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July 06, 2007
Books For Children, Kindergarten through Twelfth Grade
I was approached recently at the reference desk by a mother who, in broken English, told me she suspected the reading lists her twelve-year-old daughter received at school did not contain many good books. After speaking with her a while, I determined that what she meant by this was that most of what her child was being encouraged to read was, at best, ephemera. She had a clear idea of a classical tradition in children’s books, but was not familiar with that tradition in English. She had just come from the Children’s Room, and had been supplied with several rather long lists, compiled by various libraries and groups, but was not satisfied. Did I understand what she meant, and could I help her? I assured her that I understood, and would try.
Putting it mildly, and to make a long story short, after looking around a bit, my impression of what is “out there” is pretty much the same as hers. To my pre-existing impression that a great many of the most prestigious prizes in this field have for years been awarded only to books that pass ideological tests which practically no classical work could survive except on mere sufferance was added the finding that standard reading lists are heavily larded with them, and are missing many of the best, given that they cannot pass these tests (Hugh Lofting, anyone? Kipling? Frederick Douglass?) Or perhaps, given the current rabies of the library world--a world monumental conceit and stupidity--to discard old books, especially if nobody around here reads them any more, perhaps a number have simply been euthanized.
Under the impression, though, that there must be some fine lists out there that aren’t explicitly Christian—for it is not Christian parents alone who are interested in the best reading for their children--I was pleased to find a particularly good one, produced by the National Endowment for the Humanities, which I reproduce here for our readers:
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LIST OF CHILDREN’S CLASSICS COMPILED BY THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES, 2003 ____________________________
Summertime Favorites, a list of recommended readings, represents NEH's long-standing effort to highlight classic literature for young people from kindergarten through high school. Thousands of parents and teachers have used Summertime Favorites since 1988 as a supplement to school reading lists to emphasize the value of reading classic books. In 2003, NEH revised and updated Summertime Favorites with help from librarians and reading experts. The entire Summertime Favorites list appears below. You can also view the list by age group by using the menu to the right.
Recommended for K-3, either for reading by children or for reading to them. Aardema, Verna. Who's in Rabbit's House?.
Alexander, Lloyd. Chronicles of Prydain.
Alcott, Louisa May. Little Women.
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. |
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My impression is that this list concentrates on books that are not simply of "quality," but which are assumed to be in the background of an educated person in this part of the world. It seems to be missing Arabian Nights--a hard call because the unexpurgated version is so racy. But there are a good many editions for children, and it ought to be in there somewhere. These days in particular it might not be a bad idea to add the Qur'an to the high school list. The Song of Roland? Readers are free to make their own nominations here, particularly of books that may not have classic status, but are worth reading.
Posted by: smh | Jul 6, 2007 9:40:55 AM
The ages are a little strange. I see books for 7-8 and even 9-12 that I've had 3rd graders read in school.
The Hobbit is definitely a grade school book, that is the audience it was written to. I have a feeling Bloom and Angelou, perhaps others, were added for political reasons.
I agree that the Chanson de Roland and El Cid should be present. Robin Hood is needed by boys earlier than middle school, the Matter of Britain appears to be lacking, as do many of the American classics depicting our early history. Where is Davy Crockett? Dan'l Boone? And so on.
Posted by: labrialumn | Jul 6, 2007 10:37:47 AM
In the "young children's" category (though I enjoyed them well into my teenage years for their depth and artistry), the fairy tale stories adapted and illustrated by Mercer Mayer: "Sleeping Beauty," "Beauty and the Beast," and "Snow White."
"Laddie," by Gene Stratton Porter, greatly influenced my adolescent idea of what a Good Man should look like, as did "High Courage" by C.W. Anderson.
A cautionary note from that same period of my young life: avoid, at ALL costs, the Babysitters Club books. I can't believe I wasted so many hours devouring that tripe...
Posted by: maggie | Jul 6, 2007 10:38:16 AM
Many of the authors who are represented by just one book have written other good ones, such as E. Nesbit, Eleanor Estes, Beatrix Potter, William Steig, L. Frank Baum, E.B. White, James Thurber, Robert McClosky, Edward Eager and Frances Hodgson Burnett. Overall it's a pretty good list.
Posted by: Judy Warner | Jul 6, 2007 10:49:40 AM
A fine list. There are so many that I have not read, alas!
Additions:
A lot more Dr. Seuss. "The Cat in the Hat," though good, is far from his best, for which I would nominate "Fox in Socks," nearly all of which I have memorized to this day. "Luke Luck likes lakes..."
Deletions and changes:
Though I love the book, I can't imagine a 7-9th grader enduring through Frankenstein. They'd be much more likely to enjoy Dracula.
And no to Inherit the Wind. No need to read anti-historical propaganda against Christianity. Maybe replace it with a biography of William Jennings Bryan.
