Sounds like a glitch. Can you try traveling to another lot, then come back and try again.
There are currently 3 ways to initiate reading to a child or children (yes you can read to more than one see below).
Bookshelf
- Click on the bookshelf and choose Open, From there you want to select the book and choose Read to Child...
Inventory
- Open your inventory and click on the book and choose Read to Child...
Book out on object
- Click on the book and choose Read to Child...
The next thing you will see is a popup with the children that are near you. You can select more than 1 child and read to many at once I tested it and a family of 1 adult and 7 children the adult read to all 7 of them at once. Once you use the checkmark to confirm the children selected the option will que to begin.
If the adult is busy doing something the children may start a task as they will not gather with the adult until the action is started by the adult. The childrens books themselves are the white books with a purple design on them that looks like an octupus.
Finally! something that worked! I tried logging out, going to another location and coming back, nothing, I could not get anything to work! After selling a book case and purchasing it again I was both able to purchase a book and get it in my adults inventory so that I could choose read to child! YAY!
Recently, when I played the Goths, repurchasing all of the bookcases did not work. I couldnt even move the books to the inventory because it claimed that the members of the household did not own them. I even tried to reset the bookcases, using testing cheats, and to repair the game. Neither of those worked. The fix I did find, was to simply purchase a new book. New books in the bookcase could be moved with the hand tool and either put in inventories or on surfaces. The other books could not. New books had the option to "read to...".
