The Crazy Hip Blog Mamas ask a question as part of their fifth writing collaboration…What favorite books from your childhood do you plan to (or have already) introduced to your children?
I try to read daily to both my girls. Amelia loves Spot the Dog and lately has been bringing us Goodnight Moon from our big book basket in the den which is filled with board books. Miss C has story time in bed every evening. We snuggle under the covers and share favorite books. I can’t think of a better way to end the day with her. She’s been known to prolong bedtime by pleading, “Read it one more time mama!” (We have a two time limit for reading or we’d be up until midnight.)
I have nearly all my childhood books thanks to my mom. I am seven years younger than my brother and I am even younger than my sisters. So, many of my books my mom bought new for me. She always wrote a note inside as well as the date.
Pictured here are several of my favorite childhood books. I’ll have to admit I can’t think of one overall favorite. Miss C chooses a book each night from her bookcase and we have read a portion or all of these books numerous times. They are my actual childhood copies, except for The Little House. I had a hardback copy growing up and I’m not sure what happened to it, but I remember reading it over and over. There are so many more books I loved as a child…The Little House and Nancy Drew series, the Chronicles of Narnia, anything by Madeline L’Engle, A Little Princess and The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett…my list could go on and on. My maternal grandmother also gave me books each year for my birthday. I grew up in the country with not much to do smack dab in the middle of pasture and crop fields but I always loved to curl up with a good book.
One of my girlfriends from college has four children and we were e-mailing each other a few years back about Christmas and gift giving in general for children. She told me she and her husband feel like their kids can never have too many books or too many art supplies. A love for reading is something I hope to instill in both girls. Perhaps they will sit down and read my childhood books to their children some day.
I agree with you, R is for reading—you can never have enough books (or) art supplies—thanks for sharing some very lovely memories!
Glad to see Charlotte’s Web on your list. That was the first chapter book I read all by myself. I now read my ratty old copy to the godkids.
I think you and I had identical favorite books. Before I was ever pregnant with Lily I started buying the beatrix potter set (for littleuns) and the chronicles of narnia as well as the l’engle trilogy (for older’ens). Good stuff. Important stuff.
Anne, We have the Beatrix Potter books too!
Now if I can only get my motivation to read back.
‘The Giving Tree’ is my absolute favorite. It makes me cry every time!
I love the giving tree, butme being an animal lover…I have always loved Charlotte’s Web because that is totally something I would do… save the runt.
We let LB pick her favorites but I totally push mine on her, too. Since I taught Pre-K and K for a bit, I have my very favorite “big girl” books with more words than LB can handle. But I love books like “TUESDAY” with no words, “It looked like spilt milk” and the “if you give a moose a…”
As far as when I was little, I still have (and read all the time) Oh the things I will do if you put me in the zoo! (And most other Dr. Seuss books)
P.S. There was some scaryass picture of your dog on flickr sidebar just now. Dude! Must. Go. See.
(Maybe it was just the thumbnail. I’m sure he’s just lovely of a pooch but he was looking RIGHT AT ME)
Great post! Charlotte’s Web was an absolute favorite of mine as was The Secret Garden! Did you read the Trixie Belden series? I had the whole set and read them countless times.
Heather:
Yes! I read my sisters’ copies of the Trixie Belden books and loved them. Good stuff. Actually for a brief time I wanted to be Trixie Belden.
Jamie
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Ah, The Little House! That and The Little Red Hen were my Absolute favorites as a little girl.
Jack’s favorite phrase now is “’Ead book ‘gain”, i.e. “Read book again”. Child loves to read – I’m so glad for it. We don’t even have to have a structured story time, except bedtime – he demands books on his own!
I, too, loved Little House on the Prairie. My grandmother was a librarian and would send me books every year at Christmas. I always looked forward to them. I don’t know if my little boy will get the same joy out of it that I did, but that doesn’t mean I won’t try!
I’d be hard-pressed to pick a favourite from my childhood, too. I loved reading…still do. And so does Julia…I love reading to her. (Oliver just likes to rip pages out of books right now. He’ll get there.)
