Big Books to read to your Little Kids (novels, bookworms, cover)

[jtur88]

Just wondering how many of you have read "adult" books to young children? If so, tell us what you've read, and at what age.

When my son was about 6, I established the practice of putting him to bed, and then lying down and reading a "listen" book (no pictures), for about a half hour each night. We were already listening to Prairie Home Companion together, so he was a good and avid listener. I started with The Wizard of Oz. Very quickly we worked up to Watership Down, then Lord of the Rings. He was totally captivated, and his teacher told me that in art class at school, he would draw scenes from the book were reading. One of his early favorites was Gods, Heroes and Men of Ancient Greece, by W H D Rouse. Within a year, we were doing things like Twenty Tousand Leagues Under the Sea, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, To Kill a Mockingbird. When we finished Treasure of the Sierra Madre and I promised him that if his school grades were good, I'd take him to Mexico and hang out in a frontier town and sleep in a flop house. In April, the two of us went to Ojinaga, Mexico, for a couple of days, on a camping trip to Big Bend. (I even read him Castaneda's A Separate Reality--he loved boks about the Mexican desert, and the drug stuff sailed right over his head, and mostly, mine, too. He was acquiring the kind of imagination that Castaneda was possible without drugs!).

By age 8, he was afraid that if he learned to read, I'd stop reading to him, though, so I had to call it quits and tell him to read his own books.

[gemkeeper]

Jtur, as a reading teacher and a mom, I love that you introduced mature books to your child early in his life.

I, too, started reading to my children at about 5 - 6 yrs. old from non-picture novels. I started with J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan as they were all boys, as well. All 4 of my sons gobbled up the story and usually begged for just one or two pages more before bed.

We moved on to Alice in Wonderland, which they enjoyed even with a "girl" heroine, Treasure Island, Call of the Wild, and Farley's The Black Stallion series and many others.

I would like to make a suggestion. As a child becomes a reader himself, he still loves to be READ TO. If your son is afraid that you might stop reading to him because he is able to read on his own, assure him that this is not just reading, but sharing an adventure between just the two of you.

If possible, ask him to choose the next book and take turns reading to one another. You are patterning the proper way to "live out" a story when you read and he will probably enjoy giving you the same exciting experience.

I read to my boys until at least the 6th or 7th grade, but not at bedtime. At this age they really loved great adventure stories like The Time Machine and 1000 Leagues Under the Sea. We usually reserved just after dinner to read to each other. As my older boys reached 7th and 8th grade they took on the responsibility of reading to their younger brothers to the delight of all of them. It was wonderful to listen to the excitement and acting going on in the next room as I did dinner dishes.

All 4 sons are now grown, 3 of them fathers who treasure their evenings of reading to their own children. The children's mothers are happy to clean up the kitchen and get the tiny ones ready for bed while the dads are all happily reading. What a gratifying tradition to hand on to your son.

When I taught middle school children, I reserved 20 minutes of so on Fridays to read a good fiction to my classes relevant to what we were studying. It was the most attentive time of my week and there was a very relaxing, bonding relationship happening with my young students. I hope that they all became readers to their children.

Read to babies in the womb; they love the cadence of Mom's and Dad's voices. Read to your infants as they nurse or drink their bottle; they will associate reading with something very pleasant and nourishing. Read to your little ones right up to the time they are big ones. You will all reap wonderful benefits and joy.

[Jlyn5669]

I enjoyed reading to my kids when they were younger. The older kids will now lie at the foot of my bed and read with me. My 4 yr old, loves to touch my mouth while I read. It's so cute, because the 14 and 12 yr old did the same thing when they were that age.

Thanks for sharing...

[BlueWillowPlate]

Reading aloud is a wonderful practice no matter what the age of the reader or listener.
My dad read aloud to us, and I did it with my kids, but it's great to do it as adults, too.
I read "ahead" of myself at a young age (my dad was really into Robert Heinlein and other s/f authors) and probably did not comprehend everything, but reread later, and got it all then.

[crazyme4878]

Thanks for the great ideas! Especially about the Mexican desert--we are currently living in SE Arizona, so I will have to check those one's out for him.

I started reading "chapter books" when my son was 3.5 y.o. We started with Charlotte's Web, which is still one of his favorites. I have stuck with mainly young adult books, though. Here is a list of recents reads from us:
The Cricket in Times Square, George Selden
Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang, Ian Fleming
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator; George's Marvelous Medicine, all by Roald Dahl
The Mouse and the Motorcycle; Ralph S. Mouse; Ribsy, all by Beverly Cleary
The Adventures of Robin Hood
Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbit
Redwall, Brian Jacques
The Road to Oz, L. Frank Baum (can't remember if we read The Wizard of Oz)
The Castle in the Attic, Elizabeth Winthrop
Tracker, Gary Paulson
The Sign of the Beaver, ??
The Littles, and now The Littles to the Rescue, John Peterson

I have also read him The Hobbit. I was saving that one, but his grammy let him watch the cartoon movie! I was so upset. The whole time while reading, he was envisioning the movie. I'm going to put out a strict guideline that he does not get to watch the Lord of the Rings movies or the Harry Potter movies until he has had a chance to read them! Well, I won't let him watch LotR for a long, long time anyhow, so I suppose that doesn't matter.

