The children’s bedtime is even more of a pleasure than usual at the moment, as our bedtime story is E. Nesbitt’s “Five Children And It”.

As a child, though I read voraciously, I moved straight from Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton to adult non-fiction (now my staple diet). Books were highly valued in my family and the public library was my second home, but no one read aloud to me. The result was that  I skipped over many classics.

Luckily, I adore reading good quality writing aloud, so now I’m discovering some wonderful stories alongside my children.   C(7) and J(6) love listening.  I wonder if having the chance to appreciate great writing and story-telling before they’re ready to read to such a level by themselves will, over time, inspire them to explore more great literature on their own.

Which makes me realise how far I’ve come in trusting my own parenting wisdom since a comment a couple of years ago from a well-meaning relative. I was advised to immediately stop reading  Charlie And The Chocolate Factory to C and J (then 5 and 4), so as not to “deprive them of the pleasure of reading it for themselves” , which back then caused me several days of guilt and self-questioning.