More than anything, my daughter loves me to read to her. And the only books she's ever taken to were first the Enid Blyton books written in the fifties and now the first Nancy Drew series which was written in the thirties. And I can tell that what appeals is that the children from those times had a degree of freedom from their parents that children don't have now that we keep tabs on their every move. In those days children didn't just have adventures but everything was an adventure. They were open to the unexpected because they were largely free of expectations. And it's interesting to me that she refuses to watch movie versions of the books: "I prefer the version in my imagination."