The Tale of Despereaux  

My son loves books and his shelves are full of all sorts from Disney stories to Whales, Dolphins, Dinosaurs and others. He is only 5 and is learning to read and recognises a lot of easy words already. I try to read to him every night and we go through each story reading it together. It's really rewarding when he tries really hard to sound our difficult words.

I never read with my parents when I was younger - it just wasn't something that was done when I was little.

my son doesn't tell me it's his favourite book or anything like that but he always wants to read basically the same book again and again so i know that he likes those particular books. he takes an interest in reading for now and i'm really happy but sometimes, i worry that he might lost interest too so like you said, i stay down with him and read from time to time though not everyday or often as he might get bored.
there are 3 books that he takes particular interest in. it's actually a package i ordered from readers digest before he was even born. they're basically the first book of nature, colour and rhyming words. i'll tell you the title and brief description accordingly.
the first is 'Rumples and Tumbles go to the country' it's basically about 2 toy rabbits' journey on trying to find out what the colour of a real rabbit is. they're 'city rabbits' so they see the country in a new light.
the second is 'Mouse's magic paints' it's about a mouse that receives a magic paint set and the different colours that he makes do with.
the third is 'Bear in a chair' this is the simplest of all. they're all in one sentences with rhyming words like bear in a chair, fish on a dish, etc.
i had better give the authors too in case some are interested. grins
the first written by david lloyd, the second is by tim healy and the third is also by tim healy. there are others in the pack too that my son likes but these 3 are the ones that he reads often and he knows the story more or less.