Guest post by Louise Emerson, our Musical Minis Durham franchisee.
With World Book Day having just passed, it got me thinking about books: Are they still as popular with young children or with the ever increasing digital media available, are they taking a back seat to ipads, kindles and DVD’s etc? Let’s be honest, there aren’t many children who can’t teach us adults a thing or two on a tablet or laptop. My 3 year old can do things I never knew were possible on my phone! Including disabling it at the most inconvenient times!
I have to say as a former English teacher, I am a traditionalist when it comes to my reading material and favour the feel of a good book than a shiny screen. I have lots of bookcases in my house and love to have books around me on display. It’s something I’m trying to instil in my girls too – a love of reading. To me, it is so important for so many reasons. Reading helps to foster a great imagination, broadens our vocabulary, relaxes, educates and it’s a great opportunity for quality bonding time between children and their carers.
I have 3 daughters ranging from 1 – 6 years in age and each one enjoys a story every night before bed. Sadie who is 13 months loves the ‘That’s not my…’ touchy feely board books by Fiona Watt and Rachel Wells. Fortunately, having two older sisters means she has inherited quite a collection, which should keep us going for some time! She loves scratching the surfaces, feeling for the different textures and then promptly turning the pages, trapping my fingers in the previous one, which of course is always hilarious!
Phoebe who is 3 is currently going through all the traditional fairy tales as she is doing a topic on them in nursery. We have read Hansel and Gretel, The Gingerbread Man, The Three Little Pigs and The Billy Goats Gruff so far. She has also been doing activities linked to these at nursery so I have had some great pieces of artwork home! A house made of bricks (or what looks suspiciously like Next wallpaper) and her very own beautifully decorated gingerbread man to name a few! She also has a Leap reader pen and loves the independence of being able to read a story herself – they are a great invention in my eyes!
Holly, my eldest is 6 now and so is getting quite good with her reading. We have all the Oxford Reading Tree Floppy, Biff and Kipper books sent home from school but I do think she is getting a little bit bored of these now. We read them and then move on to some of our own. She is a big fan of Julia Donaldson and there can’t be many of her books that we don’t now own. She also has Dr Seuss titles; the Beatrix Potter collection and we’ve recently started reading Enid Blyton’s Faraway Tree series, which she absolutely loves. I wasn’t sure what she would make of these – if they would be too old for her (the fact they are long; in chapters and lacking in many pictures) but how wrong I was! She wants to go to bed early now to get 2 chapters in instead of our usual one! I can’t grumble with that! I’m hoping to move on to some Roald Dahl when she finishes these, as I loved those as a child. I distinctly remember going into school on World Book Day dressed as Mrs Twit while all my friends were beautiful princesses or some equally attractive heroine!
So according to the Booktrust website, the following are the top 25 books for children between the ages of 0-5 from the last 100 years. I’ll admit there are a few on here I’d never heard of, yet plenty of old classics too. How many of these have you read?
- Each Peach Pear Plum
- The Jolly Postman
- The Snowman
- Gorilla
- Would You Rather?
- Dear Zoo
- The Very Hungry Caterpillar
- I Will Not Ever Eat a Tomato
- Princess Smarty Pants
- Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy
- Room on the Broom
- Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes
- Little Mouse’s Big Book of Fears
- Where’s Spot?
- Dogger
- Lost and Found
- The Tiger who came to Tea
- I Want My Hat Back
- Not Now, Bernard
- Meg and Mog
- We’re Going on a Bear Hunt
- I Want My Potty!
- Where the Wild Things Are
- The Cat in the Hat
- The Elephant and the Bad Baby