I also read him poems every night. This has been a new addition. For a long time, I only read from the full collection of Robert Frost. We moved on to Emily Dickinson, but I have the full collection of that too, and just couldn't do it. I think we made it to poem #200 something. Recently, I have been reading Longfellow, but last night he said he was tired of Longfellow, so now I have to pick another one. Maybe Whitman?

Anyone else have well-meaning relatives show your child the movie before you were able to introduce the book?

[Arcane]

Where would Gulliver's Travels rank?

[natalayjones]

I'm glad I ran across this thread. I have a two year old son and we were just in Barnes & Noble and I was feeling sorry for myself for not having a girl - I know that sounds crazy - but I was looking at all the Sweet Valley Twins, Baby Sitters Club and Ramona Quimby or Alice McKinley series I read as a child and I almost wanted to cry because I know my son won't read those.

But I'd forgotten about all the other great books like A Cricket In Times Square, Fudge, SuperFudge,Freckle Juice, Encyclopedia Brown, etc. Does anyone remember the Wayside School books? Or how about where the sidewalk ends?

This thread really encouraged me as I was about to give up on him. I feel like the bookstore is such a waste because my son has gotten too old for picture books but he doesn't seem to have the attention span to follow a story yet. I brought him a book on trucks and he was more interested in pointing out the trucks then listening to the story.

Maybe I'm expecting too much - I just want my son to share my love of reading.

What are your experiences with books on tapes? I've been thinking of trying the Dr. Suess books on tape for my son.

[MidwesternBookWorm]

Originally Posted by natalayjones

What are your experiences with books on tapes? I've been thinking of trying the Dr. Suess books on tape for my son.

I could see using books on tape as an alternative to television, but I think that I'd record my own voice reading them rather than buying one off the shelf. I suspect that a huge part of the experience for little ones is not just hearing a book read, but hearing a parent do the reading. Children start patterning language at birth, and the more parents speak to (and read to) them, the more comfortable they will be with communication.

We used to love read-aloud time, and I'd always read my own favorites to my kids first. The funny thing was that my spouse would come into the bedroom while I was reading, too; at first he'd claim it was to trim their toenails or some such thing, but he fairly quickly got to the point where he wouldn't bother with excuses, he'd just pull in a chair and plop down to listen. Needless to say, I kept my chuckles to myself.

Some of our biggest favorites were Brian Jacques' Redwall series, except that we'd all get hungry reading the descriptions of the feasts! The Laura Ingalls Wilder books were big hits, too; my son was especially fond of Farmer Boy, so much so that my spouse had to whomp up a version of Almanzo Wilder's favorite "fried apples-n-onions" for him. And the summer that they were 11 and 13, when I had major orthopedic surgery that kept me home recovering for a couple of months, I read The Lord of the Rings aloud to them, and kept them spellbound for hours each day.

Poetry was another big favorite, especially when they were younger. Both the rhythm and the rhymes help kids form a sense of musicality, I think. A friend of my mom's gave our daughter a book of silly poetry called Jelly Belly, of all the strange things, and we read that book cover to cover I don't know how many times. There was a rather amusing postscript to that, by the way. I was collecting some of our old favorite books to give my sister after her first was born, and our daughter, then 19 or 20, found that old book of poetry. She opened it and started reading, looked up with an amazed expression on her face, and exclaimed, "Mom, I don't ever remember reading this book myself, but when I read the poems, I can hear your voice reciting them to me, and I remember every single one of them. Was this something you used to read to me?"

It is probably superfluous to add that both of our kids, now in their mid twenties, are highly articulate, very good writers, and avid bookworms themselves.

Read to your kids!

[sevenboyds]

I'm so glad I found this thread! I read to my kids and we are halfway through Prince Caspian and I wasn't sure what to start after I finished the Chronicles of Narnia and you guys have given me some great ideas. I did pick up Mrs. Piggle Wiggle and some Amelia Bedelia books at the library today. The titles you've listed set off light bulbs in my head, it's just been so long since I read them myself I've forgotten. I'd add The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper and the Earthsea books by Ursula K LeGuin.

[MICoastieMom]

I had two boys and I read The Little House on the Prairie books and The Secret Garden to them. I think those books have enough content to be of interest to them. We also read some of the Ramona Quimby books as they have the same characters as the Henry Huggins books. In fact, those we read while traveling on vacation and DH enjoyed the trip down memory lane as much as the boys. We also read the classics- Treasure Island, Prince and the Pauper, Swiss Family Robinson, Robin Hood, Ring Larder's Tall Tales, Tom Sawyer, The Mowgli Stories, as well as new classics, usually Newberry or Caldecott Award winners.

When the older boy in the fifth or sixth grade and was expected to read x number of books, I used another tactic; making it into a game of clue. We would each read the same book, usually a mystery- Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie, Michael Crichton, but sometimes science fiction, or adventure. I let him pick the genre. He would read during silent reading time at school, I would read in the evening, then we would discuss what we had read. The object was to be the first to reach the right conclusion, along the way he learned about red herrings, foreshadowing, and other writing tricks and techniques. The winner would get to pick a restaurant and we would go out together.