all the shops lit up.

However, it is definitely aimed at children. A lot of the rubbish out there atm seems strongly aimed at the adults - a lot of 'wink-wink' stuff which goes over ds's head and not much in it for him.

I would bet that libraries, in order to get discounted copies of good books, have to take 20 old crap ones from the remainder bin. It's the only explanation.

I love the old ones like not now bernard, tiger who came to tea, elephant and the bad baby, anything by roald dahl.

Does anyone remember the frog and toad books, anything by arnold sobel - especially mouse tales, and the francis books - bread and jam for francis, a birthday for francis etc. I loved them when i was small, and had to re-buy them for my dds who also love them. I can never get tired of reading frog and toad, they're so full of humour

We saw Michael Rosen doing his - what would you call it - stand-up for children? recently. Marvellous. Two relevances:

• it was at Jewish Book Week so his shtick, using the term entirely appropriately, was to riff on a proposed Jewish [well Yiddishe] Mr Men series - all those perfect precise words for "selfishly greedy" and "does his best to do up his buttons but the shirt tail always gets out". Immeasurably better than the original; and

• in question time a child asked "Does Eddie still do those silly things?" (as in so many of the poems). Eddie is the son the Sad Book is about - he died of meningitis in his late teens. Rosen was amazing - he explained the truth; he said that, yes in a way Eddie was still doing those things, in his poems; and he made completely sure that the child felt it had been OK to ask the question.

Really good children's literature is in a genius space of its own - Catherine Storr eg - and (leaving aside your legends and your folktales) it's a recent development. I don't mind the dross, given that we have the wonderful stuff.

PS: re Sad Book - beware, for similar reasons, of John Burningham's Grandpa - I broke down in Harrod's, of all embarrassing places.

I love childrens literature too (MI) and I love reading to dd, it's one of the few things I'll happily do for hours with her but I agree with Choosy about how some of it seems aimed at adults. Some of the themes are ridiculous too (and not in the true sense of the word, that would be fine) because they assume an adult understanding of the world which makes them irrelevant to 3yos. I read dd another 10 this afternoon (we got over 20 from the library on Friday) and most of them were DIRE.

I like the Mr Men books, some of the few that I actually find funny and non-self conscious. So many modern books are trying so hard to deliver a message eg 'it's good to share/be kind/love everybody' that they totally lose their entertainment value.

I like Dr Seuss although there is a bit of sexism in there. But 'Oh The Places You'll Go!' is amazing and I, at nearly 30, feel moved every time I read it.

Quality-wise I think the illustrations in a lot of modern books are fabulous but when reading aloud I really notice the poorly written rhymes and poems, they seem like they were written on the back of an envelope when the author was in a hurry to get on with something else.