books for children

I always buy books for my son (he is 11).He likes spend him time in front of computer or watching DVD but the last few months he is reading the books I bough for him before and some from the school library.

DS is almost 15 months old and we love our book time together. He also loves them on his own. :) We buy books and go to the library. I do prefer the older, classic storybooks, but we find some good quality newer books too. I want to share the stories that I loved as a kid with him. I'm sure he'll have plenty of the electronic things as he gets older, but I want to make sure he has an appreciation for the real thing. It's so important.

I do buy books for my children, especially fairy tales, but then as you have so rightly pointed out, in this day of round the clock television - we have five or six channels dedicated to children in India, and dvd's and the internet, my kids prefer watching the tales, and even the Harry Potters and the Lord of the Rings and other stuff rather than reading.

I think it's important to still buy (and read) books for children...It's important for them--so they develope a love for reading--and I also think it's important for the development of the parent-child relationship. I grew up with video games, and though my experience with them as a child is no where near what children experience today, they were still there and I can remember playing them as a child. But what I remember more is the time my parents would set aside, before bed, to read stories to me and my sister. They wouldn't read to me every night, but when they did, they would go the whole nine yards (animated expressions, different voices for characters, etc...), and that really had an effect on me. It really developed my imagination and creativity, and ultimately, I think that's why I love to read to this day...