Yesterday I had The Most Adorable Granddaughter in the World visit for a few hours. It was a mild day (for winter) and she wanted to spend time outside jumping in puddles. As I watched her for some reason a title of a book that I've heard about but never read came to mind: I Can Jump Puddles by Alan Marshall - the story of how he overcame childhood polio. Why it came to me at that moment I don't know (possibly a link with what my granddaughter was doing), but it made me reflect on the books that I've read over the years firstly as a child, then to my children.There are a lot of good children's books out there but they can be so hard to find. So I'm going to share some of my favourites. And perhaps if you've never read them, you might like to seek them out.
A few all-time favourites - these are the ones we read again and again: Treasure in an Oatmeal Box by Ken Gire (a story of love and courage and a very special boy); Brown Ears and Brown Ears at Sea by Stephen Lawhead (the adventures of a rabbit); and Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian (an incredible story of love and friendship in war-torn England).
Closely followed by: The Secret Garden and Little Lord Fauntleroy by Frances Hodgson Burnett; The Crowstarver and Babe by Dick King-Smith; The Railway Children by Edith Nesbit; and Seven Little Australians by Ethel Turner.
And then there's others like: Kidnapped and Treasure Island by Robert L. Stevenson; Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl; and Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.Of course we mustn't forget authors such as Laura Ingalls Wilder (Little House on the Prairie fame); Lucy M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables series); C. S. Lewis (The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe series); and Mark Twain.
As our children were growing up we read to them most nights at bedtime. Often DH and I would take it in turns. He'd read a 'chapter book' (as the kids called them) then when that book was finished, I would read a new book. This way our children were exposed to a lot of different and varied books. There were books I didn't particularly want to read (I had to read Huck Finn for school and that was enough for me) but which DH didn't mind reading and vice versa.
It's only been recently that we've stopped reading to our children. And I miss it. In our culture we've lost the joy of sitting back and listening to a story being read. It was the way past generations (before radio and television) often filled in their evenings. We're thinking about changing that - at least for our family. Son#2 has a number of audio books and starting soon, we're going to turn off the TV, sit back and listen to a story. Just for the pure enjoyment of it.
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