Once again, these are in no particular order, and simply serve as a way of me sharing some of our favourite bedtime reads for those of you that might be looking to expand your own libraries : )

Where the Wild Things Are

How I missed this one in my last Top 10 is beyond me, seeing as it was a book I used to read when I was lad too. Not to mention the fact that, when I lived in Bath growing up, my sister painted a scene from this book on our back wall – right outside of my bedroom window! So I might have to plead insanity on missing this one! What I will say is that Robert sometimes finds it a little scary, so it might be one for the older children. Incidentally, the flow of the text takes some getting used to, too! : )

Not Now, Bernard!

It’s probably a bit of a cheat for me to put this on the list, since I don’t actually own a copy (again) yet. But, like several other books on this list, it’s one that I myself read when I was a little boy, so I feel confident that as soon as I find a copy, I’ll be getting one for Robert too. An utterly brilliant classic, Not Now, Bernard! seems to have a very odd moral at the conclusion, but it’s just so brilliantly told, that doesn’t matter. Ignore your children at your peril!

Each Peach Pear Plum

Despite the draw of interactive books, eReaders, sound boards and all sorts of other ways that reading can be “interactive” these days, the simple pleasure of helping your child to find the characters hidden amongst the beautiful illustrations of this Jant & Allen Ahlberg classic is just as much fun. It’s also a very short book – which has the double benefit of a) being an easy book for your child to test their reading skills on, if they are at that stage, and b) being a nice quick read if your child is particularly over-tired one evening!

Guess How Much I Love You?

Quite a few people suggested this one when I wrote the last list, so I thought it deserved inclusion in this update. We have a copy of our own, though I don’t think it’s made it in to our own personal Top 10 yet – though the speed at which Robert changes which things are “his best” is remarkable, so who knows. Oddly, our copy came with a CD of the book being read (by Tom Conti, I think) – something we’ve never actually tried out, since I’m not really sure what situation would require that. A long car journey maybe? Maybe I’ll found out one day! But for now, we’re happy with the paper version…

The Tiger Who Came To Tea

The second oldest book in this selection (Where the Wild Things Are was written in 1963, compared to The Tiger’s 1968 publication date) is still a firm favourite in our bedtime reading schedule – amazing considering how quickly children tire of things. The story of a Tiger who drops in to have dinner with Sophie and her mummy – and proceeds to eat them out of house and home – is an enduring one. I’ve never quite figured out how the Tiger managed to drink “all the water in the taps” though – is that how it worked in 1968?!

Six Dinner Sid

Without wishing to detract from the obvious high-esteem a lot of people hold this book in, I’ve not fallen head-over-heels with it myself yet. I bought a copy after publishing the last list, since quite a few people mentioned it in the follow-up. Whilst we’ve read it a couple of times, I can’t say I’m that keen on the ending of the book – which I won’t give away here in case you’ve not read it. Just trust me – it’s a strange conclusion! Having said that, I’m sure it could be one that grows on us over time, so I’m happy to include it in the list on recommendations alone!

Sharing a Shell

As I mentioned last time, Robert and I are such fans of the Julia Donaldson/Axel Scheffler series of books, I could easily make a Top 10 featuring those alone. But I’m going to including this lovely book as a nod to Donaldson’s wider (and VERY wide) catalogue of work without Scheffler. This is a lovely story, with the sparkly pages adding an extra element to it’s reading. It’s even got some great grown-up-friendly puns in too, as a reward for the reader – “Whelk-ome home” being my personal favourite!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Another long-serving classic (first published in 1969), I have no idea how I missed this the first time round. It’s a simple tale of transformation, with some great opportunities for counting in the middle – not to mention those brilliant cut-out holes in the middle section. Here’s a good Hungry Caterpillar fact for you: Despite not having been made (yet), the Film Rights for this book sold in 2005 for over a million pounds. I suspect they’ve spent the 6 years since trying to figure out how to repeat the success of the “Where the Wild Things Are” movie adaptation…!

10 Little Rubber Ducks

Another Eric Carle classic, and another book on this list which features an “interactive” element to it – though once again it’s a little more lo-fi than most today. A little duck-noise squeaker at the end of the book serves to make it twice as thick as it would otherwise need to be (and also seems to make our copy at least fall apart on a regular basis!) but it really adds to the fun of reading it. It’s also another brilliant book for those learning to count – an all-round favourite in our household!

