Read with your Children

I love to read to my children! It's so fun to get their imaginations working and have a little bit of time to just sit and relax with them. We read all of the easy hardback picture books, but lately I've been reading the "Magic Tree House" series by Mary Pope Osborne. They are so much fun and really easy to read. They are small enough that we can usually read one in about 20-30 minutes. They are about 2 kids, Jack and Annie, who discover a tree house filled with books. When they open up a book and point at the picture and say "I wish I could be there" the tree house starts spinning faster and faster until it stops and everything is still. Absolutely still. Then they discover that they are in a new place. It's really exciting and fun to learn about new things. I take it a step further and we talk about what we learned in the book. For instance, the first book is about Dinosaurs. So we talk about different kinds of dinosaurs and what they ate and where they lived and that sort of thing. We went to the dinosaur museum and such. The next book was about Knights and Castles and so we learned about them. The third book was about Egypt and Mummies. That was a fun one to learn about because it was right during Halloween time. Anyway, I think you get the picture. I didn't think my kids were really paying attention, but Maddie has been talking about the last book we read (Pirates!) for the past two days.
I've also read Stuart Little, Charlotte's Web, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to them. Then we watch the movies. So much fun! You can also read James and the Giant Peach. A really fun one to read with boys (and girls too) to get their interest in reading is the Peter Pan books by David Barry. I loved them!!!! They are thick books but packed with adventure and pictures. It goes into detail about how Peter became Peter and Hook became Hook and where Tinkerbell came from. I think the parents will enjoy it as much as the kids.
So, what books do you like to read with your children that we can all read?