Favourite Books for reading with children

[Louise]

We try to read a few books to DD everyday. Some she loves and will pay lots of attention or laugh, some she tries to eat, sometimes she'll pay no attention. Just wondering what others favourites are for little ones.
Our current favourite is "The Waterhole" by Graham Base, she loves this one and so do I. I can see it being a great one in the future for sparking interest in a variety of things. Each page has animals from a different continent and there are hidden animals to find, famous landmarks from that continent in the background, lots of layers.

[Sarasvati]

Dr Seuss (though I change hes for shes a lot to balance it out). We also have discussions about some outdated ways of thinking.

Little Wombat books (Fuge is the author's surname).

We like Graham Base books too, though for Kira more than Im.

Imogen is into animal books atm, she loves hearing different animal sounds and mimicking them and saying the animal.

[~*heket*~]

Spikee is OBSESSED with one of his big sisters books called Prudence the Pig, about a pig who made a plane, the plane crashes, and lo and behold - pigs can't fly :lol quite funny.

And he loves The Gruffalo - strongly recommend it to kids of all ages (up to about 10 ;) )

He LOVES rhyming books of any sort, and he's also right into alphabet ones and counting ones

[Janet]

My daughter loves anything with robots and dinosaurs and birth. :) So far I've managed to combine the first two but not the third topic of interest. :lol She can tell you all about how to give birth, placentas and umbilical cords though and she's 2 1/2.

[Beatrice]

Right now H doesn't have the patience for story books (that would involve sitting still :lol) but he does frequent drive-by readings of a couple of pages of the kind of books which are just pictures and names of things. He does absolutely love a book about animals and their sounds which he got in his stocking, though. Sometimes he even lets me get all the way to the end without grabbing it out of my hands and running away :blueroll

[Beatrice]

Oh, forgot to add that at his age, K's favourites were The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Peepo! by the Ahlbergs. By about 18mos she'd fallen in love with Hairy Maclary, and by 2 she was passionately fond of Kipper, which she still adores.

[Ceres]

DS brings me books to read him all day long. My favourite to read to him is the lorax and the sneetches - both dr suess books - and his current favourite is called "there are cats in this book".

[Ayla]

I don't think Ry has a favourite, but my faves to read to him are Found You Little Wombat and Digby the Littlest Duckling.

[Anaed]

I get all choked up whenever I read The Lorax.
I like books that roll of your tounge.
The gruffalo & gruffalo's child are good for that, as are Dr Suess although they also make me trip :lol
Hairy Macleary are fun to read.
At first I enjoyed Green Sheep but after the 3rd time not so much.

[Sarasvati]

:lol at the Green Sheep. Yeah I love books with an awesome rhythm to them. Kira really likes one called You and Me, Murrawee (she got for Christmas). It's about a white girl kind of "watching" an aborginal girl playing in the same area 200 years earlier. It's contrasts how they spend their time, really lovely.

[Blossomtime]

Our faves include...

Hairy Maclary
My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes
Russel the Sheep
My Dad - Anthony Browne
Cuddle Time - Jenni Overend
Where the Forest Meets the Sea - Jeannie Baker
Hop on Pop - Dr Seuss
Sometimes I Like to Curl Up in a Ball
Very Hungry Caterpillar
Imagine, Magic Beach and My Farm - Alison Lester

[Strength Within]

DS's favourite is The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which annoys me, there's a lot of repeating the same words. My favourite to read to him is Goodnight Moon. It rolls off the tongue easily. :)

[Beatrice]

H has definitely discovered books now! His favourites are probably a series of boardbooks of nursery rhymes, he'll listen to them forever. He also loves the Whose Poo?, Whose Nose? etc series by Jeanette Rowe.

