OUR FAVOURITE BOOKS - WORLD BOOK DAY

With World Book Day tomorrow, I thought I'd put together a little piece on our favourite stories, it's not something I often blog about or even think too much into if I'm honest. Reading is such a natural part of our day to day lives that I almost forget it's a 'thing'. We love reading to Noah, we always read a story before bed and books are always on display for our boys to grab at any point of the day, I think reading is really important. Over time we've begun to learn what style of books Noah enjoys and those that he doesn't, we tend to let him choose books each evening and only step in when we've read the same one for five nights in a row. Please tell me other children do this? I never really talk about the stories we enjoy, I say we because it would be a total lie to say me and John don't have preferences, that we don't groan when certain books are pulled off the shelves to be read, and then feel all smug when we know they've selected a favourite of ours. I think your enjoyment, or lack of completely translates to your little one. Plus, how are you going to get all into character with the voices etc, if you're not really feeling the book yourself?

First up on our favourites, are the classic story books. Your basic book with pictures and a simple story alongside, these are fail safe and we have tonnes upon tonnes of them in our house. It's funny though that a lot of the ones we all enjoy, are stories that were around for us as children. The tiger who came for tea, Whatever Next, Funnybones - all classics in their own rite. Our books have to have large pictures, usually a whole page's worth to compete with the text, it's what keeps Noah interested as he can explore the images whilst listening to the words at the same time. At age four, I think it would be slightly unreasonable for us to expect him to enjoy a story without pictures if I'm honest. Flip the flap books aren't massively popular in our household, which I remember adoring as a child, a story that I had to actually take part in by actioning something. Noah gets a bit waylaid if we opt for one of those at bedtime, though he loves to explore them independently it's more the classic story that he can sit back and relax with, that he prefers at night.

Rhyming stories are also a huge hit for us. A little bit more adventurous and usually quite short and sweet, we tend to cram a few of these in they're chosen for bedtime reading. Though sometimes I find these really frustrating as obviously books don't cater for different dialects or accents, and quite often they just don't rhyme quite right. Noah enjoys them thoroughly though and again, most of our favourites are classics that me and John remember. Each peach pear plum and Hairy Mclairy being our top stories overall.

Noah himself seems to be taking a new direction with stories of late, I'm not sure whether it's because he's at school now and used to his reading books - but he is opting for some more 'grown up' stories. I first picked up a story from the Marks and Spencers 'first readers' collection a good year ago, and it fast turned into that story he wanted every single night. They focus on classics, The Gingerbread Man and The Three Billy Goats Gruff being the firm favourites, but over the last year we've amounted quite a collection and given they bring new ones out quite often, I'm sure it'll continue to grow. There is so many reasons as a Mum, I like these stories. The have a little guide to start that explains how you can help your child learn to read themselves, and then a small work page at the back which includes a couple of games or suggested discussions you can have with your child. I think that's fantastic, learning through play is really important for us and I think if you can do that with reading too - it's a big bonus. The pages themselves have a side for the adults to read, and then a small summary sentence your child can get to grips with as they begin to learn to read. Genius.

I think on the whole we do read quite a variety of stories, we're always trying to change up the selection on their shelves to correlate any special events. We're just transitioning from books about love, such as Guess how much I love you, to Easter and spring stories. It helps us refresh and makes sure we're using all of our books, as we tend to forget to go rummaging through the boxes and often find stories we'd completely forgotten about. This world book day Noah is dressing up as Willy Wonka, though it is his favourite film too, he also adores the book, in which we grabbed his own personalised version from wonderbly. What will your little one be dressing as this World Book Day?