I'm going to have children in the very near future

Have an upvote my good sir

Exactly what I was looking for. I already knew about some of these, but they had escaped my memory.

Watership Down - fun adventure set in Rural England with rabbit societies. Teaches positive values about responsibility, respect, family, friendships, life, art and death. Genuinely more profound than you would initially believe, some of my favourite moments where when rabbits retold the stories of their deity El-Ahrairah about how he outsmarted his enemies. It's not as violent as the film but I believe Richard Adams said the film adaptations portrayed events more like the ways he wanted to portray them in the book, so following the book with the movie is always a good thing.

I would probably also read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Kinda obvious choice but it resonates with so many people, children and adults, and it's a pretty fun ride too. I think the Penguin edition comes with some neat traditional illustrations too.

Always good to have some traditional fairy tales like the Grimm Brothers.

I know it's a pleb-suggestion and maybe you won't be keen on it yourself, but Harry Potter is always popular. They've actually re-printed hardback editions with gorgeous illustrations (which I intend to get for my nephew when he grows up a little more) and kids love things like that, encouraging their imagination. Yeah, it's genre / YA fiction etc etc, but encouraging kids to read and listen from a young age is always productive, and if they're engaged, they'll probably look forward to independent reading when it comes to it at school.

Would also recommend for young children: Roald Dahl, David Walliams (silly, playful, amusing light stories in a similar vein to Roald Dahl, doesn't exactly shy away from dark subjects like alzheimers or loneliness within the elderly, but what it does is tackles it in an understanding manner and should encourage children to empathise with others), Tintin, The Little Prince, The Giving Tree, Where The Wild Things Are, etc.

Also The Last Unicorn by Peter S Beale. Again, genre fiction, but I feel this book is a bit underrated nowadays and it's a fun adventure that many kids would dig. Genuine tragedy, peril and playfulness make for a fun dive.

Sorry if these suggestions aren't all that patrician, I know there's better book choices out there but I'm just thinking about what I would read to my own kids. I'd probably read Of Mice and Men and Animal Farm to them when they got a bit older.

Oscar Wilde

Tamora Pierce
Howl's moving castle
Swiss family robinson
Roald Dahl
Anne McCaffrey
Mark Twain
Narnia books
The Squire's Tale series

Bible Stories*
I'm really glad that I was read bible stories without being pressured to believe it.

Better never to have been

>Better never to have been
t. anti-natalist loser

Start with the Greeks.

The little prince

because it will all be contaminated with jewish run academia

the qu'ran

unironically The Bible. Every kid should know The Bible

you should start reading stories to them not books, it greats a stronger and deeper bond between you, the children and the stories. Just improve your storytelling skills and tell them versions of myths, the Iliad(don't read them the actual version it will just bore them), fairy tales, history or even make up some stories . Of course I'm Irish so I consider it essential to tell your kids stories the old fashioned way rather than just reading to them from a book

dianetics

Dr. Seuss
Maurice Sendak
PD Eastman (Are You My Mother, Go Dog Go, A Fish Out of Water)
Sandra Boynton (Doggies, The Going to Bed Book; Moo, Baa, Lalala)
Peggy Parish (Amelia Bedilia)
Arnold Lobel (Frog and Toad)
Else Holmelund Minarik (Little Bear)
Mary Pope Osborne (Magic Tree House, Famous Greek Myths)
Road Dahl
Beyond that, you should also get them the Children’s Homer by Padraic Colum and maybe some more abridgments of famous works. Also get some famous old kids books like Treaure Island, Robin Hood, The Hobbit, Brother’s Grimm, Aesop’s Fables, and Hans Christian Anderson

Children's books you enjoyed as a child.
Enid Blyton
The Narnia books
H.C. Andersen

I can’t believe I forgot Narnia
OP, add Narnia to the list here

sorry I meant to say "start *telling* stories to them rather than reading books", other wise my comment makes no sense

Read Edward Eager books to them, they're underrated as fuck but very comfy even as an adult. I agree with a lot that's been mentioned, but I would add Louisa May Alcott and mythology, especially Greek. Get them a nice children's Bible stories book even if you aren't religious, because it's good to be familiar with them. Check out some of Tolkien's other work too, like Farmer Giles of Hamm.

I second this. I have fond memories of my father making up stories as I went to sleep, and my mother telling me folktales. Some of my fathers stories were "fan fiction" around traditional folktales, so my folktale canon was a bit at odds with other kids'.

Drill this poem by Larkin into their brains. This will solve a lot of problems down the road

Also they should be reading Shakespeare, the King James Bible, and Bulfinch's Mythology from the very first time their little minds are able to process language. You can supplement this reading with lighter stuff like fairy tales and folk stories, but make sure they're going through at least a page of higher order reading every night

Doesn't NYRB also have a children's collection?

>I'm going to have children in the very near future.
>I'm talking for 3 - 7 year old's before bedtime.
Where are you getting these kids?

good question, is op impregnating a qt or adopting?

or adopting a qt

Aesop's fables
Arabian Nights
Grimms' Fairy Tales
Stoics, Epictetus, Cicero, by like age 10+.
Mythology (Like Poetic and Prose Eddas).

Most of the suggestions are for older children.

We are forgetting one of the best for young children

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

aesop tales

because even kids have to start with the greeks

Maurice Sendak got rec’d

The important thing is to be disciplined with your children. Always read a story in the original. Test them frequently.

At this point a short anecdote might be helpful.

The Nobel-prize-winning theoretical physicist and mathematician Paul Dirac (who among other things invented much of the mathematics of quantum mechanics and postulated the existence of anti-matter) was known for saying little.
When he was asked about his childhood, it turned out that his father always expected French to be spoken at mealtimes. Paul and his siblings were not allowed to say anything in any other language.
Sadly, they didn't know French, so they had to be quiet until they learned it.

Discipline!

>children's edition of Hans Christian Andersen Stories or Brothers Grimm
Why would you feed your children some pussified lame version of those stories? Kids can handle some scary stuff in a story and they can enjoy it as part of the tale. That is unless you've already made them into little wimps by feeding your own weakness and the pathological want for some completely pure innocent state of being to exist.

Dirac was also a huge autist

Impregnating my qt several more times.
And in the second post I was referencing the future.

Titus Groan & Gormenghast, but do all the voices for characters

My daughter's only two, so we still stick to picture books, but next year I'm planning on reading her the Chronicles of Narnia and the Wrinkle In Time Quartet. Probably some Lewis Carroll, The Phantom Tollbooth, and some of George MacDonald's faery stories. These are the stories that really sparked my imagination when I was a kid.

What picture books?

The typical stuff, Dr. Seuss, The House in the Night, Harold and the Purple Crayon, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, Very Hungry Caterpillar, Goodnight Moon, Corduroy, Are You My Mother? Stuff like that. It's crazy how good older children's books were compared to the drivel that gets published today. Most modern crap is all about silliness for the sake of silliness or inclusivity preachiness, no cohesion or sense of wonder.

Tom Sawyer and huckleberry finn

I bought a newish printing of Huckleberry Finn for my godson last christmas. I was sad to see that Nigger Jim had become just Jim in this translation.

The Railway Series
Mr Men