What should I read to the children at bedtime?

What should I read to the children at bedtime? (Suggestions gratefully received!)

Reading at bedtime or 'being read to' at bedtime has always been something to look forward to....

whether tucked up in a warm bed with a good book and a warm drink, or curled up on the sofa by the woodstove,surrounded by a very furry warm dog and numerous cats, there is something about a cosy setting for a good story that makes for a very relaxing end to the day.

But and it's a big but! it has to be the right story...

too exciting and you won't be able to put the book down, or if you can, your brain or their brains!, will be so alive and rushing about that the chance for a good nights rest has gone with the wind! this seems especially true when reading to children...

and the choice is even trickier when reading to different ages at the same time, a mildly exciting story can be fine for the 7/8 year old but be a recipe for overexcitement and nightmares for the younger 5/6 ... some books have to relagated to the 'daytime only' reads pile, others to the "older child only" and some to the "when you're both older pile"

So I thought I'd record some of our shared reads and see which books (for us at least) make the grade!

The Wonder Clock by Howard Pyle

A Chance library find. This is a satisfyingly fat book, first published in 1887 (the year of my Grandfather's birth) It contains twenty four stories. The binding states "Four and twenty marvelous tales, one for each hour of the day" of which we have so-far, read the first two,"Bearskin" and "The Water of Life" one on each evening since it arrived home.
Each story is illustrated with black and white drawings (engravings I suspect?)of a very William Morris /Craftsman feel. The stories are interesting and end satisfactorily and the audience is requesting more.







There is an interesting entry at wikipedia on Howard Pyle



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Pyle



Of the Wonder Clock they state..."Each tale was prefaced by a whimsical verse telling of traditional household goings-on at that hour, illustrated by his sister Katharine. The tales themselves were written by Pyle based on traditional European folktales."


EDIT
Oh drat and darn it ..I didn't preread the third story and it opened with a basket of ducklings being sat upon and not surviving the experience...instant result ..horrified look on face of six year old..self realising that quick thinking wasn't going to get me out of that hole... [well quick thinking might have but my brain wasn't in any sort of state to do anything that involved quick.. I was more ready for bed than they were and I'm afraid that is not an unusual state at 7 pm]
result floods of tears, not quite the intended bedtime ambiance I must say.
So back into the library bag it goes until I have time to have a good read first and out with the picture books...gosh I like Helen Oxenbury!

The New Boy by Doreen Tovey

I've always loved reading, my first fond memory is of The Little Red Hen (Ladybird version), and a trip to the Mobile Library, a large grey van full of beautiful books that parked, once a fortnight (I think) in the Wheatsheaf pub car park in the hamlet where I grew up, was a great treat, I still can picture a large volume of Thorburn's Natural history illustrations that fascinated me .. the plate of a Ptarmagin was especially beautiful.
When I was a little older but preteen I think? a new neighbour arrived in the hamlet. She wasn't a local and was more town in appearance than country, a new type for me, but a very nice woman, interesting, kind and attractive. She loaned me a book about Siamese cats by Doreen Tovey and I was hooked, and will forever have fond and grateful memories of Mrs S-C.

Over the years Doreen Tovey's books have fluctuated between being very easy to find to very difficult but they've always been worth the chase. They've amused me, and in places made me laugh out loud and if I include a couple of extracts here perhaps you may see why...

from "The New Boy" by Doreen Tovey

"When, two years previously, Charles said he was thinking of taking up bee-keeping, I said Oh No We Weren't. We had enough trouble with Annabel and the cats, I said, without adding bees to the mixture.......Eventually I agreed to our having them.So long as they were kept right at the top of the orchard, I said, where they couldn't sting me or the animals. And so long as I, personally, wasn't expected to have anything to do with them. Famous last words again, of course."

They aquired the hives of bees and poor Doreen has to help steady the hives full of irate bees being carried up the steep tussocky hillside to their new home..all the while desperately hoping they won't escape during the journey.... all is well to begin with, and her husband is both happy and fascinated by his new hobby, until,that is, he gets stung for the first time...

"Not when he was up at the hive, either, when in anycase he'd have had his veil on, but while he was standing at quite a distance, interestedly watching them work. A guard bee apparently got suspicious of him and came down to warn him off. Then it got tangled in his hair, stung him on the head when it couldn't get out again- and the first I knew was his charging down through the orchard yelling for me to help him. That was sooner said than done. The bee was still buzzing madly in his hair. I didn't want to touch it. So I did the only thing I could think of and banged him on the head.

It despatched the bee alright. According to Charles it nearly despatched him as well."

for more you'll have to read the book "The New Boy" by Doreen Tovey [extracts from chapter eight]

The illustrations are lovely too!

Jousting with the marquis

'Jousting with the marquis' or 'the Swinhoe Saga'

The Marquis is a Beautiful Male Swinhoe Pheasant. He lives with his three ladies in an aviary in the back garden and has been displaying increasingly aristocratic tendencies as the Winter has progressed...personally I think I've been accidentally provoking his ire with my daily ritual of stamping the ice out of his upturned black rubber water bowl. This ritual has obviously been interpreted as a threat to his Social standing/Ladies safety/his ego or some other unforgivable insult..the ritual now has been modified to include jousting with the said Marquis.. and he has even begun to include the variation of a couple of flounces through the door after the intruder (Me)

Talk about bird brained aristocrats... It's freezing cold and I'm trying to toss in scoops of oiled corn, pellets and sunflower seed mixture and the Marquis is doing his darned best to get in the way and scare me off, bouncing . fluffing and flouncing... he's a sturdy bird with a decent set of spurs so I wouldn't like to underestimate him.. but he's unintentionally amusing and (don't let him hear me say this) a little absurd.

He's now added the confidence boosting variation(well for him it is) of jumping up onto the perch that runs by the door ...and supervising from on high while I duck underneath to collect the bowl ... good job I'm wearing a fleece hat is all I can say.

He continues his defence of bird land by not giving up on his watch on me when I feed the birds in the pen next door.. it shares a wall, only a little of which you can see through and he's found that if he jumps on top of the night box and peers round the corner he can see me ..but if that's what it takes that's fine by him..so I feed the next pen well aware that an irate Marquis is craning his neck round a corner , whilst balanced on the top of the box all in order to glare intimidatingly at me. I could get a complex.

We did have a cold snap a few weeks ago that cooled his ardor somewhat (like completely) he sat sadly upon his perch and didn't take any notice of me...so because Swinhoe's tend to look a little off , then promptly die.. I had to arrange a heat lamp over his perch pretty darn quickly and fortunately he lived to flounce another day!

for more information on Swinhoe pheasants see here

http://www.gbwf.org/pheasants/swinhoe.html