I believe that a love for reading can develop at any age, but studies have shown (I know I read one somewhere, at some point, I just can't remember where) that reading to your children can help establish their own life-long love affair with books. I'm not an expert in child psych or behavior but I know that my son loves for ANYONE to read to him.
Some of my favorite time with my son is the 20-30 minutes we spend cuddled together while we read a chapter from our current book. I have listed some of our favorites so far, as well as some of my faves from my childhood. Ty is only 5, therefore most of the listed books are for fairly young children. Hopefully this list will continue to grow as he & I discover new ones together.
Green Eggs & Ham Oh, The Places You'll Go How the Grinch Stole Christmas
by: Dr. Seuss by: Dr. Seuss by: Dr. Seuss
Of course I love all things Seuss (except for that vulgar adaption they did of the Cat in The Hat several years ago.) These three are my top picks though. I love the way he makes words rhyme. I love that there is a "moral" to each story. I love the illustrations. I told ya I just Love Dr. Seuss. Ty & I still read "The Grinch" every few months.
The Polar Express
by: Chris Van Allburg
When I choose new books for Ty & I to read, I like to choose not only great books, but books that have great movie adaptions or some other special thing to go along with it. I think it helps to strengthen the memory of the book. Last year a few months before Christmas, we read this book for the first time. After we had read the story a few times, I rented the movie. The biggest surprise of all was the special trip I planned to the Smokies for a ride on "The Polar Express". He was sooooo excited, and couldn't believe we were going to ride to the "North Pole" to meet Santa. His happiness and excitement made the entire blizzard filled hellacious trip worth it. :)
The Chronicles of Narnia
by: C.S. Lewis
Wow, I can not say enough about this series of books. These are excellent. It took Ty & I nearly 8 months to read these at the pace of a chapter a night. But after each story we would watch the movie (the ones that had one anyway). Ty fell in love with these characters and their adventures so much. He now has the movies, video games, the BBC versions, and often pretend plays that he is King Peter or Prince Caspian. He even wanted a Narnia Bday Party, but I just couldn't figure out how to pull that one together.
The True Story of the Three Little Pigs My Lucky Day
by: Jon Scieszka by: Keiko Kasza
The story of the Three Little Pigs has been told and retold many, many times. I like that because I think it helps to teach creativity and how to look at things from more than one perspective. These are two of my favorite spins of the classic story.
A Wrinkle in Time
by: Madeleine L'Engle
I haven't had a chance to read this to Ty yet. It is one of my favorites from my childhood and as I have mentioned before it is the story that first sparked my love for books.
The Velveteen Rabbit
by: Margery Williams
For those of us who like fantasy, and may perhaps prefer our fantasy world over reality, this book is a must. What child hasn't pretended that their favorite toy was real? I remember "Mayfield" my favorite stuffed purple cat (it looked strangely like Garfield, just purple) very well. When I was scolded for doing something wrong I would cry into her belly and tell her that she was the only one who loved and understood me. Of course she wouldn't scold me for whatever I had just done wrong, she only said what I wanted her say.