And obvously, the Bible should be on every age level. A few verse memorizations at first, then the Psalms and Proverbs, then the Gospels and the histories, and finally the Prophets, Law, and Pauline epistles. Not in any hard and fast divisions, of course, and adjusted to the student. Do others have a better recommendation for the order?
Posted by: Ethan Cordray | Jul 6, 2007 11:00:36 AM
What happened to the Old Testament stories, Ethan?
Posted by: Judy Warner | Jul 6, 2007 11:02:43 AM
>>What happened to the Old Testament stories, Ethan?<<
That's what I meant by "histories." I'm sure many episodes should be taught earlier (David and Goliath, natch), but I think reading the larger narratives takes a bit more sophistication.
Does anyone know if one can find high-quality editions of single Biblical books anywhere? I'd love to have a pocket Isaiah.
Posted by: Ethan Cordray | Jul 6, 2007 11:11:05 AM
Michael O'Brien (author of Father Elijah and related books) has a nice long list of suitable books for children and youth in an appendix to his Landscape with Dragons.
Posted by: DGP | Jul 6, 2007 11:36:41 AM
Ah, now here is a topic where I can comment without too much embarrassment.=)
For K-3: I like and have read all but a couple of these two my children, but I wouldn't have Judy Blume on any list of books I think children should read.
I would add:
Margaret Hodges' beautiful St. George and the Dragon
The Church Mice and others in this series by Graham Oakley
The Little House by Virginia Burton
Catch Me and Kiss Me and Say It Again by Clyde and Wendy Watson (a fun collection of modern nursery rhymes)
The Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack
Blueberries for Sal and others by Robert McCloskey
Ox-Cart Man by Barbara Cooney
Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney
The Story of Little Babaji by Helen Bannerman- this is a retelling of the Little Black Sambo story in less offensive terms and with charming pictures. When our youngest child was 2 he had memorized the contents (and so had we) and we recited it on car trips.
Brer Rabbit stories
A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson ( my favorite is illustrated by Tasha Tudor. That done by Thomas Kincaide is Anathema)
Lots of stories and folktales such as The Little Red Hen, The Gingerbread Man, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The Three Billy Goats Gruff.
Picture books by Maud and Miska Petersham
Each Peach Pear Plum by Janet and Allan Ahlberg (and others of theirs)
On Market Street and others by Arnold Lobel
Prayer for a Child by Rachel Field
Flossie and the Fox by Patricia McKissack
The King with Six Friends by Jay Williams
Miss Suzy by Miriam Young
Books by Tomie dePaola
Outside Over There; In the Night Kitchen and others by Maurice Sendak (I know others dislike these)
Year at Maple Hill Farm and others by Alice and Martin Provensen
When I Was Young in the Mountains by Cynthia Rylant
The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant
Babar books (the originals by Laurent De Brunhoff, not the TV spin-offs)
The Man Who Loved Books by Jean Fritz
The Princess and the Admiral by Charlotte Pomerantz
The Story of Holly and Ivy and others by Rumer Godden
The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes
The Plain Princess by Phyllis McGinley
Little House in the Big Woods, by Laura Ingalls Wilder (I see another book by her in the next level up)
The little known Bears of Blue River by Charles Major- a great 'boy' book.
Freddy the Pig books
The Velveteen Rabbit
Lang's fairy books (especially the Blue one, or Joseph Jacob's collection of English folk and fairy tales)
Nathaniel Hawthorne's Wonder Book and Tanglewood Tales were favorites of my children 9 and under, and a couple of them really loved Pilgrim's Progress read aloud this young, as well as Men of Iron and Robin Hood, both by Howard Pyle
The Wheel on the School by Meindert De Jong
George MacDonald's books- especially The Princess and the Goblins was a popular read aloud here.
Swallows and Amazons and others by Arthur Ransome
Kate Seredy's books should not be omitted (The Good Master, The Chestry Oak)
My young son in particular has enjoyed An Island Story by H.E. Marshall, a collection of stories of English history.
That's just for the third grade and under crowd, and it's already too long so I'll stop for now.
Posted by: DeputyHeadmistress | Jul 6, 2007 11:40:58 AM
Where's George MacDonald? The Curdie books should be in there at least.
Posted by: Jeff | Jul 6, 2007 11:47:00 AM
Well done, Deputy Headmistress. Kate Seredy is almost unknown now, but her books are wonderful. And Freddy the Pig! He has an adult fan club, you know. What about Elizabeth Enright and her books about the Melendy family? And I don't see G.A. Henty's historical novels.
Posted by: Judy Warner | Jul 6, 2007 12:09:41 PM
When I worked at NEH as a program officer, I helped Mrs. Cheney, as did the rest of the NEH staff, in putting this list together. I know that recommendations for books were also solicited from librarians and educators around the country and that their responses were also taken into account. I can tell you that in some ways it was much more difficult to do this list than it was putting together another list we did, of a core of "canon-like" books for college and university age students, even though the publication of that one was accompanied by much hoopla and hand-wringing in Academia, around the contested ground, as they used to say, of "canon formation." The list for K-12, however, was never thought of as a kind of basic curriculum for study, but rather more like a list of books that one might have in hand when going to the library to look for books that the kids might take with them to their vacation on the beach. As a result, the list avoided the scrutiny of the main forces that were locked in the pitched battles over "the Canon."
