I lived out in the sticks so I was either reading or outside if it wasn't bed time. My Mom bought me the classics (Illiad/Odyssey/Ptolemy/Pliny) before I was even in High School. I read The King Hereafter about ten times in the space of three years. My kids are going to get the same treatment too. They are a bit young for some of the Greek and Roman mythology stories though.
I have read Beowulf and some of Havamal and of course The Lord of the Rings. They love it. It also gets there imagination going and they started writing little stories of their own.
If you can get them started young they will usually read all their lives. As the saying goes "Learn as if you will live forever."
Robert
