After lunch, when the girls are taking their naps (most days), I've gotten into the habit of reading a chapter or two of a book to The Boy. We read through The Great Brain series, which if you haven't read them is an absolutely wonderful set of books set in turn of the 20th century Utah. I loved the stories growing up and The Boy loved them too.

After we finished that series we sort of floundered. Nothing held either of our interests that long. We read one Henry Huggins book, but we'd already read most of them and the Ramona books. We read one Wizard of Oz story, but just didn't feel like reading any more. We read most of Black Beauty, but The Boy didn't like the cruely that happened to the horses and asked for me to stop reading it.

A month or so ago, I remembered another series from my childhood that I really enjoyed and this one has been a good fit for our afternoon story times -- The Famous Five by Enid Blyton. The books are some what like British Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys. The plots all seem to involve many of the same elements, and yet we both love them. The Five (two boys, two girls and a dog) go on adventures to the sea, Wales, farms, Roman ruins and old castles, among other places. I find myself reading each book, even the ones I've read before and wondering what will happen next, even though I usually know or have a very good idea.

The Famous Five are not great works of literature certainly, but they are very fun reads with the right amount of mystery and action for the smallish set. They leave me wishing I could have grown up in a time when I could have gone off alone with my cousins on grand adventures, solved puzzles and found treasures that had eluded everyone else for ages.

Sadly, our library only owns a few Famous Five books, so I'm going to have to actually buy some from Amazon to keep reading them to The Boy.