I retired from personal blogging in July 2008 but you can find me over at blog.xero.com
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For those of us with young children, a big part of the daily ritual is story time. My 3 year old insists on two stories before the light goes off.
I have to be honest, some stories I dread reading for the 30th time, but there are a number of favorites that are just laugh out loud funny. I’m not sure the little fella thinks they are as funny as I do but these are my suggestions for must have child books that you’ll look forward to reading.
1. Russell the Sheep
Great artwork, the story of a sheep trying to get to sleep …
2. When Pigs Fly
Priceless. Look for the last picture …
3. Diary of a Wombat
Text is as good as the pictures …
4. The story of the little Mole who knew it was none of his business
Seems to have a different title on Amazon …
What are your must have, laugh out loud, bedtime stories?
blog
“The day I swapped my dad for two goldfish” and “The wolves in the walls” by Neil Gaiman.
The Grandpa series from Scholastic.
The Gruffalo books
And don’t forget “Where the Wild Things are”.
The Amazon title will reflect the US version of the book and any mention of “business” is probably not deemed polite for a children’s book. The UK version of Amazon has the original title - http://g-ec2.images-amazon.com/images/I/411F9SWNJ3L._SS500_.jpg
Russel the Sheep cover has a frog on it. Made me think.
Do kids born in this century ever get to see a real frog in the wild?
I remember inflating them like balloons using a small grass straw and always getting a slap on the bum for that. There are no frogs left where I came from, as far as I know. Haven’t seen/heard any around here either.
Sorry for this off-topic diversion :-)
My vote goes to “Little Rabbit Foo Foo” by Michael Rosen
http://www.realgroovy.co.nz/books/isbn/0671796046
It’s had all three of my kids in hysterics over the years and the bunny’s unrepentant nature reminds me of one or two people I know :-)
Princess Smartypants by Babette Cole (http://tinyurl.com/2vyblk)
Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy by Lynley Dodd (http://tinyurl.com/2hopc6)
“Where the Wild Things areâ€
I defy anyone to say they don’t look forward to hamming up the roaring of terrible roars, gnashing of terrible teeth, showing of terrible claws and rolling of terrible eyes.
A real oldy, but my Kids always liked it was Dr Suess’s Sleep book.
Another fave was Mike Muligan’s Steam Shovel (published 1939!!). My copy has done three generations.
“Where’s My Cow” by Terry Pratchett.
Good fun for those of us who have read his Discworld books, with fun animal noises for the “kids”.
It is a bit of a mouthful, but Dr Suess’s Fox In Sox is good - especially the tweedle beetles! :-)
Scuffy the tugboat works for me
Or anything by Dr Suess or Lynley Dodd
Don’t you wonder how some children’s books ever got published? We have some books we have inherited from others which are so poorly written, and just plain boring – I’m sure I could do a better job than some of these, and I get my kicks from writing code, so that’s saying something!
I always smile when my girls bring me a Dr Suess book – my 3 year old knows every word by memory of “Oh the places you’ll go!†– she now read’s it to me, lots of fun!
Duck and Goose by Tad Hills is my current favourite - about a duck and goose fighting over the right to nurse an egg they found. The look on their faces, when they realise the egg is in fact a football, is priceless.
Just to plug a local author (and friend), Ruth Paul has a number of beautifully illustrated and quite clever books: http://www.ruthpaul.co.nz/animal-undie-ball.html
Other than this my 4-yr old used to love Gerald the Giraffe; I’m now getting through Charlotte’s Web with him.
have to vote for dr seuss, hariy mclairy, where the wild things are - all work a treat at our place… and, “mr fix-it duck”, “goodnight moon”, and and the old favourite spot series are great too…
what a truly heart-warming blog post, rod… off to run the bath and warm the milk, then!
Dr Suess: Horten the Elephant (I think).
“An elephant is faithful…one hundred percent.
On the radio version (who remembers 7:30am on Sundays) it would go “An elephant is faithful…B-O-I-N-G-! …one hundred percent.
The physics:
The image of an elephant sitting on an egg up in a tree…that still gets me laughing.
The mathematics:
I think of Horten everytime someone says “I gave it 110% effort”….nope not possible.
The biology:
Well, lets just say Dr Suess was ahead of his time.
Agree with Tom: heart-warming blog…beats beating up Xtra/Telecom right now.
I remember Rod reading Dr Suess’s The Foot Book to my first son back when Rod was childless “Left foot, left foot, right foot, right, feet in the morning and feet at night”
Very cool.
Thanks for this list. I’ll see if the library has them.
My three-year old is loving “Baby Brains” by Simon James - he laughs outloud when baby brains is reading the newspaper and even more so the last page when he is doing surgery in his spare time.
The good old Hungry Caterpillar (Eric Carle) is great for both the 3 year old and the toddler.
“The Runaway Train” by Benedict Blathwayt (Little Red Train series) - great illustrations, lots of scope for storytelling, counting, explaining stuff other than the actual text.
“Dear Zoo” by Rod Campbell, lift the flap book. Great for toddlers.
“Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” - Bill Martin and Eric Carle - great for colours and animal noises.
My daughter got a copy of “My Dad” by Anthony Browne for her 3rd birthday.
http://www.amazon.com/My-Dad-Anthony-Browne/dp/0374351015
It is a wonderful book which she / and I both liked (naturally!) Now almost 3 years later we’ve found out how much.
Just a few weeks ago she wrote a story in writing class loosely based on “My Dad’
Except instead of the examples in the book it was “My Dad gets as furious as a possum when he can’t find his carkeys”… and so on. The story went for 3 pages and has to be one of the highlights of school so far.
Aparently they had been learning about similes and so she was using as many as she could and rewrote the My Dad book at the same time. pic below
http://g-ec2.images-amazon.com/images/I/5108B7EYAPL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg
This is a great thread - I’ve picked up a couple good ideas for stocking stuffers this Christmas…
My girls love “The Daddy Mountain” by Jules Feiffer
http://www.amazon.com/Daddy-Mountain-Ribbon-Picture-Awards/dp/0786809124/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-7340859-6267612?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1187793482&sr=1-1
And they’re currently going nuts about Margaret Mahy’s “Down the back of the chair”, which I happened to haul back to New York from NZ on one of my recent trips.
Another vote from me for “My Dad” - by coincidence, my 18-month old son just gave it to me for father’s day…
Suffice to say, we’re both hooked
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