Escape into a magical world of imagination (Top Ten Childrens Books)

Member Name: KELLY170980

Product:	Top Ten Childrens Books
Date:	27/10/08 (90 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Books give us so much as a child...passion, creativity, imagination and escape.

Disadvantages: I often stayed indoors a lot....have to find the balance

When I was a little girl, you would hardly ever see me without my nose in a book..... My bedroom was like a library, I think it was due to the fact I had really bad eczema and had a lot of teasing at school, so this was my escape..... And I have remained that way, I love reading more than anything, my husband thinks its funny..... He says the only time my mouth is not moving in when I have a good book!!!! hehe!!!

And I'm glad to say both of my children have took after me, rather than their daddy....whose reading efforts are his monthly movie mag and the daily mirror each day!!!!! He just can not sit still long enough to read a whole book!!

The following top ten is a mixture of my favourites and also my children's favourites, which I must admit I love too...... Bedtime is our house is always fun, as apparently daddy is not as good as reading stories as mummy...as I do the voices!!!! And if I do say so myself...I think my accents/impersonations etc are great!!! Although my hubby says that all my accents sound like I'm Scottish!!!! (think he is jealous of my talents...hehe!!)

****** Green Eggs and Ham by Dr Seuss**********

This book is a wonderful book, like all Dr Seuss books there is always a great lesson to learn, In this book I think it shows children that no matter how much you say you do not like something until you try it you just do not know.
This defiantly worked with me and my children; I thank this book for my little girl eating brussel sprouts!!!!

It about two funny characters, one being Sam and he tries to encourage the other character to eat the green eggs and ham, in different funny scenarios for e.g. in a train.... with a fox... with a mouse.... etc etc....the whole book rhymes in normally Dr Seuss fashion...Anyway eventually he discovers he does like green eggs and ham........... Thank you Thank you Sam I am!!!!

****** Oh the places you will go Dr Seuss*********

Like Green eggs and Ham this book is in the usual great Dr Seuss style, I love this book as it really does explain life to children in such a simple way, basically the book is a story about how you will travel through many different paths in your life and no matter how much you want things to go a certain way sometimes they just won't.... its all about the journey. my favourite line is the last line of the book where it says " kid you'll move mountains"
I brought this for my godchild after reading somewhere or other about it making a good christening gift, and my friend reckons it was one of the only gifts that she has actually used a lot of.

I could go on forever and a day on how much me and my children love Dr Seuss books, we have all of them and I put reading these books down to the success of how well my children ready, even my youngest whom is three.

Anyone whom has never read Dr Seuss must start; they are great fun and have great hidden meanings behind them.


******** What Katy did By Susan Coolidge***********

This book is very special to me as it was the first hard back book that I ever owned and was brought with a book token I won for writing a book review at school on Jill Murphy The worst witch.

This book is about a young girl called Katy and at the beginning of the book she starts out by being a bit of a terror always getting into strife etc and when I was little it reminded me of my life and the way I wanted to be good and pretty and look after my brothers and sister well etc etc....but always seemed do not do it properly no matter how hard I tried....she lives with her father who is a doctor and her auntie Izzie, her mother died a few years earlier than this and she misses her terribly.

Katy has an terrible accident, she falls off a swing, and can not walk, at first she is very bitter about this and really goes into self, and becomes very depressed, Anyway her cousin Helen helps her through this and basically tells her to think positive and make the best of things and learns her how to do this, eventually she does this and her family all learn to love spending time with her again and she becomes like the sort of glue that holds them all together and especially when her auntie dies, she becomes an even more important role model etc to her siblings.

I do not have my copy of this book anymore, as when I was about 13 I went to Scarborough with my grandma and I left it on the beach.... This book is a bit too advanced for my children yet, but as they get older especially my daughter I will defiantly buy this book again and read it to her, or she can read it to herself, and I just hope that she will love it as much as I did. This book was important to me, and although I have not read it for 15 years, I can still remember what the book looked like, the way it made me feel. Classics like this stay with you forever.

*******The lion, the witch and the wardrobe by CS Lewis******

what can I say about this book.... other than it's a complete and utter classic. I can remember reading this at school with my class and we had to take it in turns around the classroom to read a couple of paragraphs each and about 4-10 pages a day, I hated it, as I would be itching to find out what happened next...

I'm sure anyone who is reading this has probably read this book or watched the movie, but for those of you that have not..... Here is a brief summary.