As I look at the list now, after almost twenty years, it still seems pretty good to me, overall, even though it's clear that there were items included in it that--without the benefit of a good, detailed memory of the machinations and compromises and considerations that were involved--were probably put in as a gesture toward the ideological wars being fought in the culture of the time (such as Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart). Nevertheless, since I was only a cog in the great NEH machine at the time, I can't really speak to that with certain knowledge.
Since my children are grown now, however, but are not yet old enough that I might justifiably hope for grandchildren, I haven't been tracking the world of children's books for some years, but I do know that there are many good books published since the list came out that are beautifully told and wonderfully illustrated. My own spiritual and intellectual pilgrimage, however, since that time, brings two things to mind that bear on the question of children's literature. One is the recognition of how heavily involved in the development and promotion of the genre of children's books were Victorian writers and artists with an attachment to the constellation of alternative and occult religions, including Theosophy and New Thought. There's still a lot of holdover or influence from this stuff--fairies, secret wonderlands in the garden, occluded adults vs. enlightened or innocent children, magic, the worship of imagination and myth, and so on. On this, I would say that, in my opinion, it's just fine to have a dose of this stuff (I'm not anti-Harry Potter, for all who might be looking to pick a fight) in a child's reading, as long as it doesn't carry the main weight of what's being read--which is to say that children should have an opportunity to see the "Fairy World" being "baptized" and consecrated to the highest ends. If it doesn't happen in the particular book (as, of course, it does in Tolkein and C.S. Lewis, for example), then, at least, the child should be able to manage that consecration with the benefit of their reading as a whole.
That brings up my other wish for the list, which coincides with Ethan's recommendation, which is to say that the Bible would be on any child's "reading list" that I made up. I'm pretty sure that would have rung alarm bells at NEH because of the church-state issue, so that's why it's not on their list, but, of course, that doesn't apply to individuals when making up their own lists. As a matter of fact, I can imagine raising a child with only the Bible and a copy of the original version of Butler's Lives of the Saints.
Posted by: Little Gidding | Jul 6, 2007 12:30:03 PM
Per David Mills' concurrent thread ("Adults (Note: Word Used Loosely) Today"), if I were permitted to slip back into childhood, I'd want to sit under a broadleaf tree in the backyard with a lemonade at hand and re-read (or, in some cases, just read) the classics for, say, grades 4 through 8.
Posted by: Bill R | Jul 6, 2007 12:37:20 PM
Where is Watership Down?
Posted by: James Kabala | Jul 6, 2007 12:49:03 PM
>>The ages are a little strange. I see books for 7-8 and even 9-12 that I've had 3rd graders read in school.<<
The grade recommendations seem to be very general guidelines.
This is a nice list. I'd like to see Roald Dahl, Eion Colfer (author of the Artemis Fowl series) and J. K. Rowling represented. Two older authors I think deserve more attention are R. M. Ballantyne and Elizabeth Goudge. No childhood is complete without reading The Coral Island and The Little White Horse. My six-year-old is going through a phase of reading what I expect is considered to be children's pulp fiction -- Nancy Drew, the Hardy boys, and my mom's old Enid Blyton books. She's loving them and they certainly stimulate her imagination.
Posted by: Francesca | Jul 6, 2007 12:58:39 PM
James Kabala,
Good gravy, you're right! That should definitely be on there. Besides being a glorious read in itself, it can also be a great bridge between fairy tale and epic fantasy for the mid-level reader, much like The Hobbit.
Posted by: Ethan Cordray | Jul 6, 2007 12:59:35 PM
>> My six-year-old is going through a phase of reading what I expect is considered to be children's pulp fiction -- Nancy Drew, the Hardy boys, and my mom's old Enid Blyton books.<<
Nothing wrong with pulp, in its proper ratio. Pulp is the literary equivalent of fiber: not much nutrition, but you need it to stay regular.
Posted by: Ethan Cordray | Jul 6, 2007 1:03:09 PM
"Pulp is the literary equivalent of fiber: not much nutrition, but you need it to stay regular."
Oh, good heavens, Ethan!
Posted by: Bill R | Jul 6, 2007 1:04:55 PM
Am I the only one who finds it weird that Robert Cormier's "young adult" novel The Chocolate War is placed on a higher grade level than Ivanhoe or Frankenstein? I guess that's because it was "controversial" in its time (and maybe deserved to be; I've never read it).
Others that could easily be lowered a level or two: Johnny Tremaine, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, and A Wrinkle in Time among the 7-8ers; Animal Farm, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Huckleberry Finn among the 9-12ers.
