Admit it. You’ve hidden (thrown out) more than a few of your kids’ favourite books.

You took them out to visit your aunt at the farm to play with the Barney DVDs and Old Yeller.

How children are immune to insane repetition I will never understand. I’ve tried to keep Zacharie’s music interests to something the entire family can handle, but when it comes to books, the advice from Three Men And a Baby (it doesnt matter what you read, only the tone of voice you read it in) only works for so long.

Soon enough you have to read them “real” kids books.

With Where The Wild Things Are in theatres, Chad Skelton, The Vancouver Sun‘s Curious Dad, has a post up about kids’ books and which ones are the worst.

All dads seem to have an opinion on this one and the repetition of which we need to tell these tales lies at the core of our objections.

Daniel B. Smith at Slate has an axe to grind with Eric Carle‘s Very Hungry Caterpillar.

As of this writing, my daughter is 2 years, 2 months, and 5 days old. Because Eric Carle’s books are practically distributed on maternity wards along with baby formula and nipple salve, and because my wife, like everyone else, thinks they’re wonderful, I have read one of them to my daughter nearly every nap- and bedtime since she was born: 796 consecutive days.
[Slate]

Dads around the world feel your pain, Daniel.

SEE ALSO: Modern And Classic Kid’s Books That Are Perfect Bedtime Stories

Robert Munsch‘s Love You Forever tops my ‘hate’ list. We received it as a gift when Zacharie was born, however it’s not repetition that makes this book offensive, we read it once and threw it out.

The creepy way the mother and son spy on each other and crawl into bed and cuddle? Ew. I get the spirit of the book, but the story to go along with it is just all kinds of wrong.

Which books have you burned? Which are your favourites?

When Zacharie was an infant, we fell in love with the art in Olivier Dunrea‘s Gossie series of books and would read them to him often.

When it came time for him to start reading and thumbing through books on his own, we gathered a good collection of Bright Baby vocabulary board books.

Right now Zacharie is loving the Amazing Machines series from Tony Mitton and Ant Parker. My parents have the complete series in one volume and my Dad reads it to him every time he stays over. At our house we have them in individual books and he picks a couple of different ones for story time.

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