h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Welcome to Talking Point. This is a semi-regular feature with topics introduced In 'Ask h2g2' from time to time.



March 1 is World Book Day. We here at Talking Point would like to know what your favorite children’s books are and why. What books do you choose as gifts for the children in your life? Do you have tips for encouraging the reading habit in children?




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Witty Moniker

My son has gone to school today dressed as his favourite character from a book, currently this is the Troll from the book of the same name by Julia Donaldson and David Roberts. Julia Donaldson has collaborated with several artists to create a large number of childrens books which are all a definite hit with young (pre-school and still going strong with my 5 year old) children. They are fun stories with rhyming sections that bounce along, so are lovely to read out loud.

Other favourites by this author are The Gruffalo, Tiddler, and the Snail and the Whale (all with Axel Acheffler), all of which at one time or another I have had to hide just to get a break from reading them several times a day.

Another set of books we love are the Hairy McClary ones, the first of which was bought for us by Teuchter (of this parish) and again they bounce along with lots of rhyme and repetition.

As my eldest is starting to do well with reading by himself I have also got some short, simple books to encourage him to read the whole thing without my help, that fun but are short enough that he is still happy to read them at bed time when he is tired. My favourite of this type of book is one I remember with great affection from my own childhood - the Meg, Mog and Owl books. Meg is a witch whose spells never quite have the intended effect.

Meg and Mog books are by Helen Nicoll and Jan Pienkowski. And that typo up there should say Axel Scheffler

I don't about tips to encourage reading as I've never really had a problem with this, perhaps because books have been in our house and part of our lives from the very beginning. We've had a bedtime story every day as part of our normal bedtime routine pretty much since birth and they are scattered about the place for whenever there is a spare moment.

I used to babysit a little boy from when he was about 6 to 10, and I would practically beg him to let me read him Nick Butterworth's "One Snowy Night", about all the park animals finding a bed for the night in Percy the Park-keeper's cottage. Lovely story. Unfortunately most of the time he would rather I read Raymond Briggs "Father Christmas" which I found hard going as it's in a comic book style with word bubbles and so hard to read.

When I stopped babysitting him as I was leaving London, he bought me a copy of One Snowy Night as a leaving gift

As a child I loved Heidi by Johanna Spyri and Lottie & Lisa by Erich Kastner. I read both of these books to death.

Deb

We went to see a stage version of that for christmas last year (with puppets, was fabulous) and Percy the Parkeeper has been a regular at bedtime here too

One of my favourite books as a child (and still a favourite) is The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I loved the mystery of it, and the idea of bringing a dead garden back to life. It became one of my daughter's favourites too, aided by the lovely film adaptation starring Maggie Smith. I think it also manages to retain a timeless quality which makes it cross-generational and something that children can still relate to today.

One of the greatest books, supposedly for children, I have read is The Sword in the Stone by T H White, although I didn't read this until I was an adult. However, one thing I have noticed is how far removed books like this and Tom Sawyer are from children's understanding these days. My children couldn't enjoy these books in the way I did, without an 'interpretor' on hand, because so many of the concepts in them and the way of life is so different from their own lives in the 21st century. Of course, Tom Sawyer's life was very different to my own experience of childhood, but older generations were still alive then who could relate to books like that, and when I was growing up there was still a certain amount of freedom and 'safety' in being a free-roaming child that no longer exists today.

However, children's 'classics' are not the only 'books for children' I have read and enjoyed. There are many great modern authors around such as William Nicholson, Garth Nix, Celia Rees and Diana Wynne Jones. I would also heartily recommend reading Airborn by Kenneth Oppel, a Canadian author, who enterprisingly sent his first manuscript to his favourite author (Roald Dahl) when he was a teenager.

I was shocked when they said on the morning news today that 1 in 3 children don't actually own any books. As a family we certainly make up for it in quantity of books, and the idea that some children don't have books is too alien a concept for me to be able to get my head around.

I recall having a lot of 'pop-up' books as a girl, being the eldest of four siblings they didn't last very long once they'd been passed down for the others to read. I suspect a lot of these books were gifts from my Uncle home on leave from the Royal Navy.

I *do* know my first proper book was Black Beauty by Anna Sewell.

My daughters were encouraged to read from an early age. Lady Bird books were very good. Long enough for a good story, yet short enough to retain the interest from start to finish.


lil x

Heidi was another childhood favourite for me too.

I don't know how you encourage children to read, as it has always been a given in our house. I suppose taking the time to read with them from an early age, rather than leaving them in the care of Auntie TV and Uncle Computer Games, would be a start. And of course, children learn best by example. If they don't see their parents and other adults reading, then why would they do so?

