He's seven years old and I read and teach him anything he'll let me get away with.

I read him the Hobbit when he was four. I showed it too him at a used bookstore, and he asked me to read it too him. I figured he'd get bored after a few pages, what with no pictures and all, but he made me read it every night at bedtime, and hung on every word up to just about the end. I only lost him after the climax, during Bilbo's return trip. but other than that he was riveted.

We read children's poems by Ogden Nash, Shel Silverstien, Doroty Aldiss, A.A. Milne et al.

Dr Seuss.

Nursery Rhymes.

Kipling, esp Just So stories (Them that takes cakes that the Parsee Man bakes makes dreadful mistakes, and there was a lot more to that than you might think....).

Folk tales

Old songs, funny songs, camp songs, even drinking songs (OK we learned them together listening to the Dubliners and Clancy brothers tapes with me in the car, but Finnegans Wake is still one of his favorite songs, and you should have seen the other parents at the playground the day he spontaneously burst out singing "I'm a rambler I'm a gambler, I'm a long way from home, and if you don't like me then leave me alone. I'll eat when I'm hungry I'll drink when I'm dry. If the moonshine don't kill me I'll live till I die." Jaws dropped I'll tell you.).