Hehehehe, I suffer from imagination malfunction when tired too, but have found that DS loves loves loves to hear me tell stories of myself and my brothers when we were little (I embellish them a little to add to the story sometimes hahahahaha), I think he is fascinated with stories about me once being a kid!!
Handy when you don't have a book at hand!
Ha we need to hide some too. CJ also loves made up stories but I followed in my Grandma's footsteps and just tell her stories about what have done today yesterday etc etc - means is easy for me as don't need too much imagination - tonight her requests were "The day we went to Collingwood Childrens farm" and "When we saw Justine Clark at the zoo" - and I have to tell her "the whole day mum" so right from when she wakes up. She now tells us stories back her favorite is "When I got fed up of peas"! We also have to retell said stories where she is big girl kookaburra, I am mummy kookaburra etc etc or she wants to hear it where we all have different names - it certainly keeps my brain moving!
Have you read the Madeline children's book series written by Ludwig Bemelmans - the pictures are great and I quite like the stories (they are a read in one sitting book though but to me were a welcome change from some of her other favorites). The Alfie series (Shirley Hughes) are another big favorite here - some are quite long others short but I quite like these.
CJ is the same we have a balance between Who Sank the Boat type books, which I know are great for her working towards learning to read, and then just stories she wants to listen to for fun.
I didn't realise she was 3 either.
The thing you need to watch is that the themes aren't too old for her. You could very easily lose her love for books by reading too high over her head. I'd suggest either re-reading your classic favorites before you read them to her to make sure content wise they are suitable for her. Only you will know that. We had so many kids come in with desperate parents because the kids had completely lost interest in books and refused to read or listen to anything and when we started asking questions the kids were just not understanding what was being read to them.
Thanks belly buddies! Yep, we do the 'reality' stories too. We talk about our day every night and I often chat to her in the car about when I was little. It's cracking me up as she's started to re-tell my stories as her own... "when I was a little girl, I was your big sister Mummy and you were a baby and I had a big brother Dave (my bro) and one day..."!! Cute.
Thanks PRMG, I'm mindful of the themes issue. I do have a few of my old books from childhood but was looking through them today and whilst the language level is right for some, the themes are not. Went to read her The Magic Finger and thought better of it as I'm not ready for a discussion on hunting and killing... and neither is she. As far as comprehension and interest though, I'm pretty confident she'll make her opinions clear! I also found the original Pooh books in my hunt and started reading one of those... we got 3 pages in and she glazed over and declared that she didn't think it was a good book and we should choose a different one now!