Stories for the kids…

I was reading an entry a short while ago and it inspired me to write an entry about the books I read to my children. While I don’t read as much as I should to my kids, I make an effort to do as much as I can. Jonathan doesn’t stand still enough to listen for very long, but Ethan loves to sit down and hear out a full book or four and loves to read with me. It got to the point where when it came time to toss out an easy chair from the living room because there was no room for it, I instead came up with a better idea. I moved the chair into Ethan’s room which had a corner that with more than enough space for it, and Ethan and I call it ‘the reading chair’ and every night we sit together in the chair and read a story before bedtime. I am very picky about what stories I read to my boys, so here are the books I do have here in the house and what I read to both Ethan and Jonathan as much as I can:

(One of Ethan’s favorites, he loves elephants.)

(I really like this one cause the rhymes give us such a great flow…)

(I have several of the Paddington books, ordered from E-bay.
Ethan also loves the show. The old one, not the cartoon)

(These are awesome books, cartoon is not bad but the books are awesome!)

(This is one of 26 ‘Mr. Men’ books I purchased off E-Bay. Both boys love them.
This one is Ethan’s favorite. Jonathan loves Mr. Messy…)

(This one is a classic, and Ethan loves it when I do them in really weird voices…)

(This book means a lot to me, because the copy I own has been in my possession since I was seven years old. I first ordered it when I was in grade two and have kept it ever since. This was why I never let go of it… so I could read it to my own kids.)

Reading is very important for the kids, and I do what I can. I’ll be the first to admit that I need to be a lot stricter with it and do it consistantly (sometimes hard when people are out late and I sometimes have to put two boys to bed at the same time) but one thing I will be trying to do is to read to them both a lot more and maybe pick up some new books…

I do already have some books stashed away for when Ethan and Jonathan get older. Books like ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘Charlotte’s Web’ are nicely tucked away and waiting to be brought out when the boys are old enough for that kind of literature. I also have an entire collection of Gordon Korman books I’ve been keeping since I was eleven, so that’s another set of books I hope to one day pass on. I love to read, and this is something I hope to not push onto my children but share with them through the example of my passion for them.

Peter