The Tale of Despereaux - this is what I've been reading to Liam for, oh, weeks now, missing a night now and then. we're a little over halfway through and he says it's the best book we've ever read. I like it okay...
We still haven't finished Farmer Boy, but he wanted to switch. Although he loves Farmer Boy, while he's hearing it. Like me, the chapter on being home without the parents for a week was his favorite.
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superzine

The third Lemony Snickett book -- The Wide Window -- to the girls. Also a bunch of informational books about all different things that we get from the library. P usually hangs out and listens, too.

Curious George, and these princess books that were given to her and I just make up the stories as we go along plus Beirnstein Bears books

all the books are in English so I translate everything to Spanish

We are reading Peter Pan. Which is very twisted and I keep having to censor Tinkerbell's cursing! I am enjoying it very much and the boy is of course thrilled with flying kids and pirates.

got 4 Anansi tales out of the library on Wednesday. dd was really excited about them and demanded that we read them RIGHT AWAY.

We brought them to my mom's house for Thursday and read them on the train up. then read them again at bedtime at home.

Today, we read Ursula K. Leguin's "Catwings" about 4 kittens who are born with wings, much to their mother's confusion.

I think dd preferred Anansi and all his pranks. She keeps imitating the sounds made in one of the stories (when Anansi's wife Aso whispers to him, the sound is pesa pesa pesa and his response varies from gugh gugh gugh to twe twe twe. So we'll be walking down the street or up the stairs or on the subway platform and she'll turn to me and mock-whisper, Pesa pesa pesa and wait for whatever sound I make as a reply)

Wow, I'm impressed -- 3, 4, and 5 year olds listening to novels. My 3-year-old is getting better about listening to longer storybooks without turning the pages after one or two sentences, but I don't think she's ready for the Little House books, etc. at this point. She loves reading together, though, and will also "read" books to me. Her current favorites are Leslea Newman's A Fire Engine for Ruthie and anything by Todd Parr. She's a new 3, however, so maybe she'll get there before long. I would love to read the All-of-a-Kind Family books to her.

Book sale at dd's school today, so we bought 10-12 books of folk tales from around the world. We just read a Haitian folktale called "The Banza" (which we're actually planning to send to a 6-year-old down south). We're going to reread it after she finishes changing into her pajamas.

We're also alternating between two Oz books: The Lost Princess of Oz by L. Frank Baum and "Dorothy of Oz" by his grandson (great-grandson?) Roger Baum. Funny, for some reason, i like Dorothy better than The lost princess. It's more of a pageturner and keeps both our interest. A few days after we read the last chapter, dd asked me if we could read more because she really wanted to find out if Dorothy saved her friends. (she doesn't seem to remember the plot of the other one from day to day)

My 3 year old doesn't nap any more so we've replaced it with reading time. And to my great thrill he will sit on my lap and listen to me read! His first "real" book is Alice Through the Looking Glass which is a favorite of mine. I think I will try the Oz books next. He was the tinman for halloween.
Also, I just discovered Dover coloring books. They have coloring books in every subject you can imagine and they are well done. Everything from the Underground Railroad to Ancient Byzantine fashions. And the literature ones have slightly abridged whole novels alongside the pics. I might give everyone (including adults) a coloring book for christmas this year and put a big box of crayons on the table. In case anyone is interested:
http://store.doverpublications.com/by-subject-children-coloring-books-standard-coloring-books.html

Dh is reading "Little Town on the Prairie" to the younger two, and I'm reading "Lieutenant Hornblower" and "The Dark is Rising" (by Susan Cooper) to all three. The Hornblower novels are problematic because of course you get the racism and imperialism of the era. The first time we hit a term I usually explain what the term is and why it's a problem (my children are used to hearing me say, "That's a really rude/racist term for *****") and after that I just edit. It's worth it to me to explain that the era was racist, and that the same attitude continues today, but I'll admit that sometimes I wish that C.S. Forrester had been either a little more enlightened or a little less historically accurate.

wrote a book of animal fairy tales called "Leaping Beauty" which I've been reading to dd every night. Some of the twists and humor are definitely more geared for older kids/adults, but I'm enjoying it and, if she stays awake, so does she.

Still haven't finished "The Land of Oz" yet. Half the time we can't even *find* the book when it's bedtime and, rather than wasting time looking for it, we read something else. In case you couldn't tell by my other posts, housekeeping is definitely not high on this family's priority list.

I either dumpstered the book or got it at a library book sale a few years ago. I tried to interest dd in it back then, but she didn't care.