I don’t really remember a lot of picture books from when I was a kid. I did start collecting them when I was older, though, so I have a ton of David Shannon and Maira Kalman books (and many, many more) to share with Pea. When she gets a little older, Charlotte’s Web is my all-time favorite. Plus the Anne of Green Gables books, the Little House books, and many more. Wow, now I want to sit down and read.
The Velveteen Rabbit was and still is my favorite children’s book and I have a copy to give to my granddaughters when they’re a little bit older.
I’m an avid reader and have been since I was a child. My mother used to buy me a new Little Golden Book every Saturday when I went with her to the grocery store.
Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys…I had them all..still have some of them
)
I read to my daughters all the time but neither of them grew up loving to read like I do. However, I have noticed that the older they get, the more reading they do. Maybe they’ll grow into it??? lol
I hope your children will love reading and books!
I love to read, but my parents never read to me as a child. I don’t know where I got my love of books from. Despite being read to as kids, my children hate, hate, hate to read! It’s a disappointment. I’d love to share my love of reading with them, but when I mention a book I just read that they might like, they look at me like I have two heads. Where did I go wrong?
I adore all the books you listed! (Except The Giving Tree…I always thought that kid was incredibly selfish)
I loved The Princess Bride and I read it to Hailey when she was a baby. (It took a week and a half…but I did it.)
My daughter loves “Where the Sidewalk Ends” by Shel Silverstein. Those crazy poems are great for young minds! She will ask me to read ones to her that were my favorites as a child like Sarah Silvia Cynthia Stout who not take the garbage out!
My mother has our collection of Little Golden Books at her home and my daughter loves reading those. We also had some of the Sweet Pickle Books, though those were more of my sisters favorites and she has them now, but again my daughter likes to look at them and have them read to her when she’s at her aunt’s place.
I never read all the Little House series as a kid, but I’ve reading them to my daughter and we just finished book #5 (of nine)! It’s been so fun!
Malia, I loved all the Shel Silverstein collections as a kid too and have been reading them to my daughter since she was a baby. Where the Sidewalk Ends is one of my favorite new-baby gifts.
I have that same copy of Charlotte’s Web. From the Weekly Reader book club. Good times. I also had a condensed version of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens that I got through the book club. Also a good one for when you’re a kid. I like the non-condensed one now. I never read Madeleine L’Engle when I was a kid and then when I was 20 years old and living with a family as an au pair, their 11 year old daughter said she liked A Wrinkle in Time and insisted I read it, which I did that very night. When I told her I finished it the next morning, she insisted I read the rest of them since I could go through them so quickly. I thank her for that. Probably the best experience to come of being an au pair.
I am SO jealous that you still have your books from ‘your’ childhood! You know, I was keeping several of mine, and I remember having them as I boomeranged from my folks to my first apartment to my folks, ad infinitum, but somewhere along the way….
lost they became…
I do still have a couple – but I sure miss that original Richard Scarry book (I’m 36) and I really miss that jokes and riddles book…
I can still see the pictures in my mind…”Why did the robber take a shower? —He wanted to make a clean getaway.” Unkempt, unshaven man with a big, black watch peeking out of a shower curtain. LOL (why I remember the watch, I don’t know…)
As I read your post and discovered the books in the picture were actually yours, I got choked up being the book-geek that I am, and had to scroll back up and look at them closer!
Great post!
[...] Another mom I know recently blogged about (even showing us a picture of!) some of her favorite childhood books. Her name is Jamie and I love the title she chose for this post: R is for Reading! [...]
We would love to play audio reviews of your (or your children’s) favourite books on “Just One More Book!!” —A podcast about the Children’s Books we love and why we love them, recorded in our favourite coffee shop!
http://www.JustOneMoreBook.com
Just One More Book is a thrice-weekly podcast in which we take a few minutes out of our morning coffee ritual to discuss one of our many favourite children’s books.
Through this podcast and its website, we are building a lively, interactive community linking children’s book authors, illustrators, readers (parents and children) and publishers.
Our podcast is powered by passion. We have no advertisers or sponsers and there is no financial gain to be had. Our goal is to link children with great books and help create happy memories for children and the adults that read to them…and to have fun!
I hope to see you there!
Andrea
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thanks for thats, how are you doing for this xmas? i took your reccomendation and purchased a
proximate for my wife
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