One of my all-time favourites as a read-aloud are Nan Hunt's books A Whistle Up The Chimney and An Eye Full of Soot and an Ear Full of Steam - wonderfully absurd premise; rollicking, gorgeous language; SO much fun to read :eager

[irishwillow]

Mem Fox books are wonderful, they were always a fave.
Mr Bear and The Bear...always made me cry a bit.
Sage's Ark. The last 2 will always be in my bookcase for when I have Grandchildren. :)
Now they're older
Anything Jackie French
Harry Potter, of course,
also anything by Cornelia Funke. I read Dragon Rider out loud a number of times.
Mostly, of course they read to themselves now, the fiction stuff . We read a lot of Fair Dinkum Histories out loud and How My Body Works as part of our information gathering!

[Ceres]

We borrowed this one from the library the other day: Harry Highpants (http://www.tonywilson.com.au/books_harryhighpants.php)
It's fantastic! It says a lot about the idiocy of bureaucracy and the power of grass-roots politics in a really sweet story that our kids loved. I think this one will be going on the list to purchase.

[asimplelife]

We like Mr Bear and the Bear as well.
I have my old Mother Goose books from when I was a kid and they like the nursery rhyme one as well as the short stories one.
We're reading Heidi atm (I read it to ds a year or so ago, but am now reading it as dd is getting into listening to chapter books).
Pumpkin Soup

[Mud]

The Bilbies of Bliss (retirement home rebellion)
Mrs Millie's Painting (funny celebration of an old woman's creativity)

[Chameleon]

Well after 2 yrs and 3 months of D having almost no interest in books, (they were only good for the cool ripping sound that they can make, and the funny noises and faces that mumma pulls when that happens), my daughter has a fav book!

I've been waiting for this day, I"m such a book worm and I have to admit that I"ve been upset that she didn't love them like I do (even that 2 I was into books)

My only prob is the book she has chosen. In the Night Garden, she loves the show and saw the book at Wollies and I caved and bought it cause she was so cute carrying it around. SHe is always asking us to read it and is now slowly asking for other books too.

Not the start I wanted but I'm so happy that there is a start I'm going to run with it as long as I need to

YAY my child likes reading!

[Auset]

My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes
Wombat Divine (DD loves this book! About to bring it out again for christmas)
Geraldine's Blanket
Laura's Journey To The Stars
Sniff, Snuff, Snap
The Daddy Book
Hairy Maclary
A Puppy For Annie
PJ Funny Bunny

There are lots more... those are just what I can think of off the top of my head :) We are big readers here. DD was quite put out that no one read her any books when she went to stay the night with her Aunty and Grandma pmsl....

[Beatrice]

K and I have moved on to a nightly chapter book now, although I still read the picture book faves. I wanted to start with Elizabeth Goudge's The Little White Horse but I can't find my copy, dangnabbit :runcry So we started with Rosemary Manning's Green Smoke series instead. The first one was one of my childhood faves, although I didn't know there were more in the series. We found number 3 on eBay but are still looking for 2 and 4. K absolutely adores them.

[Kris]

DD2 (4&1/2) is currently loving "Big Mama Makes the World", nursery rhymes, "Gordon's Got a Snookie", "Be Good Gordon", "Gordon's Biscuit", "Goodnight Fairies", "Wild Child", "Best Best Colours", .... fairy tales, this appalling, what's more irritating, one called "Princess Poppy's Birthday" um... in fact she'd sit still for just about anything.

The big ones are snuggling in for a chapter of The Phoenix and The Carpet atm and DD1 is embroiled in Nancy Drew (sigh).

[Beatrice]

Ooh, I have my childhood collection of E Nesbit to go through too :D

[Kris]

I love love love E Nesbit!

[Anaed]

I have no idea who this E Nesbit is! Need to do me some research! Looking for more chapter books to read to L, have read The WIshing Chair/The Wishing Chair Again and the Faraway Tree series umpteen million times!! (well maybe I exaggerate a little :P )

[Beatrice]

That's that whole being-the-same-person thang we've got going, Kris ;) Anaed, she was a Victorian/Edwardian-era children's writer. She wrote Three Children and It, which I believe was made into a movie a few years ago, and The Railway Children, among others.

