Bookmarks

I got a Kindle a few months ago. Since then I've been trying to rationalise my paperbacks. Beloved ones - my battered Discworld, Dragonlances, Tolkien and, erm, other books that aren't fantasy novels - have been saved. Other random ones have been kept. The rest have been shipped to the charity shop.

The Boy's book collection has been increasing at about the same rate as I'm throwing mine out. He can't understand anything - well, as far as anyone knows. But he does like being sat on me or my husband's knee and read to, for varying lengths of time, determined by his mood and the book. He even had a go at turning a page the other day.

We got some books for him when he was born. Since then, we've picked up a boxed set of Dr Seuss, and various other books.

So I've been clearing out one of my bookcases that's in my room to get shifted through to the Boy's. I've had to sort into three piles. Stuff that should have gone to the charity shop in the first place. Stuff that I definitely want to keep. And the third pile - stuff that's gone straight into the Boy's room.

I've given him the Bromeliad, and the Eagle of the Ninth trilogy. The Chronicles of Narnia, and, when I can figure out where I put my copy, the Hobbit. There's a family tradition of getting read the Hobbit from a young age (and hence all the sword and sorcery novels that clutter up my bookshelf!)

He's too young for most of them now; we will be sticking to Charlotte's Fleece and the Cat in the Hat, and I may steal the odd one back from time to read. But they are his books now. Although I need to figure out a way of stopping wee hands drawing on them before he'd old enough to appreciate them.

It's probably more interesting listing the kids books I've kept. "Bilbo's Last Song" - this was in my brother's book collection, and it still makes me cry when I read it. I've kept the "His Dark Materials" books, for various reasons - they're not really kids' books, at least not for young kids. I suspect all boys think Twilight is a lot of girlie nonsense, so I've kept it for now - I also think that Twilight will be largely forgotten in a decade.

And at some point I'm going to have to work out which Harry Potters are ok to have kicking about for general reading - I think I'd find it difficult to tell the Boy he couldn't have a book once he'd started on them, but then, being old enough to read and comprehend the Philosopher's Stone is probably old enough to understand what's going on by books 3 or 4, but also young enough to find them scary.

Speaking of scary, as a child, I was terrified, for months, after reading a version of Hound of the Baskervilles. I thought there was a shadow on my bedroom wall that looked like a dog's head. I also read the Judge's House - it's only now I've looked it up I know who wrote it or anything about it. I vividly remember being frightened by it, though. At the time I read it, it absolutely scared the beejaysus out of me to the point I had to hide the volume the story was in under some clothes, until it was time to take it back to the library.

But all that is ahead of us, for a while.

So, which books are forever in your not-for-chucking pile? Which frightened you as a child?