I know she was a Christian and a Dante translator, but how did Dorothy Sayers sneak on thei when Agatha Christie did not? Don't try to convince me The Nine Tailors (with its incredibly lame twist ending) is better than The Murder of Roger Ackroyd or Murder on the Orient Express. And I'm surprised, given their receptiveness to British mystery writers (Collins and Conan Doyle, as well as Sayers), that they didn't include (except for Poe) any American mystery writers such as Chandler or Hammett.
Labrialumn: As far as "the Matter of Britain" goes, Malory and White are on there (albeit maybe at overly high grade levels).
Posted by: James Kabala | Jul 6, 2007 1:06:14 PM
Francesca--
Whereas I, too, was not aware of the fact, Gidding explained that this list was compiled more than 15 years ago. Therefore, Rowling and Colfer would not make the cut. Though I am fascinated by the lack of Goudge and Dahl as you are.
That said, I still read Rowling and Eoin Colfer, but I'm not sure they would be--particularly Colfer in this respect--books I would recommend to parents for children. The Artemis Fowl series is morally ambiguous in the extreme and delves in a pseudo-scientific manner into the unsanctified world of fairies and occultism that Gidding mentioned.
There is a young girl in my church youth group who, by some series of events unnecessary, has come to view me as an older brother of sorts, and she recently bought Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass to read prior to the impending release of the movie as well as Artemis Fowl on the recommendation of a friend. I commended both books and authors to her as thoroughly enjoyable storytellers, but felt compelled to issue a word of caution to be aware of what she was taking in, and to be free enough to speak about what bugs her in the story. For in reading a book, it is not merely a story she is digesting, but the philosophical stance of the author speaking through the book. Pullman, for instance, sacrifices the story for the message of "the Church is evil, therefore the God they worship is a weak loser who is due to die at the hands of man" in the end of the series to which The Golden Compass resides. I reread The Amber Spyglass last year and found myself disturbed more than I had been at eleven, angry even, at Pullman's stealth pedagogy and ignorance.
Posted by: Michael | Jul 6, 2007 1:11:37 PM
Posted by: Susan | Jul 6, 2007 1:35:04 PM
This really is a surprisingly good list. I could quadruple it, but self-discipline in the library or at the bookstore has never been my forte. I could quibble with some of the age recommendations, but that is always a hard call to make. There are some here I would put in much younger categories and some in the upper years I wouldn't have my teens read at all, but over all, I really like this.
That said, here are some I would add for grades 4-6, although a couple of these we actually read with younger children:
The Gammadge Cup
Bullfinch's Mythology/Age of Fable
Kidnapped and other adventure tales by Robert Louis Stevenson
Rebecca Caudill's books (Tree of Freedom)
It makes me very sad that Charlotte Younge's historical fiction for children is no longer much known. The Little Duke was my young son's constant companion and friend for some weeks.
Something of King Arthur-Howard Pyle's is good
Rosemary Sutcliff's books, oh, my. Black Ships Before Troy and all those others.
Sounder
Winged Watchman and others by Hilda Van Stockum
Blue Willow by Doris Gates, and others by her
MIracles on Maple Hill by Virginia Sorensen;
Letters from Rifka by Karen Hesse
The Von Trapp Family Singers by Maria Von Trapp
Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan
Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott, and in another year or two, Ivanhoe
Penrod by Booth Tarkington
The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth Speare
Ethan, once upon a time The American Bible Society did publish single editions of some of the gospels. We have a nicely bound and prettily illustrated copy of Luke and it is usually a read aloud for us when the children are around 6 or 7 (our brood of seven spans from 9 to 24).
I do not know what other single Bible books they have, but I do know many homeschoolers take an online etext, reformat it in a word document and take it (or email it) to someplace like Kinko's for binding. They tell me this is surprisingly inexpensive. I've never done it. I did put together a small booklet of memory verses on our home computer, using paper that I quarterfolded and then handsewed together. It worked well until it went through the wash.
We do most of the stories in Genesis, Joshua, Judges, and the other books of history in the younger years. I have used Hurlbut's Story of the Bible and Ergermier's (that spelling is probably dismally bad)- but mainly we just read so much of a passage as constitutes an 'episode' and then talked about it. We also liked these two picture books:
_Stories from the Old Testament with Masterwork Paintings Inspired by the
Stories_ and _Stories from the New Testament with Masterwork Paintings
Inspired by the Stories_, both published by Simon and Schuster. Two page spread, classic work of art in rich color on one side, Bible text of story illustrated on the other. These can never be outgrown.