Me and my Dad / Mum

I think these two are relatively new titles, and probably not instantly-recognisable favourites. But they both go down very well in our house, with Dad being the first one we came to love, before I spotted the Mum-version in Waterstones a few months ago. Bizarrely, whilst they’re not particularly let-your-child-read-it friendly (unlike, say, Each Peach Pear Plum), Robert memorised the entire book of “Me and My Dad” after about a dozen reads, and can now recite it along with me when we read it. I guess the rhyming structure seemed to strike something in him! This is one of my own personal favourites!

So, I was very dismayed to read some recent research which seems to point towards parental bedtime stories being a bit of a dying art. According to research commissioned by TalkTalk:

• Only 52% of parents who were surveyed said they regularly read a bedtime story to their child.
• 85% of people surveyed agreed that reading was good for their child’s development
• Only 60% of people surveyed claim to have had stories read to them as a child
• The worst bedtime-story-readers are in Wales – just 34% regularly do it!

I know we’re living in a busy world with increasing pressures on our time, but surely reading a bedtime story to your child is a simple, easy and – best of all – FREE way of spending time with your child? Even if you can’t afford to buy tonnes of books, BookStart and public libraries can furnish you with at least half-a-dozen books to read.

Though I won’t even get started on what’s happening to our libraries now…!

Anyway, I for one pledge to do everything I can to encourage other new parents to read with their children. I’m not quite sure how that’ll happen yet, but I’m sure I’ll figure something out…!

TalkTalk are also running an interesting competition to go with the research – but I’m planning on entering myself, so I’ll probably do another post about that when I ask you to vote for me! :D

Despite the cold snap they’re predicting for next week, today was a lovely day here in Reading. As well as the weather, it was also the first weekend in over 3 months where Sara and I didn’t have a shed-load of things to be doing for work or otherwise, so we all headed in to town for a day of shopping, lunching and relaxing.

After a relaxing day, we’ve spent the evening in a similar fashion – cheese and biscuits for dinner (we had a big lunch), copious amounts of red wine and port, and catch-up episodes of Lost, Glee, Heroes and Desperate Housewives. Oh, and some chocolate. What a result!

Today’s photo is of something I saw very early in the day, at around half seven on my way to the M4. I don’t *actually* know what it is, all I know is it’s been erected on the massive building site next to Junction 11, where the junction is being extended at the moment. It piqued my interest – I wonder if they’re building a giant teepee, or perhaps a REALLY big easel for a massive painting?

This evening was a momentous evening in chez Elliss – it marked the first time that Sara and I have been out (without Robert) for well over a year. Thanks to Katy, who very kindly babysat for us, we went to see the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, featuring Emma Johnson on Clarinet – a favourite of Sara’s, who is a Clarinettist herself.

For the cultured amongst you (and I don’t count myself in that number!) they performed:

– “Incidental Music from A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, by Felix Mendelssohn
– Clarinet Concerto in A majo K/622, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
– Symfony No.8 in G major Op.88, by Antonin Dvorak

Rather than post yet *another* shot of the snow today (and believe me, I’ve taken LOADS!) I thought I’d choose a shot which represented our day much better. Namely, our trip to Toys R Us! Due to the aforementioned snow, it’s quite hard to get very far without coming a-cropper, so a trip to the Forbury retail park was about all we could muster – and after that we felt like we’d had a full day out! Robert was like the proverbial kid in a sweet shop, wandering round playing with every toy he could reach. We managed to bag some good bargains for his birthday in June, which is cool. Yes, our life really is this exciting : )

Unlike me, Sara isn’t lucky enough to be able to work from home when her office is open (since she’s a teacher!) so when Maiden Erlegh decided that all teachers were needed in school to teach poor old Year 11, she had to risk the roads and drive over to Earley. Since the car parks at the school were closed, she parked at my brother’s house and walked in – which caused a bit of a problem when she came to going home, as you can see. I had to get the bus over to Earley in my lunch hour to help dig the car out of the snow. What an adventure!

As the big freeze continues to grip the country, we didn’t venture too far out of the house today – for fear of slipping over on the ice rink that is our road. So this photo was taken from our garden, looking up at the icicles on our neighbour’s roof.

Interesting fact I learnt today – you know when you see a roof where the snow has all slipped off, much quicker than the other houses around it? That’s most likely due to bad insulation – heat escaping through the roof will melt the snow more quickly, causing the slippage!

As predicted by the red sky yesterday morning, last night saw snow covering much of the country, with Reading being especially well doused. Despite having to stay at work late, I managed to make my way down the M4 reasonably easily and by the time we awoke this morning there was a good 6 inches of snow covering our area.

Later in the afternoon we all went for a walk to the park down our road, which is where this photo of Sara and Robert was taken. There was some pretty impressive snowman-building going on, including one which was at least 7ft tall.