Books are brilliant

Looking at books with your child is better than watching television with them. You can sit together and both concentrate on the same thing.

My children would ask me questions about what they were seeing, without the worry of the picture changing – just as they asked the question.

As I read I would give the characters special voices, make them come out of the pages and interact with them.

Using my hands to show how fish swim or butterflies fly, gave me something to do, and gave life to the words and pictures.

Both my girls enjoyed being eaten by the big bad wolf or tickled by Mr Tickle.

These things were not achievable by technology at that point.

We read their favourite books repeatedly, and the most popular ones wore out.

Children love this repetition; they can join in with the words, anticipate the attack of the dinosaur, and can correct you if you read the story wrong.

The only book I struggled to read to my children was ‘Love you forever’ by Robert Munsch, I just couldn’t get to the end without my eyes watering.

Of course the girls thought this was funny, so I ended up having to hide it to stop them requesting it.

What was your child’s favourite story book?

That's not my puppy, by Fiona Watt, was a favourite for a while.