This book is based around the 1940's and four children are evacuated from London to live with a professor and his housekeeper is the country.
The children's names are Peter Susan Edmund and Lucy Pevensie.
One day the youngest child Lucy stumbles across a wardrobe in a empty room, when she goes into the wardrobe its basically the entrance to a secret magical world called Narnia full of lots of wonderful creatures and characters and where its always winter due to a evil white witch...at first she meets a faun called Tumnus, she has a really nice time with having tea etc before she returns back to the wardrobe to return home.
When she gets back she tries to tell her sister and brothers but they do not believe her story.
A couple of weeks later they are playing hide and seek and Lucy hides in the wardrobe only to be followed by her brother Edmund, who does not at first catch up with his sister and runs into the White witch who tries to manipulate him by promising to make him a prince if he bring his brother and sisters to see her as she knows that it a prophecy that they will defeat her.
Again the children return back home, and then all four children hide in the wardrobe to avoid the strict housekeeper who is looking for them to tell them off, they all then step into the world of Narnia. The rest of their adventure is about how they meet characters such as the lion Aslan who is the lion, and they then proceed to defeat the white witch although many other wonderful twists are in-between this such as Edmund betraying his brother and sisters only to be rescued by them later....and much more.

I think the book is much better than the film, and I read it to my son who is six on our holidays this year, he found it a little too hard going I think, but I enjoyed it again....although now being 28!!! hehe!!

********** The hungry caterpillar By Eric Carle***********

Both of mu children have loved this book...so much so that I am on my third copy as the other two have been used so much that they become a bit scruffy.

It all about a caterpillar who eats his way through the book and then turns into a butterfly at the end.

I know this sound a bit boring but my children love the fact that the pages have little holes in where the caterpillar has ate through and they like naming all the food he ate..... Especially when it comes to near the end and he eats through loads of stuff...such as a lolly, a pickle, an ice cream etc etc.


***********Stig of the dump by Clive king******************

I read this book when I was in hospital when I was little and had a very bad case of eczema; it was the only book I had not read that they had in the playroom.

And I'm not sure if I love it because of the nostalgia or because it's now my son's favourite book.

Its about a young lad called Barney whom one day when off on a walk he falls over and finds himself in a cave and meets a cave boy, now he does not talk in English apart from grunts and snorts, but they become friends and Barney names him Stig.
The book is all about there adventures and really does show a great example of friendship and about how child have so much innocence really, for e.g. my little girl is in a nursery class with a little polish girl whom can not speak very much English at all yet they are the best of friends and seem to understand each other even in different languages and its the same with Stig and Barney.


*********Charlottes Web By EB White*****************

this is defiantly a classic and myself and my children adore this book and also it's my little girls favourite film.

It's about a pig called Wilbur whom is the runt of the litter and is rescued from a little girl called Fern whom takes him from her father as a pet so he is not killed.
Wilbur befriend a spider in the barn called Charlotte , she helps him in a plot not to get killed, she starts writing words in her web saying how great Wilbur is and people travel from far and wide to see this, and it makes Wilbur a famous pig, with him winning a prize at the county fair . I can remember crying my eyes out when Charlotte died in the book, and my three year old cried when she watched the film and charlotte died and when some of her babies hatched and flew away.


******All of the harry Potter book....Jk Rowling*************


I am a mad mad potter fan, I absolutely love the books and I am afraid and ashamed to admit that I am one of those sad adults that queued at midnight at Tesco's and also read all the book straight away within a couple of days.

My husband thinks I'm crazy and does not understand how I can love a children's book, but I was hooked from the first book and by the end I was sobbing my eyes out.

My children have watched the films but as yet I have not read the books to them, although my son does listen to the audio cd's on at night time sometimes to help him get to sleep.
I think JK Rowling will go down in history as an all time great along with tolkin, cs Lewis, Lewis carol etc etc....I know some people will not agree but I will never change my mind, I love every character, I love the writing, I love the author, her passion her work for charity and especially her imagination that created one of my most loved characters ever.

*****Mr men and little miss books****************

Now I must admit these children's books are not exactly my favourites but my children are mad about them, they have collected them for years and have every single one now.

My daughter got the sparkly adventures for xmas from the book people and she is always reading Little miss naughty and the fairy.... she has t-shirts and toys as well, and from what I can gather from many other mums there children are the same, they seem to be a huge huge thing at the moment.

I could go on for ever with all the books and authors I love in the children's genre...... Paddington bear, Rupert bear, Winnie the pooh, Alice and wonderland, Captain underpants, Thomas the tank, Judy Blume, Jill Murphy ......

Sorry for the length of my review, but its a passion for me and I think its very important to give your children a love of books also.

Summary: Encourage your children with the greats... some books you'll remember for the whole of your life!!!