Kesher Talk

The Big Blue Blogosphere Book of Best Children's Stories. Some bloggers are responding to a limp list of children's books in the Seattle Times by recommending their own favorites for this gift-giving season.

What I want to know is - am I the only grade-school nerd who made a conscientious effort to read every Newberry Award winner? (There was a big poster in my grade-school library listing all of them, and I slogged through them one by one. Liked about half of them.)

Wow! Someone besides me read Bambi as a kid! I still have my original copy, a small hardback with a forward by John Galsworthy. Must be a first edition - 1929. I forget how I ended up with it - maybe it was my mom's, or my aunt in children's book publishing bought it for me. I would agree with Meryl that it is dark for a "children's book," but so are the Brothers Grimm. I also read all the Robert Louis Stevenson books (with the Howard Pyle illustrations!) and an abridged Robinson Crusoe. Meryl, how young are you talking about? I think these are all appropriate for 10 and up.

My picks:

* Most Heinlein juveniles. (I would stay away from Podkayne of Mars.) I started with Citizen of the Galaxy at age 10 (still my favorite), and it was certainly no less dark than Bambi. I never had any trouble identifying with the young protagonists, their adventures and moral dilemmas, even though most of them were boys. (Occasionally a young-adult-novel version of a Tough Chick would put in an appearance.) Heinlein's influence on world politics is incalculable: he inoculated more young impressionable minds against rampant idiotarianism than Ayn Rand, he reached them at a younger age (and continues to this day, posthumously), and he was a better writer too.

* A Wrinkle in Time I read it at least 10 times from 10 to 16. Never liked her other books half so much, but that one hit me just right at just the right time.

* Johnny Tremain. A poignant novel of the American Revolution, it is deceptively quiet but stays with you.

* Anything by Margeurite Henry - I still have my copy of Gaudenzia: Pride of the Palio, (with the Lynd Ward illustrations) which is a true and bittersweet story, and she writes English with an Italian lilt that works perfectly. I also enjoyed the Black Beauty series and the My Friend Flicka trilogy (better than the TV show) but I wasn't horse-crazy enough to consider them favorites.

* I prefer the Just-So Stories to the Jungle Books. I never saw Kipling's original drawings till I was an adult, but I would recommend an edition with them - they are sly pen and ink drawings with their own commentary. (Did you know that the Bi-Coloured Python Rock Snake sounds just like William F. Buckley?) Also Captains Courageous is wonderful.

* The Prisoner of Zenda. This Victorian romantic fantasy is technically an adult novel, but anyone who could handle a Heinlein juvenile could enjoy it. I have a hardback English edition with tipped-in color illustrations, probably bought when we went to visit my grandmother in England when I was 8. (And we have not seen the last of that charming heel Rupert of Hentzau - there is a sequel! )

* But my favorite author as a kid (before I graduated to Heinlein) was Robert Lawson, who illustrated his own and other authors' books in a pen and ink style that owed a lot to Albrecht Durer and usually contained hidden details that would keep me occupied for hours. He was also a great story-teller, and created a unique format wherein the reader would learn about a famous person and historical period through the eyes of an animal companion: Ben Franklin's mouse (who lived in his fur hat), Paul Revere's horse, Captain Kidd's cat, and Columbus' parrot. He also wrote a novel about the construction of the first Ferris wheel (for the 1893 World's Fair) and one about a boy who is shrunk to 2" tall and has built for him a little cockpit on the back of his seagull friend Gus, and flies to Europe (The Fabulous Flight). All of Lawson's books are delightful.

* Finally, I have to mention this goofy picture book called Ethelbert, by Rosemary Hoyland. It's about a tiger cub who has adventures. I still have this book because I love the illustrations, especially the one where Ethelbert and the explorer in the pith helmet and striped socks are rolling down a series of (numbered) rapids on a raft, with a teakettle bubbling over a small campfire the whole way. (Apparently there is some kid's TV show very loosely based on this, but do not accept anything but the genuine article.)

posted by Judith @ 12/15/2002 11:40:08 PM