Favorite Children's Books

CeeBee 732 post s 11-Nov-2006 4:58 PM	Which ones do you remember reading over and over again, and as an adult you have passed on or read to the generation following you?
rhubarb 89 post s 18-Nov-2006 8:39 AM	Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time is my favorite, and I re-read it every few years or so. I was nine or ten the first time, and it led me to ask for more of the same at our local public library. I read so much SF when I was in junior high and high school that my mother said I was going to turn into one (a science fiction, that is). “Tesseract” is still one of my favorite words. I also go back to Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series every so often, mostly to marvel at the amazing detail in the books and to check my memory of certain events (Was Eliza Jane Wilder really such a mean teacher? Did Laura actually wear a black cashmere dress when she married Almanzo in the middle of summer? What was in the church Christmas barrel that arrived, finally, at the end of The Long Winter?).
Kathleen 325 post s 20-Nov-2006 7:36 AM	I always loved the Little House books, too, and reread them over and over. Same thing with the Mary Poppins books and the Oz books. But my favorites, in no particular order, were (and are) the Narnia books, all of the books by Edward Eager (Knight's Castle, Half Magic, and others), E.E. Nesbit's books, and The Phantom Tollbooth. Oh, and also The Secret Garden -- I love how the heroine starts out as such a horrible (but realistically horrible) child and becomes nice (but realistically nice) in the end. All of those books are still fun to read even now. Kathleen
John 178 post s 20-Nov-2006 1:24 PM	I wasn't much into series. I did read all the Oz books (and I have first edition Ozma of Oz. My mother had all the Oz books; my grandmother threw all out but this one when they moved from Argentina to the U.S.) Also I read all the James Bond books (what else is a 13-year-old boy going to read?).
SapphireMoon 72 post s 23-Jul-2007 7:49 PM	My absolute favorites as a very little child were The Poky Little Puppy, The Little Rabbit Who Wanted Red Wings, Rudyard Kipling's The Elephant's Child, Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Peter Rabbit, and Helen Bannerman's The Story of Little Black Sambo. When I was old enough to read to myself, I favored the Pooh stories and poems, Robert Louis Stevenson's poems and those in Cecily Mary Barker's little book, a beautifully illustrated collection of Hans Christian Andersen's tales, Bulfinch's Age of Mythology, and the wonderful, wonderful Andrew Lang series of colored fairy tale books, the Blue Fairy Book and the Yellow Fairy Book best of all. My, but there is a pattern there, isn't there? I also loved Alcott, Twain, and Poe--yes, as a child. I thought all of these were ageless and timeless, but alas, some of them did not translate to my children's generation. As an adult I am still devoted to the classic fairy tales and have read and studied many serious analyses of them, including Bettelheim and a host of Jungians, and taken related classes. I hate to see them watered down or Disneyfied and hate to see the true, dark, sometimes violent themes stripped out of them. I do like to see them reborn in new forms that preserve their depth, and that is one thing I like about Neil Gaiman. Maybe that is also why I like Harry Potter. Last Edited on 23-Jul-2007 8:52 PM
Rachel P 8 post s 27-Jul-2007 8:18 AM	As a child I loved Bill Wallace. He is an Oklahoma author that lived not far from where I was growing up. His books were about things that were familiar in my life. A lot of the books settings were farms or the country. My favorite of his books was A Dog Called Kitty. I remember reading it repeatedly. I also loved the Little House books. I have read them so many times that I have lost count. Jack the bulldog was one of my favorite characters. I remember crying my eyes out that they made him walk behind the wagon instead of letting him ride with them. There was aslo a book named Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry. I do not remember the author. It was about a little girl and her family in post-depression Mississippi. I can't imagine that it would still be allowed in school libraries now as I remember some parts being fairly graphic, but when I was a child, I read it many, many times. ---------- Rachel Pettit Last Edited on 27-Jul-2007 8:24 AM