Other booklists I have appreciated:
Honey for a Child's Heart
Why Johnny Can't Tell Right From Wrong (has a booklist in back)
Landscape with Dragons, as mentioned by DGP
AmblesideOnline.org (see the literature and free reading selections in particular. Full Disclosure- I helped compile it)
Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classic Stories Awaken a Child's Moral Imagination, by Vigen Guroian
And there is a very nice list put together by some Classical Education homeschooling moms, the 1000 Great Books list:
http://www.classical-homeschooling.org/celoop/1000.html
As for drek- I have strong principles against this stuff, but my practice doesn't live up to them. It has been my experience that whatever children read themselves between, oh, roughly the ages of 8 and 12, they really bond with, connect with, and consider to be a great book. What they read at this age seems to me often to form their taste in literature. They will come back hunting for these books when they are in their thirties and forties, and in their nostalgia will drive up the price of some otherwise mediocre and out of print books up to ridiculous levels. So I think it is very important to make sure children get the very best books at this stage.
Yet, I am letting our son read the Magic Treehouse series and our youngest daughter is reading something from the Christian Bookstore called The Three Cousins Detectives Club, which is only slightly better, I think, than the Babysitters' Club (no boy crazy stuff, and Bible verses tossed in). Sigh. Our older girls shake their heads primly at me and say, "Mother. They could do better than this." They do get much better stuff on a daily basis in their read alouds, and in copious amounts as the older siblings love to revisit the classics of their youth by reading to their youngest two siblings. But I am eager for them to get past this reading hump and into more worthy books.
Little Gidding, I think you make a good point re the other than Christian metaphysical underpinnings of many of the authors writing in the Golden Age of children's books. This is strong in two of my favorite authors of the era and genre, E. Nesbit and Francis Hodgson Burnett. It is also why I am not entirely comfortable with The Dark is Rising series (excepting the first, which is somewhat different in tone).
Another favorite, Gene Stratton Porter, was heavily influenced by the Eugenics movement and insidious threads of white superiority, Breeding and Birth and the inferiority of the darker races run through all of her books- in some of them faintly, in some (Her Father's Daughter), it's not a thread, it is the theme. I missed this as a child, and I loved Freckles, Keeper of the Bees, Girl of the LImberlost and all the rest (my mother is from Indiana), but it is there. My children read them, too, but I do feel compelled to point out to them some of the flaws in her worldview.
We haven't read the Pullman books. But my eldest did read Artemis Fowl and didn't care for it. We do like Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Danny, The Champion of the World. The rest of his books seem rather meanspirited to me. He pretty much lost my heart forever with Matilda, when he has Matilda say that there are no funny bits in The Chronicles of Narnia and her teacher agrees with her. I, for one, have never stopped laughing over "There once was a boy named Eustace Scrubb and he almost deserved it" since the first time I read it at about ten.
Posted by: DeputyHeadmistress | Jul 6, 2007 1:35:19 PM
Posted by: Susan | Jul 6, 2007 1:38:01 PM
>>We haven't read the Pullman books. But my eldest did read Artemis Fowl and didn't care for it. We do like Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Danny, The Champion of the World. The rest of his books seem rather meanspirited to me. He pretty much lost my heart forever with Matilda, when he has Matilda say that there are no funny bits in The Chronicles of Narnia and her teacher agrees with her. I, for one, have never stopped laughing over "There once was a boy named Eustace Scrubb and he almost deserved it" since the first time I read it at about ten.<<
The Pullman books, under proper supervision (which I lacked, to be honest), are wonderful reads. Archbishop Williams commends Pullman on fighting against dogmatism and oppression by the church, even recommending them for reading in school religion curriculum. (Unfortunately, as I mentioned, the last 100 pages or so of The Amber Spyglass, the last book in the series, kills God--literally--while simultaneously promoting the formation of proto-sexual relationships between young teens as the "loss of innocence" is essential to human survival.) Thus, read with care.
Artemis Fowl was thoroughly enjoyable to me, not so much for the story--though I did enjoy the story--but for the fairy script translation. Running along the bottom of each page is a long transcription of a fictional book of the fairy folk, and it is possible to translate it letter for letter (technically a cypher, then). It was a mystery-cum-coming-of-age-cum-family story, Artemis seeking to hoodwink the fairy folk into returning his family to normalcy, his father being missing and mother in a near-catatonic daze.
Dahl is always mean-spirited, albeit less so in the two books you mentioned. That does not stop him from being a brilliant writer and storyteller.
Posted by: Michael | Jul 6, 2007 1:56:02 PM
The pedagogical method of Charlotte Mason relies heavily on "living books." The homeschoolers at Ambleside Online have developed enormous reading lists using her criteria. I'm using them already (I have a 3-year-old and a baby).
Posted by: Jenny Islander | Jul 6, 2007 2:28:41 PM
Since we continue to enjoy ourselves by tossing in particular books, I will say that I remember the secret pleasure of mild aggrievement I experienced when it turned out that my suggestion for including Margaret Wise Brown's "The Sailor Dog"--definitely my first "favorite" book as a child, was not followed. Ditto my suggestion of Robert Lewis Taylor's "Journey to Matecumbe" for the middle grades.
