Disney story books

What We Read This Week (28/06/2025)

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Surprise! I suddenly had a braincell wake up last week and say, uh, the books post… you know it doesn’t have to be Sunday night…? Yeah. When I started this blog 4 years ago, C was 3 and E was a little tiny baby (S was “invisible”, or still a dream). There were piles of books that would form all over the place – sofa arms, coffee table, bedside tables – and I would aim to tidy them on Sunday evenings. A logical time to do a post about what books we had read that week was after I had tidied them all at the end of the week.

Fast forward to now, and for about a year now I have changed girls’ sheets and done a bedroom tidy and clean on Fridays. Fridays, because there had been too many occasions on Saturdays when I had gone in to change sheets and found a full-blown cubby in the making and if I needed to remove a quilt cover then that would mean full dismantling of the cubby and there would be tears so I wouldn’t change the sheets that day and so it became a Friday thing. E and S won’t build cubbies without C, who is at school on Fridays. So I have been cleaning and changing sheets and tidying away books and making notes of which books I am putting back on the bookshelf, but things can change. 

Yesterday, I did what I used to do. I took a photo of the books we had read, that were strewn across the floor, then put them on the bookshelf. Simple. Here they are.

Friends of the Unicorns, which came with the two main characters as toys. Ten Minutes to Bed: Where’s Father Christmas?, which is rather annoyingly missing its last flap with words. Goldilocks. Peppa Meets the Queen (groan – still). Where Did All The Dragons Go?, which is on an extended loan from neighbours who used to live in the house next door. I love this one. It definitely feels like an older book – think 80s or 90s, so “older” compared to this century – and has good rhyme and repetition that doesn’t go overboard or force the issue.

Then, Disney. The Misadventures of Heihei is one that was in an Advent calendar of books that the girls had a couple of years ago. Honestly, a wonderful buy. 24 books, all with substantial stories of what feels like outtakes of Disney movies. This one is a favourite of C, who will laugh so much she needs the toilet again. E chose it this week and her 4yo brain couldn’t follow and imagine quite so fully as C’s 7yo brain, so there were frequent fingers stopping the page turning and “Wait. Mummy. Go back”, followed by a question or 6. And the Ultimate Princess Treasury – see the benefits of a photo? Now I can tell the correct, actual title of “the big princess book” – has been a definite favourite this week. At least once a day – usually when I think she should be asleep but she has clearly missed a sleep train, but this has also happened at other times – I will find her on her bunk, leafing through the whole 250+ pages, intently checking illustrations. I have read each story to her at least once this week, too, and her questions are developing more into questions about character and reasons for doing things and personality.

C and I finished The Secret Garden on Monday night. This has been such a good book for us to read. Next book: Little Women. We are not far in, obviously, but already C has laughed and laughed and also been quite thoughtful as she takes in the situation. I am curious to see how she responds as the book develops. Not to mention, keen to reread this one as I think I was in early high school (or late primary school) when I read it. It’s been a while. Ahem.

What We Read This Week (15/06/2025)

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I have been wracking my brain trying to remember books I’ve read to girls this week. E and S have both been so fantastically ready for sleep by the time they are in bed that bedtime stories haven’t been an option. It’s been a case of getting S bathed and into bed; by the time E is out of the bath, S is asleep; E has just wanted quiet hand holding for a bit while she drifts off within minutes. I have been so relived by this, but there has really been not much by way of reading. There has been some Disney Princess Story reading in the mornings, though, usually when I am trying to get people dressed and ready to be presentable out in the world. Reading is preferable to clothing or brushing hair, apparently. 

Also, a note for illustrators. Consistency, please. If you put a princess on the cover in a ballgown that has a bejewelled collar, please have at least one illustration of said princess in that same exact ballgown in the story. E is entirely convinced that there should be a sixth princess story because that aspect hasn’t matched up. Thanks.

A week like this used to have me worried that they were not getting the benefits of books. But bedtime is not the only time for books! Daycare has books. Story time is part of each day. There is a book corner in each room, and I know my girls each spend some time in there independently each day, as well. Nearly every day that I pick them up, E is looking through a book. Then there are the occasions like today when I was sending them to the balcony. Nature play was happening and that was going to involve dirt and glue and just no, so out they went. As I was clearing some of the washing, E came out with a book my mum sent along with a birthday present, “A is for Aunty”, which is an Aboriginal alphabet book. C read it out loud while E, it turns out, pulled every leaf off one of the opportunistic succulent plants. Then Bluey’s Hammerbarn had a turn as well before a lot of glue was used as girls created nature pictures while I got on with weekend tasks. Of course, C being who she is, she also read the About The Author section and was suddenly asking me about the Stolen Generations. Not at all light, especially for a high anxiety 7-year-old. 

