Any recommendations for childrens stories that are a must read?
IMHO, the best kids book we've encountered. Some of the nice features:
a) well drawn and sharply delineated characters. (One of my pet peeves about some kids books is difficult to distinguish images that tend to get lost in a sea of bright colors.)
b) the text is _large_ and changes size according to the emotions of the characters.
c) phrases are repeated -- great for language acquisition -- but not in a way that's irritating or vacuous.
d) funny stories; real emotions that toddlers can grok.
e) good construction -- high quality printing, thick pages, etc...
f) Written with a rhythmic metre -- An example being Pout-Pout Fish by Deborah Diesen. It almost feels like one sings this book rather than read it. I've noticed with the books that are almost musical in nature young kids can "read along" (basically recite) the entire text after just a few readings even when the vocabulary is tough and absolutely beyond their reading ability. And if you leave it and come back to it in a couple of weeks they'll still know it with uncanny accuracy.
Another nice thing about that series, for an early reader, is you can read one character and your child takes the other.
Some of his recent favorites: Green Eggs and Ham, The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything, Duck in the Truck, Snip Snap! What’s That?, Gaston, Caps for Sale, Harry the Dirty Dog, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.
Don’t let the pigeon drive the bus, ios app is awesome. Exactly what I want in a kids app.
there is also one called (I think, not English native) 'it is not a box' really nice and kids love it
My dad read the Swallows and Amazons series to us, then a bit later the Hornblower series, also the Redwall series, the Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings, Treasure Island, Kidnapped, a few Dickens, Robinson Crusoe, all Narnia, possibly a couple of Shakespear. A bunch of classic Sci-Fi: Day of the Triffids, the Foundation series, etc.
My mum read first quite a lot of Enid Blighton (Famous 5, Secret 7, magic faraway tree, etc)(really dated now), a few of the 'Chalet School' books (I got bored of those though my brother read the rest to himself), Agatha Christie, Jane Austin, Jane Eire, Don Camilo, Adrian Plass, Harry Potter, an Abridged Narnia and Abridged Lord of the Rings when we were younger (I think she just skipped the scary parts), Roald Dahl and Dr. Seuss (our 3 year old loves them now), Katie Morag (lovely gentle stories), Dick King Smith, Alexander McCall-Smith has a few great calm fun fiction for kids (The Perfect Hamburger, for instance), Treasures of the Snow, Paddington, E.Nesbit, the Princess and Curdie et al, The Secret Garden, Dogger, the Story of Ping (AFTER you read it, check the amazon reviews), Politically Correct BedTime Stories ...
My wife and I are now reading (for the second time) through David Eddings' 'The Belgariad' together. I grew up reading those, although my parents never read them out loud, I dunno why. They work great out loud, but are definately for older readers. Teenagers or so. Kind of obvious plot - but the characters are so much fun to read, and it's a predicatable enjoyable journey.
Other older teenager series to read might include Ted Dekker's the Circle, Tamora Pierce, some of Anne McCaffery (depending how comfortable you are reading stories which include sex - maybe read them yourself first), Eragon (don't watch the movie though), Stephen Lawhead's various serieses, the Empryion one is a good start. Not too long, nor too heavy. Some John Grisham (The Street Lawyer is EXCELLENT.)
I'd recommend all of the above to get started :-)
Wait, that was a series? I vividly remember reading that book growing up, but I never knew there were more. I know what I'm going to be reading this summer!
- "Book with No Pictures" (B.J. Novak [yes, that's Ryan from The Office]) - anything by Sandra Boynton - Boxcar Children series - Cam Jansen series - "Ada Twist, Scientist" (Andrea Beaty)
We have tons of books, from a variety of sources; some are duds, IMHO, mainly gifts from my MIL (tip for giving books to children: read through them first, from the perspective of reading that book every day for a month; bargain bins contain tons of garbage). Unfortunately, the kids like some of the duds, so they slip them in from time to time.
The Sandra Boynton children's music CDs are also quite tolerable as such things go.
I highly recommend:
1. "Dinosaurs and Dragons" by Kevin Roth.
2. "Hot Dog" and "Sing Along" by Caspar Babypants (aka. Chris Ballew)
3. Saturday Morning Cereal Bowl podcasts: https://saturdaycerealbowl.podbean.com/
The Halloween podcast is one of my favorites
My son loves to listen to all of these.
It doesn't get much better than William Steig — all of his books give kids the tools and analogs to confront complex emotions and overcome fears. Amos and Boris is my favorite, The Real Thief is excellent if they're a little older.
- DC Super Hero Girls
- Cleopatra in Space
- Adventure Time
- Zite the Spacegirl
I like all books by Raina Telgemeier, as well.
I read these graphic novels to my 3 and 6 year-olds, over and over.
Hooray for Fish
The Hobyahs
Don't Wake Up the Tiger
Katinka's Tail
All the Harry the Dog books
Dumbo's African Adventure
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
A New House for Mouse
Many of the Disney books - they can be very hit and miss but some have been quite popular, like the Dumbo book above, Beauty and the Beast, Winnie the Poeh, and a few others.
Reading to our kids at bedtime is one of my favourite times too :)
She also enjoys reading a lot by herself. Her latest craze was Astrid Lingdren and right now, she's reading Mrs. Frisby and the rats of NIMH.
My son, who's 5 now and can't read fluently yet, enjoys graphic novels. I read at lot of simple "Thomas the Tank engine" stories to him. He also enjoys the "From the black lagoon" series of books as well as stuff from Dr. Seuss and other kids books like the Gruffalo series. One of his favourites are the books by Quentin Blake (Mrs. Armitage, Patrick, Angelo etc.). Interestingly, I read Kidnapped to my daughter while he (unknowingly) listened on and later he was able to recount some of the important scenes in the book quite well. He knew about Alan Breck and how he fought in the ship and what not. That was a bit of a wow moment for me.
I also love reading poetry to them. Even singing it if I can. The Random House book of poetry for children edited by Jack Prelutsky. Both of them love it and enjoy reciting stuff by themselves. They even have a few "favourite poems".
I think one of the responsibilities of a parent, especially in the younger years, is to curate the world that reaches their children. You have to expose them to the best of humanity so that they grow up that way and when they encounter the failings, they'll know how belong human potential it is. The humanities are a wonderful way of doing this and I emphasise them a lot more in my household than the sciences.
Rosie Revere Engineer and others from the same author
The Fairy Bell Sisters
Magic Treehouse
Junie B Jones
Princess in Black
Ling and Ting series
The Golly Sisters
Sisters (comic book)
Harold and the Purple Crayon