Posted by: Little Gidding | Jul 6, 2007 2:32:17 PM
I've been meaning to ask for such a list from the good folks who inhabit this space. Thanks, SMH and all! When I have time, I will review the lists here to see if I have anything to add.
Posted by: GL | Jul 6, 2007 3:16:45 PM
Ah, I forgot. To the formation of a young man, survival stories are essential. Though this list does have O'Dell's Island of the Blue Dolphins, the protagonist in the book is Karana, a Native girl, to whom an aspiring boy cannot properly relate, though he can enjoy the book. It also contains Robinson Crusoe, but Dafoe did not intend this, nor can it be properly read and understood, as a survival tale, but as a tale of a good Christian among the savage wild, about integrity and maintaining the good in the worst of situations.
Thus, I propose the more contemporary writings of Gary Paulsen. Hatchet and Brian's Winter are thoroughly enjoyable children's novels that seek to be nothing more than survival tales.
Posted by: Michael | Jul 6, 2007 3:20:34 PM
Susan, I'm afraid that whatever you're trying to do isn't working right. I only see blank posts from you.
I read The Dark is Rising series in about 6th grade, and I loved it to death, except for the last one which I felt ended far too neatly. It's true that it's pretty heavily magical/occultic, but I'd love to reread them. DHM, by "the first one," do you mean The Dark is Rising or Over Sea, Under Stone? The latter is definitely different from the later ones, though I must confess that I liked the more heavily magical ones better. But then, I also like Charles Williams a lot.
It looks like Walden Media is getting ready to butcher The Dark is Rising for the big screen. There's enough linked from the IMDB site to make Merriman cry.
Posted by: Ethan Cordray | Jul 6, 2007 3:29:55 PM
Michael, I'd add The Sign of the Beaver to that list, which I read as part of the Calvert homeschool curriculum. It's about a boy left over the winter to tend his family's homestead in the northeast, where he befriends a local Indian boy. A great survival and friendship story.
Posted by: Ethan Cordray | Jul 6, 2007 3:33:31 PM
Ethan,
I will have to read it. This list is going to--quite happily, to be clear--cost me a good deal of money on shelving and books.
The Dark is Rising is one of my favorite series as well, and I recently bought it in a boxed set from Barnes and Noble, not having read it since sixth grade.
Posted by: Michael | Jul 6, 2007 3:46:31 PM
Since survival stories were mentioned --
How about Earth Abides or Alas, Babylon? There's nothing quite like post-apocalyptic science fiction!
Posted by: Peter Gardner | Jul 6, 2007 4:05:04 PM
Post-apocalyptic science fiction? Dune, I Am Legend, The Long Tomorrow?
Posted by: Michael | Jul 6, 2007 4:13:32 PM
I also was surprised by some of the ages. The Hobbit is a kids story. Easily handled by a six year old. The final battle's a bit complex but not overly demanding.
The Wizard of Earthsea on the other hand is a very complicated short work. Its also incredibly dark. I read it in seventh grade (the whole series) but I'd be tempted to hold that one until later. Rowling would be an easy addition to a modern list. Harry Potter is part of the culture now for this generation.
Posted by: Nick | Jul 6, 2007 4:25:33 PM
Nick,
The Hobbit is a kid's story, but it is not written in young children's language. Third or fourth grade, I should think, would be an appropriate age at which to push Tolkien into a child's hands.
On the other hand, books written at more juvenile language and syntax levels having darker themes and greater complexity (to Kill a Mocking Bird--a simple cursory read--appears on the high school list) we place in higher age groups. The problem with forming a list like this is that certain books are quite rich in content, but not so in language. That is why there's variation. We don't want someone to read about the racism until they are prepared for it, even if they could handle the words; not to say Lee's novel belongs in the high school list--probably 8th grade at the highest and 5th or 6th at the lowest.
Posted by: Michael | Jul 6, 2007 4:33:59 PM
Italics off.
Posted by: Michael | Jul 6, 2007 4:34:27 PM
again?
Posted by: Michael | Jul 6, 2007 4:34:45 PM
There are so many good books. :-)
Susan Schaeffer Macauley has a good list of "living books" in her _For the Children's Sake_ That ought to be known and kept around.
I miss seeing my boyhood heroes Danny Dunn and Encyclopedia Brown.
When I was a little child, my father read to me some collection of tales of knights and dragons that I would highly recommend for such a purpose, if I knew but the title. I think they taught me manly morals. He also read to me the Cowboy Sam series, which were thus favorites of mine.
I'll have to ponder a bit on post-apocalyptic stuff, to try to remember if any was good for youth to read. There was one with a 'gentled' wolf. But they all seem to not be of Christian morality, or hostile to Christianity, except for the works of Jerry Pournelle, who is Catholic. (It is nice to see chaplains aboard starships) The Miles Kervorsagan (sp?) novels aren't all acceptable for youth, but the general theme of the crippled Miles succeeding against all odds is good.
I would have chosen more of Shakespeare, and not exactly the same plays.
