Any tips for making repeated story-reading less boring?

[lummox]

The books themselves are OK but ds1 (2.9) does the classic toddler thing of wanting the same book over and over again. Sometimes for weeks.

Has anyone found a way of making this any less boring?

lose the book? Story tapes...

Seriously though it's a lovely part of childhood and you will look back on this stage fondly.. really you will..

Getting him to act them out as you read
Wine

yes do it with an accent, or really fast

voices and accents.

Refuse to read the same one?

Let him finish the sentences? Educational for him, and fun for you if he makes an amusing 'mistake'! Also amazing to realise how much of it they take in, even with words they really don't know the meaning of or ones you think would be difficult to recognise or repeat

Am now able to read 'the little red train to the rescue' when 90% asleep so it does have some advantages....

Ooh, lots of thoughts. Great.

Peaches - refusal leads to serious tantrumming before bed, which I am always too weak to risk.

He does finish the end of sentences - does whole ones too sometimes, but I am such a terrible mother that I sit and mentally calculate whether that will get us to the end more quickly or not.

Now accents sounds good. Have been trying to perfect my Miss Hoolie for some time now...

And the wine might also come in handy for that one.

Aarrggh, moopymoo, are there more Little Red Train books????

LOL at mental calculation - have been guilty of that too... Could you negotiate different (shorter?) book plus 2 pages of current favourite? For some reason the '2 pages' idea works very well with DD and she often suggests it herself.

oh yes indeed blinkin duffy driver

Racers - hadn't thought of that. I'm not sure it would go down too well, but am happy to try anything so will give it a go.

Moopymoo - have just tried the accents thing. I think it actually made the whole thing more bearable - Duffy in the style of Terry Wogan and Jack the guard as a geordie. Unfortunately I'm not very good at accents, so they both started veering towards Ian Paisley by the end.

No doubt I will be getting plenty of practice......

Many thanks to souteastastra and Naughtynigel for that one.

I'm looking forward to that warm retrospective glow, robinpud.

As somebody said, there are advantages. Remembering a train journey to Berlin (17 hrs) that we undertook when dd was 22 months old. By the time we got to the Ardennes I was word perfect and could give my attention to admiring the landscape. Very pretty around the Ardennes.

If DH and I reading the book together we compete to see who can make their character sound the most camp.

It gets us through the most boring books believe me.

add bits. dh makes commenst on what else he thinks might be going on just out of sight. get dc to hunt for things in teh pictures which may or may not be there.

Nononono cut chunks.

I personally do not look back at that phase with anything but huge relief that it is OVER.

Message withdrawn

Good ideas here. If I have to read Spot Goes To School one more time, I may scream/vomit/pass out/run away.

I know the feeling.

'What you want Big Pig's Hat again? Really? Not one of these new ones then?'

I just dig deep and try to read it as well as I possibly can. Don't rush through it as it's harder to get through. Just try to slow it down, mean every word and make it the best ever reading you've done of that particular book. He'll get bored with it eventually.

My three year old won't let me read it differently either. for example, tonight whilst reading Big Pig's Hat I said 'Gimme my hat or I'll squirt you.' and he said, 'No mum. It's I'll squirt ya'.

Try to introduce books that you like yourself. We all love The Gruffallo, Snail and the Whale, and Hairy McLary from Julia Donaldson.

I could read them every day.

We spent the today looking at all the dogs that passed us in the town with DS shouting, "Hairy Maclary from Donalsonsdary" and "Schnitzel von Krum, look Mama, a Schnitzel von Krum"

Hairy MacLary is great value! I agree. Wonderful stuff. Am trying to get my daughter to look at the Gruffalo books but she mostly just wants to read Spot Goes To School twelfty million times. I think I hate Miss Bear.

I refuse to buy Spot, they are hideous. Quite like Helen Cooper (Pumpkin Soup, Baby who wouldn't go to Bed) for lots of text - if there's enough, they can't remember it all word for word & correct you! As for Duffy bad-hair Driver and his stupidly compliant wife, argh. In our version the wife is a helicopter pilot just off to work herself.
But worst of all has to be being made to read the NIght Garden magazine, back page, because ds insists it is a 'story'. I read the whole advertisement for the DVD 3 times before he gave up.

Oh, I hate Spot too.

And DD with her bloody Barbie comics.

Trying to wean them onto more interesting books. They love The Puffin Book of First Poetry, and there is enough in there that you don't get bored reading it.

I loathe Spot too. In my defence, we were given it. I think I may 'lose' it soon, perhaps in the Oxfam bag.

If it is a rhyming story, turn it into a rap. I found that quite amusing with a particular story when mine were smaller. Something about a flying donkey called Treacle. My ex dh used to do the relevant backing noises when he was around.