Their favorite story - "The Tinder Box", by Hans Christian Anderson.

Reading to your child is one of the best ways to assist them in both cognitive development and creating an interest in education and intellectual pursuits.

In other words, if you don't want your kid to be as big a dumbass as their father, read to them.

Nightly! Or rather, on nights when I put him to bed.

RWoodward wrote:In other words, if you don't want your kid to be as big a dumbass as their father, read to them.

My three year old son was reading to a six year old girl while we all were in line at a store. Her mother asked how he learned to read. I told her I read to him daily. She argued that could not work, so she never read to her children...Um, my kid is reading to yours, I think I am right!

Molly's Monsters. Every other book. Sigh.

kutiel wrote:Molly's Monsters. Every other book. Sigh.

Okay, what I did to break the cycle of "Mommy, this book!" was to start getting books from the library (where "Mommy this book" is restricted only by the amount of time that I keep it out of the library's circulation", followed by getting some of those multi-story treasuries.

Our library has multiple Disney-related canon and non-canon short story collections (which can be troublesome if you're not prepared to read in squeaky Mickey voice or growly Donald voice... or Country Mater/Whiney McQueen voice) which kept us going for about four weeks at a time. I kept the original Awdry "Thomas the Tank Engine" treasury logged out for the better part of a month and a half (my husband said it was so dry it almost put HIM to sleep, so YMMV). There's Curious George treasuries, Dr. Seuss Treasuries, etc.

In our personal collection, after having returned enough of the above, I bought a "Bedtime Story" collection that features the common domain fairy tales and folk tales (like "Stone Soup") that didn't include only Brothers' Grimm. After that, though, I had a devil of a time finding another collection that didn't repeat the same stories. (My son has already found a way to rip off the front cover. /facepalm)

I found a "Knights and Dragons" treasury that collected various stories of clever knights fighting silly dragons, scary dragons, and a "Cockatrice". I figure that'll last us for a while. At least until he does mortal damage to that cover, too.