The Ballad of the White Horse by Chesterton in addition to Kipling for poetry for boys.
Must think more.
Posted by: labrialumn | Jul 6, 2007 4:35:19 PM
An excellent resource that exactly addresses the original post:
"Books Children Love: A Guide to the Best Children's Literature" by Elizabeth Wilson, forward by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay, by Crossway Books.
I've used both editions and have been thrilled with it as a resource. Each book appears in one of many categories (including cross-listed in multiple categories), has a complete bibliography, has a good sized paragraph summary, and suggests an appropriate schoolgrade range. Nothing contradicts a biblical perspective, but they are not just "Christian" books. We are classical, Christian education fans and find these books to be in line with that tradition.
What a blessing!
Posted by: J.M. | Jul 6, 2007 6:46:10 PM
While there are many wonderful recommendations here (and many with which I am completely unfamiliar), I note the conspicuous omission of three genres, regarding which I solicit suggestions from others here.
The first is poetry -- not just rhymes or doggerel, but real poetry.
The second is history. Fiction is wonderful and necessary for the right formation of the imagination. But (as a historian by training, and someone who was enamoured of history even as a small child) it think that a child's understanding of the world will be unbalanced and unhealthy is he or she reads *only* fiction. 5,000 years or recorded events offers plenty of excitement and stimulation for the imagination as well, not to mention real-life rather than only fictional role models. Unfortunately, having no children of my own (having married late in life) and being immersed in academic history for all too long, I don't have any good recommendations to offer for children from my own field.
The third is natural history and science. Like most young kids, I was really hooked on dinosaurs (until I ran into history, and then I dropped them without a backward glance). There are many other things in the creation to excite a child's interest, and we desperately need godly formation of their understnading of that before they arer subtly poisoned by secular views. Unfortunately, books in this field, unlike fiction, probably have a short shelf life before becoming outdated.
Posted by: James A. Altena | Jul 6, 2007 6:51:32 PM
While there are many wonderful recommendations here (and many with which I am completely unfamiliar), I note the conspicuous omission of three genres, regarding which I solicit suggestions from others here.
The first is poetry -- not just rhymes or doggerel, but real poetry.
The second is history. Fiction is wonderful and necessary for the right formation of the imagination. But (as a historian by training, and someone who was enamoured of history even as a small child) it think that a child's understanding of the world will be unbalanced and unhealthy is he or she reads *only* fiction. 5,000 years or recorded events offers plenty of excitement and stimulation for the imagination as well, not to mention real-life rather than only fictional role models. Unfortunately, having no children of my own (having married late in life) and being immersed in academic history for all too long, I don't have any good recommendations to offer for children from my own field.
The third is natural history and science. Like most young kids, I was really hooked on dinosaurs (until I ran into history, and then I dropped them without a backward glance). There are many other things in the creation to excite a child's interest, and we desperately need godly formation of their understnading of that before they arer subtly poisoned by secular views. Unfortunately, books in this field, unlike fiction, probably have a short shelf life before becoming outdated.
Posted by: James A. Altena | Jul 6, 2007 6:52:02 PM
A couple more books of book lists that I've found useful (and not just for children's reading):
Great Books of the Christian Tradition by Terry W. Glaspey (Harvest House, 1996) - This lists books by era from the early Church until the present. It also has sections on 'Other Books Which Have Shaped Our World' and a 'Great Books for Young Readers'
Let the Authors Speak - A Guide to Worthy Books Based on Historical Setting by Carolyn Hatcher (Old Pinnacle Publishing, 1992) - This has a list of fiction and non-fiction history books for all age levels. The list is sorted by author, title, reading level, and century/location.
Who Should We Then Read? Authors of Good Books for Children and Young Adults by Jan Bloom (self-published, www.BooksBloom.com, 2000) This is probably my favorite of my books on books, as it lists many authors old and new with an complete list of all of their works and a brief biography. It also has complete lists of many children's series such as the Landmark Books, American Heritage, Childhood of Famous Americans, and many others. This is a great book to take when trolling for used books, and my copy is well-marked!
Posted by: kathyb | Jul 6, 2007 7:29:34 PM
James, I think young children often learn more from historical fiction than from straight history. That is why I mentioned the Henty books -- they cover dozens of historical times and events, always with a boy as protagonist. There are good children's books set in Revolutionary and Civil War times, and there's a series of books whose name I cannot remember, written as diaries of historical figures such as Queen Elizabeth I as children. That only scratches the surface.
Posted by: Judy Warner | Jul 6, 2007 9:12:38 PM
James,
Good children's books on history written in story form are few and far between. I can't think of any offhand. Got suggestions?
Micheal,
I think theme should determine level more than words. Earthsea is a wonderful trilogy about the importance of repentance. Le Guin, though, is a bit of an ideologue of the wrong sort. Her ideas, despite the books primary theme, make it into the series.
