DD26's nephew is having a tough time reading. I told him about some books that kids his age seem to really like. The problem is, I don't think he is to that level of reading yet. Talking about books with him got me thinking of some of my childhood favorites. I thought I would start a thread and see what you all like as a child. Here's my off the top of my head list. . .

Ramona (any of the Ramona books by Beverly Cleary)
All of a Kind Family
Boxcar Children
Charlotte's Web
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia - which are still my favorites today and have read them more than once)
The Borrowers

What were some of your favorites?

I don't know as I had any favorite books as a child... (wasn't much of a reader.) However, my wife & I now have a large collection of children's picture books (nearing 300 volumes). I know one of my wife's favorites, as a child, was The Boxcar Children.

Our son was born in 1981...

His fave was the Church Mice...as he loves animals.

The Church Mouse: Graham Oakley: 9781935279693: Amazon.com: Books

There are several of these. We have 6 or 8 of them, and also borrowed some from our library. We read them to him when he was younger 3-4... By 4.5yrs he was reading some himself!

There are like graphic novels....for adults. Lots of color, panel format, and a funny sense of humor.

A librarian steered us to these, as they are from England and not as popular here as there. But our son just LOVED these.

Read the reviews, and you'll see how much they are loved.

I have never heard of the box car family. We enjoyed the Dr Suess books, Little House, Hardy Boys, oh what was the girl mystery novels????Nancy Drew. We really just enjoyed riding our bikes down to the library and letting them pick out their own books since we had so many at home also.

I think my all time favorite book to read to my girls of any age is 'The Monster at the end of the book'. It is a Sesame street book and the monster is Grover. But I love to read with a lot of drama both in my voice and actions. And Grover does not want those pages turned and I put that drama in. I read it to all the kids at Christmas.

Good thread

Skeezyks - That's awesome!!! I wish I had room for books. I would love to have a little library. I did when my kids were younger but ended up with so many books that when I moved, I gave them away.

mrsD - I have never heard of that series. I will check them out as my grandson loves animals and loves, loves to have someone read to him. He's only 18-months old but could sit there with books and either "read" to himself or bring books to me to read to him for hours. We spent a couple of hours reading books yesterday morning. His current favorite book is "Book of Giants and Little People" by Diane Goode.

Doydie - I liked Little House on the Prairie books as well. I forgot about those and the Nancy Drew books. I remember going to the library and picking them up and reading them. When I think of summertime, I always think of riding my bike or walking to the local library and picking up books.

What is nice about the Church Mice series is that the illustrations are complex and funny while the underlying message is one of cooperation and learning acceptance of others. The comic book type format encourages all readers so the words can be slowly learned in a fun way. We didn't expect our son to learn to read with these, but he did on his own.

His fave was "The Church Mice and the Moon:
The Church Mice & The Moon: Oakley: 97868974741: Amazon.com: Books

This one appealed to hisbudding techie nature and was also a big adventure. There is one about a constuction site, too that was prized by him.

I liked the art work (of course) and it has been fun remembering these books and how our son responded to them! Nice memories for me!

There are two other animal books I learned about here...just recently and I bought them for MYSELF!

The author Jackie French from Australia.
Diary of a Wombat
Diary of a Wombat - by Jackie French and Bruce Whatley ((C) Harper Collins Publishing) - YouTube
Diary of a Baby Wombat:
This one is funnier and has a human baby in it too.


These are precious and are mostly targeting small children.. but I loved the simplicity of these and the art work is very good and would appeal to a creative type child I would think.
Jackie French has a funny blog with a story of how she came to write the books, as they are based on her own experience with a rescued baby wombat on her property in Australia. It is very funny and touching...

jackie-french

I think these books are keepers forever, even when the kids grow up and leave.

I often read these myself, again and again.

What cute stories! I got a kick out of both of them. I have started a list of the books that you have mentioned as I really think my grandson, as well as DD26s niece and nephew, will enjoy. We have a resale bookstore that I can take old books to and get a trade in credit. (I'm sure they have them all over the U.S. now. They're awesome). I have books that I need to bring in and I will check to see if they have some of these books.