Reading has been a favorite hobby of mine through out my life - ever since early childhood I can remember snuggling down to look through picture books, and my teenaged years were spent largely sitting in my bedroom reading Point Horror book after Point Horror book.
The love for reading has never truly left me, and even now it's something I love to do - although I get far less time for it these days and have only managed to read one complete book in the last year!
I'm really keen to encourage a love of reading in my children too, and so ever since Tyne was just 6 months old or so, I have enjoyed reading to him.
We started with picture books, and slowly moved on to books with more words and eventually with more of a story to them.
He now has quite a collection of books in the reading corner in his bedroom, and he loves to sit and look through them himself even though he can't read yet.
We have a bedtime story every night (sometimes 2, or often the same one twice as he loves to have them repeated when he really enjoys a story!) and over the past few months he has started to develop a few firm favourites.
I thought I'd share his absolute favorite stories with you, as I know that I myself am always looking for ideas of books he may enjoy so I thought that other parents might be interested to know what he's currently enjoying.
Funnybones
- I bought this for him around Hallowe'en last year, and he took to it right away. I bought it thinking it may be a little too advanced for him yet as it's quite long, but it was one of my favorite books from childhood and so I was keen to introduce it...particularly as he so loves anything to do with skeletons or spooky things!
It turned out to be an immediate favorite - he absolutely loves the characters of Big Skeleton, Little Skeleton and Dog Skeleton and since reading this story has gone on to watch the Funnybones cartoons regularly on YouTube.
The Ghost Train (Funnybones)
- After loving the original Funny Bones story so much, I decided to try another one from the series. I only ever read the original book as a child so I wasn't sure how good the other books would be, but Tyne often looked at the pictures of them in the back of his original Funny Bones and always said he wanted to read the Ghost Train story..so we gave it a go!Once again, he absolutely loved it. I worried that perhaps it might be a bit too scary for him but it really isn't at all - in the story, the characters head off on a midnight ride aboard the ghost train to a seaside destination where they watch a Monster Beauty Parade and take in the sights - a very simple story but since it includes Tyne's favorite things (Trains and spooks!) he was delighted with it!
Burglar Bill - Again this was one I remember really enjoying myself years ago, and since Tyne is currently obsessed with anything to do with policemen and "Bad guys" I thought he'd love the story of Burglar Bill - when it arrived however and I flicked through it, I thought perhaps it would be too long to hold his attention just yet.
I was wrong and he couldn't get enough of it - infact his Nan read it to him a few nights ago and tried to skip a page, and he soon informed her that she had read it wrong...he knows it off by heart!!
Not a Box Board Book
- This one was a surprise favorite - I'd never heard of it myself and It actually came to us in a baby box we were reviewing, and I decided to read it to Tyne one evening although I didn't think he'd enjoy it as there was far less of a story to it than the books we usually read - imagine my surprise when he almost wet himself with laughter as we read it!I have honestly NEVER seen him laugh so much! Even Jon had to come up from downstairs to see what had tickled him so much...it was the cutest thing to see! And although we've read it about 60 times since, he still laughs every time - I'm not quite sure what's so funny about it myself, perhaps the rabbits deadpan expression in the illustrations or his creative uses for the cardboard box he's playing with - but whatever it is, it certainly tickles my toddlers funny bone more than any other book he's read! And I've actually just noticed when fetching the link to this book that are other books in the series so I will certainly be buying those to see if he enjoys them as much!
Charlie Cook's Favourite Book - I absolutely love the Julia Donaldson and Axel Schaeffer stories, they are so perfect for children and also entertaining for the adult reading them with such gorgeous illustrations - we bought a 10 book collection of their stories for Tyne last Christmas and he has loved every one of them, but Charlie Cook's Favourite Book is one of the stand out favourites.
The book has sold over a million copies so it's not just Tyne who is a fan - and I can see why he loves it as to be honest, the first time I read it I giggled a lot too! The story is about a boy called Charlie Cook who is reading his favorite book about a pirate...who is reading a book about Goldilocks...and so on!
It has pretty much everything that a little boy would want in a book - pirates, aliens, a ghost, cops & robbers, a dragon - so it's easy to see why he loves it so much! After we read it, Tyne always likes to chat about which page was our favorite so it's a lovely conversation encourager too!
Wake Up Do, Lydia Lou!
- Another from the Julia Donaldson collection, and another to do with Tyne's favorite thing - ghosts! The story is all about a ghost who is trying to wake up Lydia Lou to give her a fright, but she's such a sound sleeper that he can't wake her up...so enlists the help of all manner of things to try!Tyne laughs hysterically at the ending every single time we read it, and always asks for it to be read again!
The Return of the Jabberwock
- This was another surprise favorite of a book, we picked it up in our local Home Bargains one day because Tyne was pestering me to buy a large toy...so instead I said he could choose a book, and he picked this one - I suppose it appealed to him because it looked a bit spooky (you can see a theme running throughout the books here, he's a big fan of spooky!) and it appealed to me because it was only 69 pence!So we bought it and I expected we'd read it once and that would be it, instead it has become another one on the favourites pile - he absolutely loves the story of the little boy hunting for the mysterious Jabberwock and the strange creatures he comes across in Tulgey Wood - the illustrations could perhaps be a little too creepy for some children but the "monster" at the end is just a collection of twigs and branches put together by the animals in the story, so it's all easily explained away.
Please note - I'm including the Amazon link incase your local Home Bargains store doesn't have it as we bought it a while ago, but DO check them out first as like I said...it only cost us 69 pence from there!
What are your childrens favorite books? I'm always looking for recommendations!
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