(Part 2) Top products from r/TrollBookClub

Hey, infants and toddlers need books too!

Yummy Yucky was a favourite in our house. So were Dinosaur vs Bedtime and Goodnight Gorilla.

Getting a little bit older, my kids loved all the Arnold Lobel books and so did I. They were/are among the very few of my kids' books that I never ever got tired of reading over and over again, night after night.

Personally I loved the Madeline books and the Babar books, my daughter liked them but I could never get my son into them.

This was a huge favourite for both my kids in the toddler/preschool years. I can still recite some of those stories from memory (and do).

The original Thomas the Tank Engine stories are really charming. If your nephew ends up taking an interest in trains and that sort of thing, this is a gorgeous book.

eta: almost forgot: Maurice Sendak is essential. My kids can both recite Chicken Soup with Rice from beginning to end.

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde.

After a preliminary test on a minor character that wouldn't be missed, the worlds second most evil man has gone into the original manuscript of Bronte's classic and is hunting the title character in an act of literary terrorism. Spec Ops Thursday Next of the Book Crimes division has to go inside the same book -- she reads herself into it -- and save Jane without messing up the story or getting caught on its pages if somebody in the real world happens to be reading that passage right now. She has to stay on the margins, literally. And be home in time for tea.

Everyone LOVES it. It's the first in a series of Thursday Next books. If you grew up on Harry Potter and majored in Literature but Monty Python and all the absurdist British comedies warped your sens of humor then this is for you.

It is one of those books you keep two or three copies of in case you run into someone literate and interesting who hasn't read it yet.

It is first in a series of seven and another one is on the way. It is hysterically funny, brilliantly intelligent, and weird as it sounds. The author trolls the readers (in one of the books, a chapter is written in a new font that causes the reader to forget anything written in that font as soon as they turn the page -- go ahead and prove he didn't). Just wild.

Thursday Next is one of the smartest, most complicated, flawed, fully developed female protagonists in recent literature.

It's hilarious and wonderful and weird.

So far on my list are:

• Forgiveness
  
  
• Peace from Broken Pieces
  
  
• Dragon's Lair
  
  
• Assertiveness for Earth Angels
  
  
• City of Heavenly Fire
  
  
• What I Know for Sure
  
  
• Whatever strikes my fancy from Scott Cunningham
  
  
• a book written by a fellow redditor that isn't published yet
  
  
• Edit: The Body Book and Eat Right 4 Your Type
  
  and whatever else comes my way, whether it be a suggestion, catches my eye at the bookstore or something I've found on the internet :) I'll be looking through the lists here for inspiration.
  
  

Of course infants need books. My brother has to have something to read to him.

I got him Dr. Seuss's All Aboard the Circus McGurkis yesterday, with the wrapping paper and a note to ask for more if he likes the story or just thinks the board book tastes good when he gums it.

After that, I recommend Difficult Conversations: how to discuss what matters most.

You're probably already familiar with it, but that description reminded me immediately of The Shadow of the Wind.
Different stories, for sure, but something of the feeling beyond the descriptions struck me as similar.

I'm re-reading 'His Majesty's Dragon' (excerpt), I guess it's historical fiction. I have no idea where the book came from, I think one of my friends must have left it when they borrowed a book.

Also, THIS version of THIS book. The illustrations are amazing. Don't settle for the cartoonish versions. There are religious overtones because it's Saint George and he's the Red Cross Knight but there's no proselytizing.

https://smile.amazon.com/Saint-George-Dragon-Margaret-Hodges/dp/0316367958?sa-no-redirect=1

Enchanted Forest by Patricia C. Wrede These books are hilarious and feature a strong female lead, well multiple strong female leads. Actually, come to think of it, I think the only guys are a talking, floating, blue donkey with wings and an inventor that doesn't get much time.

There's a witch that has an attitude very much reminiscent of the Dowager from Downton Abbey. There's a tomboy princess (the biggest stereotype in the series) who decides she wants to be kidnapped by a dragon. And finally, there's a dragon who is just tired of all these little human shits running around disturbing her plans.