Which books have you loved reading aloud to your children?

[Enid]

I love reading my 3 year old The Smartest Giant In Town

and I am actually looking forward to bedtime when I can read dd1 another chapter of Matilda - it is soooooooo brill to read aloud.

I found Enid Blyton utterly deathly. Any more faves?

Ooh yes tinygang - I forgot about SlinkyMalinki and Hairy MacClary. We love them too

Deffo hairy McClary and Schnitzel Von Krumm, anything by Dr Seuss, Guess How Much I Love you,
MoonThief, Fanstaic fire Engines et al. All fab

peepo..

lol hausfrau

Loads when they were tiny. Really like the Alfie stories (who wrote those??) and some of the Roald Dahl stuff. But recently LOTR to DS#1, The Hobbit (about 5 times), all the Narnia books, several Moomintroll books. Looking forward to tackling Dark Materials trilogy....but he reckons he's too young

DS#1 can read quite well but isn't keen so I read to him still to try to instill the idea of reading for pleasure - well that's my excuse . I love reading aloud. DD 'allows' me to read to her a little before sending me off so that she can get on with it herself

Ooo, a clatter of claws and a scatter of paws, I love that bit.

My cat likes to hide in boxes - great words & pics!

Love You Forever is the absolute favourite around here.

I'll love you forever
I'll like you for always
As long as I'm living
My baby you'll be.

Still makes me cry whenever I read it to DD2 (now 13)!

Can't wait to read Charlie and The Chocolate Factory with DD1(5). It's sitting by her bed. But first we have to get to the end of the 'Rainbow Fairy' series - groan. They are OK I guess and it's lovely to see DD1 caught up in a story, remembering the plot from night to night, trying to guess what might happen next, but they are so formulaeic I'd swear they were written by a computer.

(Issymum/Issyfit)

101 Dalmatians
Dogger

I cried at both.

My Daddy is a Pretzel

The Dandelion Seed

When I Became a Pirate

all the Lauren Child Charlie/Lola books - as they are memorable, have a good rhythm and are a bit kooky
classics like Each, Peach, Pear, Plum
have started the Narnia books with dd1 but tbh I don't think they're brilliant out-loud books

anorak - I can only hear Joey from Friends reading that which adds a certain something...

Oh, and a second vote for I Took the Moon for a Walk

Issyfit, we're reading the Weather Fairies atm (same groan) but can put up with it as long as we get back to "proper" books soon..dd1's not keen on Matilda, have started it a couple of times. she loved Charlie too..

The Little Red Train books...(love the pics)
We're going on a Bear Hunt
K is for Kissing a Cool Kangaroo
Just Like My Dad
Duck in a Truck
The Going to Bed Book ('cos mummy's glass of wine is munutes away )

Oooh, deffo Julia Donaldson books, especially Snail and Whale.

I put on my best RADA trained actorly voice and pretend I'm on Poetry Please.

DD thinks I've gone barmy when I do it.

Pants!!! Just for sheer amusement value on my part. Ds loves to shout Pants at the turn of every page!

Issyfit "Daisy Meadows" is a collection of people.

And you'll never get to the end - the pet fairies have just been published.

I have a question - I want dd1 (5) to read Clarice Bean - can I read this to her, or is it better to wait until she can read it to herself?

I love reading Owl Babies to dd2 (3) - she knows it word for word now.

At the moment, any of the Dinosaur ones by Jane Yolden.

Just because I haven't yet said it on this particular thread:

Land of Green Ginger (Noel Langley, who if you think you haven't heard of him, wrote the screenplay for the Wizard of Oz) - a glorious pantomime of caricatures, so get your silly voices out. It mesmerised assorted 4-7 year olds over two weeks last summer.

Laura Ingalls Wilder works very well - which I hadn't anticipated, I'd have thought they'd find it a bit worthy. But in fact they love hearing exactly how to build a log house, and there's much more incident & much less description than you might imagine.

Well chosen (non-soppy, rollicking, properly-metred) poetry is fantastic too. Eg "Night Mail" of course. And ballads, like Sir Patrick Spens.

[PS - Hausfrau - it can't be more on your mind than it is on mine. But the system of links isn't there yet, so of course our hands are tied. Aren't they.]

Owl Babies is lovely Pollyanna! I got Clarice Bean (the novel size, rather than picture book sized one) out of the library, dd1 (nearly6) was completely disinterested.

Oh, Issyfit, thank gawd dd discovered the Rainbow Fairies at the very moment she found she could read alone. I have never had to read a word of them.

Bundle, I want to read Clarice Bean to dd1, but the woman who runs the bookshop near me, suggested she would be better off reading it to herself when she is 8 or so. So it looks like we're stuck with the weather fairies for the time being... (and Princess Mirrorbelle, double groan).,