C and I are making great progress with The Secret Garden. I think it will be finished within a week. This is partly due to me reading to her while she is in her bed. It’s dim in there because by this time of the night, E and S are already asleep. “That’s okay, mummy. I’ll read it to myself”. Just to the end of the chapter… next morning, “I’m in chapter 21!” Ah. I see I will have to do some independent reading of my own to remind myself of what is in the rest of chapter 18, plus chapters 19 and 20 and the start of 21. 

I am not at all sad about this. 

What We Read This Week (01/06/2025)

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This week was a bit of magic. 

S’s choice to look at in her cot before sleep was (drumroll)… the dictionary. Yup. My First Dictionary that we gave to C for Christmas sits on the bookshelf next to S’s cot. One night S was clearly done with Pig Out (although, this was wasn’t Monday night so let’s add that one to the list again) and she pulled off the shelves and into her cot a bunch of C’s chapter books. They were all leafed through with the attitude of someone who has actually read these all before and they’re just looking for a favourite part or something, then she pulled down the dictionary. She was set. It has more pictures than a grownup dictionary, of course, but also no narrative contained within those pictures. Maybe she liked feeling like a big girl. Maybe seeing lots of words was soothing for her. Maybe the different feel of the pages and the sound they made when she turned them gave her a bit of a sensory hit. Whatever it was, that was her preferred nighttime reading. 

E’s top choice for the week was The Magic Beach by Alison Lester. Given to C a few years ago, it’s never made it to the favourite-story-please-read-it-every-night-for-two-months stage. I love it, though, and am delighted that E chose it one evening. And totally quizzed me over one of the imagination pictures and where are the mum and dad are they the king and queen where are they are they down there what are they doing down there are they drowning? These questions, of course, are asked for this particular page every single time now.

I also got it into my head yesterday that my three girls who all love mermaids hadn’t read Three Little Mermaids for a while. As Glenn had been using AI and technology to make the girls into mermaids and then messaged me the videos of each of them turning into a mermaid, my morning had a large chunk of it taken up by me playing said videos to girls. I started to look for the book, which meant a teensy bit of reorganisation of the kids’ bookshelf in the living area, which meant other books were rediscovered and read as I was searching. S had a bit of time looking and flinging books in my pile. E had a couple of moments of “Here it is!” So I also read her Good Night, Sleep Tight by Mem Fox and Judy Horacek – which was one of those above favourite category books for a while, and for good reason, and yesterday I read the horse riding part multiple times for E and an insistent S – as well as (groan) Peppa Pig Meets the Queen. Yes. We have a Peppa Pig book. Yes. I admit (cringe) that I even bought it for the family. Yes. The books are just as annoying as the show. No. I “forgot” to read it to her again at bedtime.

Then Three Little Mermaids was found and read and gathered around and oohed and ahhhhed over and “wait mummy go back” and “which mermaid is me” declared. Three Little Mermaids is in that special category of book. There’s rhyme – not forced rhyme, but lovely rhyme – and there’s repetition. There’s adventure. There’s a little bit of sea creature education. There’s the chance for grownups in the book to get frustrated at misbehaving children. There are – maybe I should have led with this – beautiful illustrations, that happen to be by someone Glenn knows. Whenever I come across a Lisa Stewart illustrated book, it’s an instant Yes for buying it. This one, however, Lisa sent to our girls specially with a beautiful inscription for them.

Further to the magic has been C reading Disney Princess Stories to E at bedtime tonight. So much magic in Disney! And Disney stories don’t skimp. If you are asked to read a Disney story, you are in for a lot of words. Which is great. And if the listener is familiar with the movie version, then don’t even think about skipping a few pages. It. Won’t. Work. Thankfully, C was happy reading stories to E tonight so I could do things like … type this. 

C and I are about halfway through The Secret Garden now, and C is in the stage of getting so excited about what happens in the story, and what is suggested might be coming soon, that she will kick her legs or jump like a frog or an excited kitten. We’ve also had a look at pictures of some fancy estates in England to give her an idea of the sort of neat and ordered garden is in this setting. As she is telling me how she is imagining some of the characters, I will be holding off on showing her any Pride and Prejudice until we have finished the book. I don’t want to ruin any magic.