She's seen "The Wizard of Oz" somewhat recently and so, when she came across the book today at my office, she asked what it was and, when I showed her the Tin Woodman and Scarecrow, she wanted to read it. We've read three chapters this evening (she would like to stay here all night and read the entire book, but I would like to go home now, thank you very much) and have decided to bring it home to keep reading it over the weekend.

Hooray for moving onto chapter books! And hooray for the Oz books, which I loved as a kid.

we've been reading the Lemony Snicket series to ds (9 y.o.).

on his own, he's all about roller coaster and airplane books. :)

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tenderfoot zine * mamaphiles!

A new children's book drawing interest in our house and around the US is A Treasure's Trove by Michael Stadther. Its a beautiful fairy tale with a real nationwide treasure hunt going on right now.
You are supposed to decipher clues in the book and its illustrations that lead to 12 locations around the US where you can find a gold token with instructions on redeeming the jewels.
Its Great!! we are working as a team to work through the clues and book - no big intention to treasure hunt, just like the family time :)

While poking around the Strand for another chapter book to read to dd after we finish "Charlotte's Web," I came across E. Nesbit's "The Railway Children" which I remember seeing as a child (and shelving as the library page in the children's section) but never reading.

The back cover starts with the description that Father has unexpectedly gone away and so Mother moves her kids to a cottage by a train station and supports the family by writing books.

So, given that we're literary and writerly mamas, was wondering if anyone has picked up this book and read it or read it to their kids (or if their kids have read it). I think it's for children slightly older than dd (who's 4), but the fact that the 1906 Mother is supporting the family by writing is intriguing.

j/k. sort of.

Yesterday, I was trying to put dd down for a nap on the couch of the darkroom where I volunteer. She was extremely cranky and tired, but not quite at that point where she could drift off by herself.

"Mama is gonna read her book. Want Mama to read it to you?" I asked.

She nodded and so I read. fortunately, I can read one line ahead of the line that's usually coming out of my mouth (a skill I developed in 5th grade when the teacher always told me to slow down whenever it was my turn to read "The Wind in the Willows" or "Tuck Everlasting" out loud in reading class. I always wanted to race ahead and see what happened next) so I could skip over the sentences that I deemed too graphic or that dealt specifically with death.

She fell asleep within five minutes.

(BTW, this is NOT an indicator that Bee's new book is boring. It may have a soporific effect on cranky, overtired 4 year olds, but this mama found it a page-turner.)

Books I'm reading to dd when I'm NOT trying to put her to sleep:

Charlotte's Web (although since she's seen the video ad nauseum, she's been asking to skip to this part or that rather than us reading the whole way through)

101 Asian Folktales (one folktale at a time)

Spider Woman (the Navajo myth, not a take-off on the Marvel comic)

an assortment of the picture books on her bookshelf

Okay now we are on A Swiftly Tilting Planet. I didn't get around to posting when we were reading A Wind In The Door. She's still getting read to once a week if she's lucky, poor thing. Baby is very mommified.

Congrats Lone Star Ma! I'm pregnant too, which has made a cranky mama out of me, but also motivated me to do more reading with the kids during the day--I can do it from the couch!

We've been reading fairy tales. Anyone else spending time with giants, fairies, dragons, princesses, gnomes, witches and enchanted princes?

I have to say I get caught up in the magic of it, and the allegorical compactness of it, despite all the kings offering to give their daughters away and damsels being rescued. My dp and I tone down the "beauty" priority in the stories (substituting "cool" or "smart and strong"--that one sounds particularly funny inserted into the Mirror Mirror on the Wall chant).

I am surprised to find I don't mind the "find your prince = happiness" theme as much as I used to. In my case, feminist that I am, all of my career aspirations and achievements have meant NOTHING compared to finding my soul mate and making kids with him. Just another way motherhood has turned my ideas all topsy-turvy.

We're also reading the Golden Treasury of Children's Literature, the very volume my mom read me as a kid. I love the amiable giant. It also has a lot of first-parts of books in it. Has anyone read "Poo Poo and The Dragon" or the "Ting-a-ling" fairy stories? Reading the chapters we have in that anthology makes me want to read more.

Also we read the first three chapters of the original Pinochio--and it's funny, and kind of wicked, too. We're going to have to find the full and unabridged version of one, too.

This anthology also has Blue Beard in it, one I remember vividly from childhood, so violent and scary, and yet somehow deeply intriguing--we're going to save that one for when my children are a little more ready to hear about murder. ;-)