Pogo 19 post s 24-Sep-2007 4:29 PM	The Secret Garden, The Little Princess, Understood Betsy, Red Planet, Citizen of the Galaxy, Have Spacesuit -- Will Travel, The Little Colonel books. Do they have to be children's books I read as a child? Can they be children's books I read after I grew up and could buy my own, or books for adults (not "adult books") that I read as a child? Pogo
OldGuy 19 post s 24-Sep-2007 8:04 PM	Pogo's questions, "Do they have to be children's books I read as a child? Can they be children's books I read after I grew up and could buy my own..?" made me remember the book my parents got for me when I was in the hospital at age 12. (I hope a cartoon book counts.) The title was (here it comes) POGO, by Walt Kelly. The nonsensical escapades of those loveable and carefree characters with their Okefenokee dialect took my mind off the steady pain so that it only hurt when I laughed. Not all of Kelly's books were great. But along with others obtained years later I still have that one, nearly worn out by me and my kids together. They too apparently came to feel POGO was such an enjoyable escape from reality and seriousness in our lives that, now they are adults, I've happily received a few more Pogo books from them, though having graduated in that vein on through Roark Bradford and Zora Neale Hurston. Last Edited on 24-Sep-2007 8:39 PM
Pogo 24 post s 26-Sep-2007 8:00 AM	My name has no relation to the possum -- of whom I really never knew until I grew up. The strip was not carried in the newspapers we took (neither was Dick Tracy). It comes from my surname -- actually, from monolingual Americans looking at my surname. Pogo
BrianG 5 post s 21-May-2008 1:45 PM	It's been a long time since anyone posted to this board, perhaps this will spur someone on. I'm 62 and grew up listening to my dad read Uncle Rhemus, particularly "The Tar Baby". He put on quite a show reading it the way Harris wrote it. When I had kids I made sure that I found the same book and continued the tradition. (My brother was never able to duplicate my dad as well as I could.) Now that I have grandchildren my two kids are waiting very patiently for them to reach the age when I can add another generation to the "legacy". The oldest is not quite 4 and I think the time is nearly here. Do I worry about being PC? Not one whit! This childhood memory is much to dear to me...and as I learned, to my children.
CeeBee 1764 post s 24-May-2008 11:27 AM	I have in my personal library books that my parents read to little-child me and that I read to my sons when they were small. I hope the tradition will continue if my sons marry and have children. Several of the books are classics and one contains classic short stories and poems for children. I especially treasure a copy of Little Black Sambo, a title banned by the PC police for all the wrong reasons. I believe it's healthy and even vital that parents and their children read (especially what some consider controversial material) together and discuss as to timeframe and reasons for any controversy. Last Edited on 24-May-2008 11:30 AM
Pogo 565 post s 25-Aug-2008 8:35 AM	My mother never read to me. Daddy did—I remember the Sunday funnies, and Little Golden Books, especially the one about a trip to the zoo (one page showed lots of African plains animals, and he identified each species for me). He died when I was only five, but it seems that I was already reading; the previous Christmas, my presents included Bobbsey Twin books, and I don't recall anyone ever reading those to me. My middle sister read to me a time or two, when I was sick; the book I remember was Little Brown Bear or something like that. We had bookshelves scattered around, and books lying around too. No childhood restrictions on what could be read. I had a subscription to Children's Digest for three years; that's where I met Dr. Seuss ("On Beyond Zebra" and "Horton Hears a Who"). The rest of Dr. Seuss I didn't find until adulthood. "Rikki-Tiki-Tavi" and "The Elephant's Child" were in there too, but I didn't find the rest of Kipling's children's stories until adulthood, either. Mother did not read anything but the newspaper and the occasional magazine. She didn't even take me to the library for a card until I was in seventh grade! And then she didn't allow me to go alone—half a mile with no major streets to cross, but I had to wait until she would take me. Once every two weeks, and she did not allow me to borrow more than four books at a time. As for purchased books, she never understood age-appropriate, or paid much attention to requests. She might buy what was popular, or what someone told her I should like; she had no thought of starting a series at the beginning, or continuing to buy a series.

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