The Map of Time and Reading Together

It took me a bit of time to finish the 700 pages of The Map of Time by Felix J Palma: Weeks! My sister recommended it since I liked Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan series (steampunk) and Scott Westerfeld also wrote a nice review but the beginning was slow going. Then the story really turned on it's head (about 150 pages in) and I was hooked. I can't say I liked the final section as much as the first two but it was well done. The first two sections, though, woohoo! I loved how you think one thing is going on and then find out it's all twisted and flipped and a bit convoluted - like the narrator!
Now I am reading A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness. The YA novel won several awards and has some amazing illustrations, so I'm excited.
On a completely different note, I'm currently reading The Sea Faeries by Frank L Baum to my daughter (which is great so far). The experience of reading a well-written and layered novel versus a shallow, easy-reader-type series is striking. One I want to read and the other I let my mind wander or I fall asleep mid-sentence. I also read The Secret Garden by Francis H Burnett and loved every minute of it - so much so that I would continue reading it without having realized she had fallen asleep and would have to re-read it the next day AND not caring.
When my daughter was first learning to read, she liked to practice out loud. The BEST books I found for this were You Read to Me, I'll Read to You. Amusing and lyrical (it's poetry) so she could guess the words she didn't know based on the predicted sound. Poetry is the other genre I like to read to the kids at night. Sooo soothing and amusing for the kids and interesting for me too. I love A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert L Stevenson and Forget-Me-Nots (edited my Mary Ann Hoberman) and some others I can't think of right now.