' classic' children's books

meritaten

my grandkids loved a book called 'Where are my SHOES!' one of them took it home and I cant remember the authors name!
but 2 - 5 year olds absolutely love it!
I can still recall some of the text

each double page starts
Where are my SHOES?

then

Those aren't my shoes - those are mummy's flip flops/daddys wellys etc!

Where are my SHOES!

a great book for both reading together!

Spendless

j.e.j. wrote: »

Did you see the Imagine.. programme about the author of that book last week? I've actually forgotten her name now but it was a fascinating insight into her life and how the books like Mog and the Tiger who came to Tea came about.

Thanks for telling me about this, can catch up with it on iplayer. Author's name is Judith Kerr. She wrote one of my fav books from childhood 'When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit' and I remain gutted that it's never been made into a film or tv drama when others eg Carrie's War and Goodnight Mr Tom have.

At that age mine had most mentioned but liked the odd one or two different books from nursery. We bought a copy of 'The Wide Mouthed Frog' after 3yo borrowed it and didn't want to give it back, and still have it on bookcase (tot is now a teen) and due to relatives in Canada mentioning it kids were bought 'The Monster at the end of the bed'

scaredy_cat

i used to love the lady bird books and would take them with me in a bag everywhere.

Toto

I think we own just about every kids book ever written! It feels like that anyway


I agree with the Julia Donaldson books, my daughter loves all of them, there's a few I'm not such a fan of but I'm not the target audience I suppose. We are currently reading the mog books over and over, it's been a couple of months of one of those every night on rotation. I love them too, I remember reading some of them to my little brother 30 years ago.


I also like Ian whybrow books 'Hey I love you' is my personal favourite, I just think its a cute story.


Story time is my favourite part of the day, I love it I'm going to be so sad when the small person grows out of the bedtime story.

Richard53

I'd agree with most of the above. Things like The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Where The Wild Things Are and anything by Janet and Allen Ahlberg have stood the test of time and are quality stuff IMO.

I'd add another vote for A A Milne, though. The poetry books When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six, plus Winnie The Pooh and The House At Pooh Corner.

Beware: a magazine (I think it was the New Statesman) ran a competition some years ago for the saddest passage in all of English literature. In the top three, and perhaps the winner, was the last two pages of The House At Pooh Corner. Those who know the book will know what I mean. Only get this if you are prepared to read it to your little one with tears running down your face. It's heart-wrenching.

ciderwithrosie_2

Toto wrote: »

Story time is my favourite part of the day, I love it I'm going to be so sad when the small person grows out of the bedtime story.

There's some wonderful books for children, and I always thought reading to my boys was one of the best privileges of being a mum.
I was still reading things like Harry Potter, Alan Garner and Philip Pullman going into their teens so you may have a few years yet

Middle son bought the box set of Game of Thrones so they're all reading them at the moment (without the aid of mum).

MrsSippi

Thank you so much for all the great replies - it's nice to see something which has generated some lovely thoughts and memories. I have got a whole list of ideas now from this thread and will have a good hunt around the bookshop tomorrow.

It's nice as well to see that in the 'digital age' that storytelling and getting young children involved in reading hasn't diminished! I adored reading when I was little and I am really keen to encourage my daughter to get involved in reading from a young age.

kittybangbang

As a child I loved to read everything I could get my hands on, so I'd encourage you not to eliminate anything from a particular category

I grew up on Enid Blyton, classic fairy-tale books (i think they were from Ladybird, and had lots of pictures so even when I couldn't read I still used them) children's illustrated dictionaries, children's encyclopaedias, illustrated Bible stories (I'm not religious, but still loved the stories) I was fascinated by Beatrix Potter, and would read the full collection over and over again! Books on 'How things Work', the list is endless! Ha, even an Argos catalogue would entertain me!

Anyway, my point is, I loved my huge variety of books; I had something to read whatever my mood!

moromir

My childhood favourites -

Percy the Parkeeper - Nick Butterworth (the original one, I can't speak to the others in the series)

The Jolly Postman

Tigsteroonie

Person_one wrote: »

We have that book, and I often read it to Andrew. I just hope the Audiologist is correct about his level of deafness :rotfl: He does like the pictures, and shows no more interest in the actual words than he does in the poems of A.A.Milne or 'Room on the Broom'. If anything, it probably demonstrates that it's not so much the actual book but the process of bedtime-story-reading that is calming - I still read to him despite his deafness (hearing aids removed before bed) but could probably read the FT in a sing-song voice to the same effect.