Children's Literature

I have been reading E Nesbitt's books to my daughter, we just finished
'The Five Children and It" We've read through several of Edward Eager's books, "Half Magic" is the best one IMO. I'm hoping once we get past the 4th Harry Potter (she begged for it!!!) We'll get back to the Nesbitt books, or move on to My Secret Garden, which I'm dying to read aloud.

Right now the only book that Little Mo wants to hear is "The Lady With The Alligator Purse" so we read that one over and over and over and over and...

I've been collecting kids books for him to enjoy once he gets bigger though. Plus, I enjoy reading them now. I picked up "Book the Ninth" of the Lemony Snicket series yesterday read it in one sitting. Those books crack me up.

Y'know, it's interesting to go back to the books of our childhood. Some of them are truly terrific and we can still find fresh insights. Others, well, let's just say they're the stuff that children might find fascinating but ....

Some of my faves while growing up were Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, The Phantom Tollbooth, Charlotte's Web, James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and a collection of Greek & Roman myths whose name escapes me. I also enjoyed The Wizard of Oz plus I read one of the sequels (there are a lot of Oz sequels; I can't remember which one it was but it involved a Princess Ozma).

All of those are still appealing to me, although I bet the Princess Ozma one is the least of the bunch. One book I recall which isn't quite so appealing any more is Uncle Wiggly, about a rabbit's adventures. I look at it (if I do at all) and think: what was I thinking?

Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan (A MUST READ)
Esperanza Ortega possesses all the treasures a young girl could want: fancy dresses; a beautiful home filled with servants in the bountiful region of Aguascalientes, Mexico; and the promise of one day rising to Mama's position and presiding over all of Rancho de las Rosas. But a sudden tragedy shatters that dream, forcing Esperanza and Mama to flee to California and settle in a Mexican farm labor camp. There they confront the challenges of hard work, acceptance by their own people, and economic difficulties brought on by the Great Depression. When Mama falls ill from Valley Fever and a strike for better working conditions threatens to uproot their new life, Esperanza must relinquish her hold on the past and learn to embrace a future ripe with the riches of family and community. Pam Muñoz Ryan eloquently portrays the Mexican workers' plight in this abundant and passionate novel that gives voice to those who have historically been denied one. Scholastic Press
http://www.pammunozryan.com/books.html

2001 ALA Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults
Smithsonian Best Books 2000
Publisher's Weekly Best Children's Books 2000
L.A. Times Best Books of 2000
Excellence in a Work of Fiction Award 2001 Children's Literature Council of Southern California
2001 Judy Goddard/Libraries Limited Arizona Young Adult Author Award
Jane Addams Children's Book Award, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom

PS - we've just bought 20 copies(Spanish) to give to Children\Adults that we know in Mexico, we will be visiting June 2003.

Oh goody! A kiddy lit thread!

I love E Nesbitt with a passion and I still re-read many of my favourites of hers - mainly the "Five Children and It" series. Who but she could think of a furry, snail-eyed, ape-like and grumpy "fairy" with a left whisker still aching from Noah's flood?

I also re-read children's favourites of mine if I am very ill or distressed - presumably it triggers soothing memories of being read to, which was a wonderful part of my childhood.

Kids that are read to consistently are very lucky. I wasn't, but I read to my daughter because 1) it's an excuse to read the kids lit I never knew about as a child,2) my daughter believes the day isn't complete w/o a chapter or 2 read to her.

"Because of Winn Dixie" by Kate DeCamillo is a contemporary classic, one I think which will immortalize the author. I'm going to read it to the 4th-graders where I teach starting next week. It's Cristina's favorite, she reads it again and again.

Another great but short book is "Many
Moons" by James Thurber.

Ooooooh - a Thurber suggestion!

Have you read his "The Thirteen Clocks and The Wonderful 'O' ", Dream? A lovely pair of very funny "fairy stories".

I guess the second title would raise a few titters now - but i tend to believe orgasms were little discussed in fairy stories in Thurber's time.......

I just read all these to my Mrs "Bookwoman", she says you folks are on the right track...

My favortie as a child was Rudyard Kipling's The Just So Stories and the Jungle Book. I just bought them for my cousin's son.

Thanks for the other Thurber suggestion, Dlowan, I'm going to look for it at the library this weekend.

Thurber wrote children's books??? Oh, Oh. Oh!!!

childrens books
Shel Silverstein is the favorite, hands down, of my 3 daughters and I when they were young ones....and now that they have young ones of their own, I've given each family (1) A Light In The Attic,
(2)The Giving Tree and (3) Where The Sidewalk Ends.
Some of my favorite poems from these would be: Sarah Sylvia Stout Who Would Not Take The Garbage Out (or something remotely like that) and the one about Melinda Mae - the little girl who ate a whale. Truly - there are so many favorites, and I am FAR too lazy to go looking for
the books, so that I can quote the poem's exact titles. Therefore, I will now give up wracking my aging brain for names that are going to be garbled anyway

When she was a babe, my daughter's favorites were The Velveteen Rabbit and Charlotte's Web. She would sit in my lap and listen and loo for as long as I was able to read. When she started reading herself, she read and reread and rearead the entire Little House on The Prairie series. She still loves to read and read and read.

My son never enjoyed sitting down and being read to. He would listen as he toddled about. Favorite was Richard Scarry's Cars & Trucks & Things That Go. He didn't really discover the joys of reading for pleasure until his college years. Up till then it was always a task.

I remember Black Beauty and Little Women and The Five Little Peppers and How the Grew from my own childhood. Amazing I can still remember the thrill of reading all of Black Beauty all by myself.

I remember Little Women, Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, and then I discovered Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights and read them one over and over again as a teenager.

I loved Heidi and Five Little Peppers ( i had a couple of the books by Margaret Sidney and loved all the the Pepper stories). I was more likely to be found reading the Forsythe Saga, or the Jalna series, when I was about 7 - 12. Children's books didn't really have a place in my parents house.

I didn't discover the Oz books until I was in University - I've got over a dozen of the series now. I like them even more now than i did 20 years ago. The message of co-operation (or communism as it was once seen) in them is sooooo strong. I based a series of lesson plans, teaching co-operation, on Ozma years ago. The students loved the book and 'got' the message.

When I was a child, my favorites were not children's books,
but I would take the Readers Digest Condensed Books which
my parents dutifully got, but never read? - although I must say
it did whet my appetite for reading. But never again would I
read a condensed version of a book. How stupid it seems now.
It seems like having sex without an orgasm.
It is like seeing the movie version of The Cider House Rules
after having read the book. Yuck! My first real fascination was
with all books by Pearl Buck. I was only in 4th grade. Perhaps in
another life I was from the far east.

My grandchildren are reading books by Richard Peck, who is writing for early to mid teens. I read a couple of his books and really liked them. Peck is from central Illinois, and several of the novels are about young people from that local. He has the dialog and way of thinking down cold. IMO he has good values.

Peck lives in NY, and recently won a Chicago Tribune award for his contribution to young adults literature. I think he's written about 26 novels, all for the same age group.

With Max having just turned four, I am dizzy with the possibilities that await us as he starts on the journey of appreciating the wonders and joys of reading.

The sight of the lad perched on the throne poring over his Cat in the Hat Dictionary is enough to bring tears to the eyes of his bibliophile Pop.