[Kris]

Ahem, FIVE Children and IT ;)

[zenifa]

One of my eldest daughter's favourites is My Secret Unicorn series by Linda Chapman
http://www.puffin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/15/minisites/lindachapman/unicornmeadows/unicornmeadows.php

She found one of these books quite randomly at Lifeline Bookfest last year, and since has just been enchanted by these stories. They are for 7yrs +, so we read them to her, although she does "read" the story to herself as well, not many pictures, but has kept her enthralled, although personally I'm not into it, she loves it!!

[Beatrice]

*pththththbbbt* Kris.

B finally learnt to read fluently with the My Secret Unicorn series, zenifa :) We have the whole series. It helped that at the time she was a 10yo girl with a little white pony (although he was more of an imp from hell disguised as a pony than a unicorn :lol).

[trust]

We are still working our way through the Little House on the Prarie series, I am surprised it has held DS's interest for this long but there is so much discussion sparked from each chapter and so many learning experiences to be had.

[shaestar]

Fave books here are
anything by Lynley Dodd
The Terrible Plop-check it out-great book.Not about poo lol.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
You'll Wake The Baby!- Life imitating art lol
Ginger
The Biggest Bed in the World
My Brother Jimi Jazz -I'm sure I can recite this in my sleep
Dr Dog-there is farting and bum scratching in there, much to my kids delight
Anything by Giles Andreae Commotion in The ocean, the lion who wanted to love etc

[zenifa]

B finally learnt to read fluently with the My Secret Unicorn series, zenifa :) We have the whole series. It helped that at the time she was a 10yo girl with a little white pony (although he was more of an imp from hell disguised as a pony than a unicorn :lol).

I think My DD1 is doing the same, learning to read by herself, as Dh and I inwardly groan when she asks us to read a chapter (must say my MIL is more willing), we do read lots to her, but that series is not one of my faves, but hey if she loves reading it, we wont' be stopping her!! She loves looking out for horses/unicorns near us when we are driving and luckily despite living in suburbia there are lots of horses around!!
Off topic : In fact last night we took the girls to the Australian Outback Spectacular for my dad's b'day and the girls loved the show with all the horses and galloped in to our room this morning with their 'cowgirl' hats on.........just waiting for her to ask for a pony/unicorn!!

[zenifa]

Our family are all bibliophiles, with memberships to 2 council libraries and bookshelves overflowing, its so hard to list them all, but some of my kids all time faves include
Are you sleepy yet Petey by Marie Hodge
Guess how much I love you by Sam McBratney plus "you are all my favourites, Yes We can, When I'm Big etc
Beatrix Potter, the girls got the full Folio edition boxed set, so we they are a big hit, although sometimes a tad long for bedtime!!
Trumpy Trevor by Sam Lloyd http://www.amazon.co.uk/Trumpy-Trevor-Sam-Lloyd/dp/1844583368 plus Vincent the Vain
The girls love Alison Lester's Imagine and her others, plus Jeannette Rowe's "whose " series, already mentioned especially "whoose poo!!"
Brown Bear Brown Bear What do you see by Bill Martin Jr, plus the others in the series like Polar Bear Polar Bear etc
Other authors they love are Anthony Browne "my mum" "my dad" Little Beauty etc, Gils Andrae, Jean Simmons, Pamela Allen etc.

[Heidi]

Will brings books to me to read all day long...only I use the word read VERY loosely...we look through the books and he create games to play...like where is the butterfly and we need to look for a butterfly on each place, or find what page such and such is on...this we do with just about any book he gets familiar with, but lately he has discovered a nursery rhyme book and he insists on me singing his favourites "more" "more" in his delightful voice... and when we are out and about, he starts to sing a bit of a verse of the one he wants me to sing....its funny because we end up doing a compilation of about 5 songs, because he only wants a few lines before saying "no" and suggesting another.... fun, but it can get exhausting if your not really in the mood for it....