My daughter loved "One Snowy Night" too There are so many wonderful picture books like that - I'm quite jealous we didn't have them when I was young.

She progressed to Brambly Hedge, Dr Doolittle and the Moomins, all of which I highly recommend, but hers and my favourites were the Dr Seuss books. Start with The Sneetches.

Ooooh, Brambly Hedge. I almost forgot about it.

I really liked Astrid Lindgren. The Pippi books were from my mother, they must be quite old now. Mum read them to me. The Bullerby Children I read myself, one of the first real books I read myself, I think.

The first books I remember buying (and saving up pocket money for) were Hardy Boys and, to a lesser extent, Nancy Drew. I think we've still got them in an attic somewhere, although we may have handed them down to friends of the family who got a lot of our old toys.
By the first year of secondary school - age 11-12 - I was reading as many adult books as 'young adult', but Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series straddled the two categories nicely. The specifically YA-targetted ones, 'Dragonsong', 'Dragonsinger: Harper of Pern' and 'Dragondrums', really captured my imagination.

I've always been a voracious reader - my mum tells a story about spending hundreds on a bouncy castle and ball pool for a massive 10th birthday party (middle class much?) and finding me under the bed with a book and a torch.

I always found that books that are "too old" for the reader were my favourites. It makes you feel grown-up. At age six, I wouldn't touch "stories for six year olds" (or whatever) by Enid Blyton, but I'd devour "stories for eight year olds".

If you want children to love reading, let them try the more challenging reads. And talk to them about it. I loved talking books with my Dad. And I still do.

As for the best "kids" book ever? It's The Hobbit. I still read it once a year.

For me its got to be Wind in the Willows

Off topic - but what the hell.

Last week my daughter's school took her to a book event where she met various authors of the kind of teenage books that she grew out of a couple of years ago. One of them asked her who her favourite authors are. She looked her in the eye and said:

'F Scott Fitzgerald, Mikhail Bulgakov and Oscar Wilde.'

Kapow.

I read an article in the Grauniad a while back about a dad and his daughter, he had read to her every night from the age of 8 to 18 (I think, when ashe left and went University, anyway) and I have been doing the same to my son since. It's fun and he gets to hear books he wouldn't possibly have chosen for himself. We're currently reading Pterry's Thud and prior to that I was reading him Sherlock Holmes.

When he was little we loved Julia Donaldson, Mick Inkpen and Dr Suess (the book of Bedtime stories was a favourite) One book I will never forget is called 'When the Library Lights Go Out. Hubby and I used to take turns reading that each night. When it was it was his turn however, it wasn't K that went to sleep, it was usually me

'When the library lights go out, so does Mags...'

It's a terrible thing but Julia Donaldson and Alex Whatsit really annoy me. There's always something in the books that is wrong. The Whale and the Snail has children squirting and spraying to keep the whale cool according to the text but the picture shows firemen. When you read it a lot (and oh god do we) it really annoys you. Becuase other wise they are very very good. I keep wishing they were slightly less popular so their editor could be slightly stricter with them.

I don't remember many of the picture books I read, but I must have really liked Judith Kerr of a Tiger Came to Tea fame. Very seventies though.

My top two favourite children's authors are Diana Wynne Jones and Arthur Ransome (Swallows and Amazons). I have been waiting and waiting for my friend's child to get to the appropriate age so I can start on those and this year I might break and do it (I always give her books for her birthday).

As a teenager I thought Heinlein in YA mode was the cat's pajamas.Still do, although his adumt books are more patchy I think.

Anyway, we at Create are also inspired by this topic of childhood reminiscing: A87745431

Reading to a little one (2-6), it doesn't get much better than Robert Munsch and I defy anyone to read 'Love You Forever' to your little one in bed without a certain moistness in your eyes.


I was lucky to have relatives in Britain who sent me hard cover books for my birthday and Christmas. Jules Verne, Robert Louis Stevenson, Mark Twain, Edgar Rice Burroughs- and then when I hit puberty I got two Biggles books twice a year. I still have them since I had three girls and none of them showed any interest in reading them (which puzzles me to this day). I'm hoping for a grandson one day (another beautiful baby girl so far!).

Oh Biggles! I liked Biggles. Advanture! Flying machines! Yay!

I liked the Lone Pine adventures by Malcom Saville too. In fact, I suddenly realised the power of the Internet the other year and started collecting them - I think they are out of print in real life. Oddly enough I never got into the Famous Five or Secret Seven.

I did use to love the Phoenix and the Carpet type books though.

Did anyone here do Tom Swiftisms as a kid? (He asked, only half kidding.)

Ooops- I goggled and found out they are officially 'Tom Swifties'.