Posted by: Nick | Jul 6, 2007 10:41:25 PM
Nick,
Right you are, but by the same token, I wouldn't expect a second grader to read twenty-word sentences given to using words like eupeptic, even if it was talking about a birthday party, would you?
Posted by: Michael | Jul 6, 2007 11:58:33 PM
Well, James, I have the opposite problem with my ten year old son. He thinks "yukky old fiction" is boring, but devours anything non fiction he can get his hands on.
Posted by: Mrs. Falstaff | Jul 7, 2007 12:18:57 AM
Well, James, I have the opposite problem with my ten year old son. He thinks "yukky old fiction" is boring, but devours anything non fiction he can get his hands on.
Posted by: Mrs. Falstaff | Jul 7, 2007 12:19:07 AM
Well, James, I have the opposite problem with my ten year old son. He thinks "yukky old fiction" is boring, but devours anything non fiction he can get his hands on.
Posted by: Mrs. Falstaff | Jul 7, 2007 12:19:12 AM
History:
Island Story, by H.E. Marshall (and also others by her), mentioned above in my comments on K-3 reading. Can't recommend this one in glowing enough terms. YOu can read it online here (I like this book so much I helped put it online): http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/marshall/england/england.html
It has been a favorite of our son since he was about four years old. I read it aloud to my kids when they are, usually, around 6 or 7, but he wouldn't go away when I read this book to his older sister.=)
Once she got all sissy on us and complained that she didn't enjoy that book because there was just all this fighting, and wars, and battles and blood and things. The boy's eyes grew brighter and brighter, and then he blurted out, "Yeah, of course! And that's why it's my favorite book!"
For the youngest children perhaps the Childhood of Famous Americans. Certainly the D'Aulaire's biographies as well as Diane Stanley's. We also like several older history books from The Baldwin Project online.
Olive Beaupre Miller's Story of Mankind, not to be confused with Hendrik Van Loon's more sardonic and less sympathetic to Christians history with the same title.
Hillyer's Child's History of the World, and the later revised versions by Hillyer and Huey- Young People's Story of Our Heritage. This includes history as well as the arts. It does need some editing or parental input, the unedited CHOW in particular. Hillyer's worldview was not friendly towards blacks.
All of these are older, (except Diane Stanley's) so there are flaws obvious to the modern eye, but they know how to tell a story.
Genevieve Foster's books- The World of Columbus and Sons, Augustus Caesar's World
For older students, Churchill's History of the English Speaking People, and nearly anything by Samuel Elliot Morison.
SCience: this is tough because (I believe by nature of the topic as well as by design and conspiracy between the National Science Teacher's Association and The Children's Book Council- http://www.nsta.org/ostbc) these do not stay in print long enough for there to be a backlog of easy to find titles, and they do go out of print with distressing speed.
For young children I like MIllicent Selsam's books. We use biographies (Archemides and the Door of Science, for instance). And I have really found useful an old book once published by Popular Mechanics called "The Boy Scientist," by John Bryan Lewellen. There are biographies of famous scientists as well as interesting stories about their work and how they came to develop their discoveries and a few experiments or demonstrations. We include nature writing in our reading- authors such as Edwin Way Teale.
I would recommend again Amblesideonline's selections.
A good field guide or twenty.
Poetry- I had originally included some of our favorites but then deleted them, thinking they were not, um, on topic. Here they are again:
Mother Goose
any older first volume of Childcraft with the poems and nursery rhymes (pre 1965, more or less)
Brown Angels, by Walter Dean Myers
The treasury of children's verse by the Opies
Louis Untermyer's beautiful Golden Treasury of Poetry
The Oxford English Book of Verse, edited by Quiller-Couch
I have also seen some lovely picture books illustrating individual poems by Robert Frost, Longfellow, and James Whitcomb Riley (I am sure there are others).
We just pick a poet and read through several of his poems over a period of several weeks.
Those are just a few off the top of my head. Children's books are, if you cannot tell, one of my favorite topics. We have several thousand books here, mostly culled from library book sales.
Posted by: DeputyHeadmistress | Jul 7, 2007 12:25:49 AM
Thanks to those who have offered suggestions in response to my post.
Judy, perhaps you're right about historical fiction for young folks, but it certainly wasn't the case for me. I still remember how absolutely enthralled I was as a third grader reading a book about Sir Ernest Shackleton's doomed 1914 expedition to cross the Antartic continent and the miraculous deliverance of his entire crew.
I haven't a clue how to evaluate what literature is appropriate for what age of child because by the time I was in 4th grade I was already testing at college-level reading abiliity, so I have no notion of what average aptitude is. (I'm not trying to brag -- just offering an explanation.) For me, an engrossing read in 5th grade was devouring William Shirer's "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" in four days, which is not exactly typical reading fare for most kids that age.
See? I was weird from the get-go! :-)
Posted by: James A. Altena | Jul 7, 2007 4:33:51 AM
