Essential children's books
We had parent-teacher conferences this evening and that means that there was also a book fair. I consider myself an avid reader and I am a great fan of children's books. Yet I knew a single title at the book fair: Stuart Little by E.B. White.
We picked out a few to read but I'd like your help on books you would suggest to infect children with a desire to read. CO has some of the best readers as regular visitors and if you would take a few minutes to think about books that made you or your child want to read we could build a very good list. Add them as comments, please and be sure to name a book and not just an author.
Thanks in advance.
Update (from the fine folks over on Facebook):
Laura suggests Gary Paulsen works and Pippi Longstocking along with Laura Ingalls Wilder (Lisa agrees with Pippi).
Brent suggests A Wrinkle in Time.
Geoff urges A.A. Milne's Pooh series.
Ray goes with The Chronicles of Narnia, G.A. Henty's works, Two-Minute Mysteries, Encyclopedia Brown and Boxcar Children. He also recommends John Grisham's Theodore Boone series, Mike Lupica's Comeback Kids Series, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, the Dangerous Book for Boys, Freddy the Pig series, Stories to Solve and Benjamin Wiker's 10 Books Every Conservative Must Read: Plus Four Not to Miss and One Imposter.
Caroline say Enid Blyton's Famous Five and the Secret of Seven are great.
Dee recommends The Book Thief.
And Amy says not to forget Because of Winn Dixie.
Don't miss the recommendations in the comments section. We aren't finished yet.
Pippi Longstockings was one of my favorite books, and I always wanted to be like her. She represents absolute freedom. Also, Tom Sawyer. Robert Louis Stevenson. The Borrowers was a great book, so was the Encyclopedia Brown Series. One of my faves was Matthew Loony's voyage to Earth. Also, The Great Brain Series was a great inspiration to me as a kid. Of course, Chronicles of Narnia is a must. Any Shel Silverstein poetry collections is also a must. Get all books that are well-illustrated. N.C. Wyeth, especially. Get illustrators from the turn of the century. Get the illustrated versions of Hans Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm and Greek Fables. The Arabian Nights, if you can get the illustrated children's version. So much to read, so many good, great books.
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Very good start. I'm going to make this into a project.
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Great exercise. Thanks. Here is a start - Jim Trelease's The Read Aloud Handbook, Sam McBratney's Guess How Much I Love You, and The Book of Virtues by Wm. J. Bennett. The Read Aloud Handbook, I believe, dramatically altered my relationship with my very young children. Wrote about it here:
http://andersonlayman.blogspot.com/2010/03/never-complain-never-explain.html
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The Beatrix Potter series, the Winnie the Pooh series, Wind in the Willows, and the Grimm Fairy Tales as illustrated by the Brothers Hildebrandt are the first to come to mind. I must be some kind of antiquarian.
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You didn't mention age range - but here's one that works for any age:
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Great to read for yourself - even better when you read it to someone else...
- Jeff
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I didn't. I'm looking for elementary age. Books you could read to a younger elementary student or that a fifth or sixth grader might read alone.
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The Little Prince fits the bill. When my eldest son was about six, my father gave him an audiotape, Louis Jourdan was the reader, and he still loves it at age 29. He's looking forward to sharing with his daughter, who just turned one.
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I'm a usual outlier, so I'll go ahead and suggest an odd one which is sort of a tradition in my family: Roger Tory Peterson's Field Guide to Eastern Birds. I received mine from my parents on my seventh birthday. Great art, great science, great adventure, great education-- a great window on life. My copy is very dog-earred and perhaps a little mutilated in very meaningful and loving ways. RTP was one of my favorite Americans.
Of course, I mentioned A.A. Milne on your FB. Very English. I still love it. Its voice has a great influence on me to this day. I can hear the whole series in my head as read to me in my parents' voices. Great little ink illustrations. I feel sick when I hear and see the things in animation. There used to be, though, when my son was young, a video at the Newark Library of an Englishman in 'the woods' reciting Pooh. It featured the inks on colored slides intermittently as he recited. That was quite good. GJ
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The best cartoon version of Winnie the Pooh that I know of was the communist era Russian "Vinni Pukh". http://youtu.be/sqdiEUp6s4E . Many Russians of a certain age remember it fondly. I always rather felt that the jokes in WTP were laughing at children rather than with them.
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Thanks, Will. I checked the Russian animation out. Very interesting. Seems to me that it may succeed by not attempting to be extremely literal in translation, as well as by not being slavish to the original's artwork. It seems not English but, of course, Russian and very different. I think I like it.
As to your comment on the laughing, I'm going to have to think on that. I think I did find irony throughout the stories from my early exposure to them on. An appreciation of that helps one laugh at the whole of life, including oneself, maybe? I hope it wasn't a cruel
humo(u)r that raised me. About to re-read again.... Thanks, again.
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http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2011/11/03/141981053/hey-kids-its-vinny-pookh-time-cartoon-music-from-the-ussr
Hey, look what I just ran across. Good night.
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Anything by Marguerite Henry or Kate Di Camillo; Big Red by Kjelgaard; Jack London's White Fang; The Box Car Children; Phantom Tollbooth; Heidi; Anne of Green Gables series; The Library by Sarah Stewart; Tommy de Paolo's Strega Nona series; Make Way for the Ducklings by McCloskey; Where the Red Fern Grows nad the Ransom of Red Chief. For the upcoming season: The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. Books that remain with you for a lifetime.
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Captains Courageous
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
The Hobbit (for boys)
Anne of Green Gables (for girls)
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The Eleventh Plague, The Hunger Game Series, The Maze Runner, Maximum Ride series,the Giver,The BFG, and Divergent are all books my three older kids love and Mark my 6yr old likes the Frannie K. Stein mad scientist series
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Thanks, Jenn.
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It will come as no surprise that I recommend the Just So Stories . Especially for reading to kids. Perfectly timed and flighted gems.
I find the poems of AA Milne ("when we were were very young", "Now we are Six") much funnier and more engaging than the stories.
The children's books of Philip Pullman are beautifully crafted, magical stories that grip the imagination and hold it to the last full stop: "The Firework Maker's Daughter" .
At 10 they might be a little young for Eoin Colfer's boy genius magical criminal mastermind, Artemis Fowl. Or they might not.
How about Terry Pratchett's "Diggers" series? Funny, wise and tells you all you need to know about project management: what more could you ask?
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Very good additions all. I note that Just So Stories with illustrations is $.99 for the Kindle.
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