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I love children's and YA literature. One of my all time favorites is the classic, Up the Road Slowly by Irene Hunt. It is often on the reading list for 5th and 6th grade, but it's very deep. It's as much of a children's book as A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
I love children's and YA literature. One of my all time favorites is the classic, Up the Road Slowly by Irene Hunt. It is often on the reading list for 5th and 6th grade, but it's very deep. It's as much of a children's book as A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
"Across Five Aprils", by the same author, is also excellent. Both titles concern growing up - "Up a Road Slowly" has a young girl as the main character, while "Across Five Aprils" concerns the experiences of a young boy during the Civil War.
"Across Five Aprils", by the same author, is also excellent. Both titles concern growing up - "Up a Road Slowly" has a young girl as the main character, while "Across Five Aprils" concerns the experiences of a young boy during the Civil War.
I loved Up a Road Slowly. Also The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes.
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Originally Posted by Escort Rider
Just finished that one. I was mildly disappointed, probably because I had expected so much. It is definitely good - a rousing and imaginative adventure story replete with much magic and fantasy. But it was not a deeply moving story such as Where the Red Fern Grows or Bridge to Terabithia. Multiple levels? Not so much, I thought. Sure, there is some symbolism, such as the Lion Aslan being killed (going willingly to his death for a higher purpose) and then coming back from the dead to redeem the world (Narnia) in fulfillment of prophecy.
I have to disagree. In just the first 25 pages of The Lion, The Witch andthe Wardrobe, Lewis covers sibling rivalry, WWII history, the ramifications of lying, the innocence and strength of children...Lewis had some amazing insights about life, all wrapped up in what appears to be a simple story.
Musings about our reactions, including musings about gender
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Originally Posted by CA4Now
I have to disagree. In just the first 25 pages of The Lion, The Witch andthe Wardrobe, Lewis covers sibling rivalry, WWII history, the ramifications of lying, the innocence and strength of children...Lewis had some amazing insights about life, all wrapped up in what appears to be a simple story.
Well, I see your point, because Lewis did indeed touch on all those things. I suppose his coverage of them did not strike me as particularly noteworthy. Indeed, your opinion of C.S. Lewis seems more common than mine.
In all discussions of books, movies, music, and the like, our disagreements are often more instructive than our agreements. And our reactions are always personal, as "objectivity" in this area is not something which we can legitimately claim. A book resonates with us, or it doesn't. Or it resonates partially - to a certain degree. Or we like aspects of it, or parts of it, but not other aspects or other parts. Or we are totally taken with it, just bowled over, mesmerized and captivated, deeply moved. Or perhaps we cannot generate any enthusiam right from page one.
Even gender may play a part, although I don't think so much in the case of C.S. Lewis. I did not care for The Secret Garden, which had been very highly recommended to me by several people. A few more people commented, upon hearing my opinion, that it's "a girl's book", after which it occurred to me that those good recommendations had all come from women. Now I'm not saying that all girls/women like it and all men/boys don't. But those comments were from multiple people, and I find the gender question interesting.
In a similar vein, I have heard a few people say that The Call of the Wild is a boy's book - raw and unforgiving nature in the far north, fighting to the death among the sled dogs, and so forth. This makes sense to me, and ties into the fact that I just loved the book in junior high and continued to like it upon reading it to fifth graders. Incidently, I followed Call of the Wild in one class by reading The Wizard of Oz in order the have a female main character folllowing the almost total absence of females in "Call". (And the one brief female character was absurd - meant to provoke laughter and derision.)
Of course age sometimes plays a part; as adults we find we are no longer interested in something that seemed so wonderful to us as children. And that is really the theme of this thread - to focus on children's books which are so good that we as adults still derive immense pleasure from them and see great value in them - indeed great literary merit in them. There seems to be general agreement in this thread that there are many such books and I remain grateful to all who have posted here. I have learned much from you all.
Sure, especially older books. It seems to me that nowadays YA fiction is overly simple, like Hunger Games.
The Hobbit is a great example. As a matter of fact, I think perhaps British books are better with this kind of thing.
I agree that British books for younger audience are typically better written than their American counterparts. When I was younger, all of my favorite books were written by British or other European authors (Enid Blyton, comic books by Herge, Rene Goscinny, etc).
"The Giver" is the first recommendation from posters in this thread which I have read (other than books I had already read). I stayed up all night to finish it, and it is stunning. The big intellectual questions are there: What does it mean to be human? What is the meaning and what are the consequences of freedom? It reminded me of the Grand Inquisitor chapter in "The Brothers Karamazov" by Dostoyevsky, although it is of course quite different. And this is a book for children! Quite incredible. Newbery Prize in 1993, by the way.
Make sure you read the other three books in the quartet. Gathering Blue, The Messenger and The Son. Not nearly as amazing as the Giver but it really is an interesting story and The Son is a great ending that ties in all the characters.
Another two books that are classified as children's lit. are The Princess Acadamy and Princess of stone. Princess of stone was much better IMO but both good reads. It also won some type of prize for writing.
Just looked up The Book Thief on amazon and while reading the description remembered another wonderful, wonderful book -- it was called The Secret Cave but had an alternate title too, Twenty and Ten. It's about a children's school hiding Jews during World War II. This is one I not only looked up on amazon as an adult (a few years ago) but bought so I could keep it.
About three months ago I ended up reading Twenty and Ten to two different fifth grade classes almost by accident. We had fininished a book and had only five weeks left in the school year, so we had to find something pretty short. The teacher had a copy, which I took home to read. I didn't think it was on a par with the real masterpieces so many have talked about in this thread because of its simplistic take on the virtues of the children - for example insisting on foregoing their food to share it even when they were seriously hungry. That didn't seem realistic to me.
However, I decided it was good enough to read and didn't have any other choices short enough, so I read it and the children just loved it! Their reaction was the most uniformly and enthusiastically positive of any of the seven books I have read to fifth graders so far except for Trash.
Of course age sometimes plays a part; as adults we find we are no longer interested in something that seemed so wonderful to us as children. And that is really the theme of this thread - to focus on children's books which are so good that we as adults still derive immense pleasure from them and see great value in them - indeed great literary merit in them. There seems to be general agreement in this thread that there are many such books and I remain grateful to all who have posted here. I have learned much from you all.
I am so glad that the significance of books and reading especially has resonated with all who post here. I think its is amazing that just by the sheer handing of pages with written ink to a child that you are, in essence, giving him or her the wherewithal to enter different worlds populated by different characters and no doubt different 'problems'. And by doing that you possibly are affecting their whole life because of all those doors being opened for them. I speak this way because I experienced this myself. I wish I can thank all who went before me and took the time to suggest this book or that one. I beleive it is a very important task and it should be done. Besides it makes you feel good too!
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Musings about our reactions, including musings about gender
