NOW will you read to your kids 20 minutes?

"Literary experience heals the wound, without undermining the privilege, of individuality. There are mass emotions which heal the wound; but they destroy the privilege. In them our separate selves are pooled and we sink back into sub-individuality. But in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do."
C. S. Lewis (who else?) Quoted in Innocence and Experience: Essays and Conversations on Children's Literature, p. 437.

The Whole Story

What would it take to get kids to read the children's classics? This series might do it. Printed on glossy paper with durable stitched bindings, The Whole Story series should grab and hold the attention of many who would otherwise pass on these books. Each includes the unabridged text, "with striking illustrations and extended captions that provide background information modern readers could otherwise access only through a broad range of supplemental research." The series includes Treasure Island, The Call of the Wild, The Jungle Book, Around the World in Eighty Days, and others. Some titles are still in print; all are worth watching for and paying good money for, used.

Alejandro's Gift

Two things about what at first glance might appear to be just another run-of-the-mill picture book: Having spent the first fifteen years of my adult life in the Arizona desert, I am stunned by the authenticity of Sylvia Long's illustrations. She did extensive research for this book, and it shows-right down to the curly "hairs" on the agave.
The other amazing (and encouraging) thing about this book is that author Richard Albert wrote it for his great-grandchildren when he was 83 years old!
Smithsonian says Alejandro's Gift is "a book enthralling beyond words." That's a little much... but just a little!
Alejandro's Gift keeps on giving.

The Comeback Dog

Do you still have some of your old Weekly Reader Book Club titles? I do, and wish I had kept them all. How many tens of millions of kids do you suppose have fed their growing appetite for reading with these prolific, durable books? With some happy exceptions, most are not great literature, but many are still good stories, and they are widely available at thrift stores.

Jane Resh Thomas's The Comeback Dog is a good case in point: a short, very serviceable boy and dog story, published in 1981. Virtues of thrift, responsibility and quality workmanship are affirmed without preaching. And where else these days is a kid going to hear the phrase "going like sixty!"?

The Afternoon Treehouse

This is, very simply, a fabulous picture book. Multiple award-winning illustrator Robert Ingpen has given us a beautiful, detailed look at a mysterious treehouse. (And left the door open for a sequel?) This "Notable Australian Children's Book" is a treat for guys (and girls?) of all ages, and has earned a spot on our "100 Best Picture Books of all Time" list. Lothian Books, 1996.

Bored-Nothing To Do!

One of Peter Spier's fifty picture books, this is a rollicking ride through a "boring" day in the life of two brothers. The fact that none of the characters are named is a plus, as every parent and child will see themselves in the story. Known for wordless books--his Noah's Ark deservedly won the Caldecott Medal thirty years ago--this book would probably have been stronger without the spare, sometimes awkward text. The title alone is enough words, and the message is priceless.

No child should miss Peter Spier.

The Reluctant Dragon

"Rules always come right if you wait quietly."

25 years ago Michael Hague illustrated Kenneth Grahame's (The Wind in the Willows) The Reluctant Dragon. Even Middle School kids enjoy this fable if you read it well.

Family valued

"In an age in which one can be sure of only one thing-change-the family circle gives the child an anchor of stability and security in the midst of spatial geographic bounds, technological innovations, and social upheavals. It is important that some children's literature emphasize family unity since a child usually is neither consciously aware of, nor appreciative of, the feeling of togetherness in his own family. If the young reader unfortunately is not a member of a closeknit family in his own environment, it might motivate him to value and desire strong family interrelationship when he, in his turn, is an adult and has children of his own."
Julie Carson, writing about her mother's books for children in 1968. Quoted in Hoffman, Authors and Illustrators of Children's Books.

What about you? Did hearing or reading children's books that featured strong family relationships help you to value them in your own life?

Election year reality checks: #2

"Any great gift or talent or power is a burden...and you will often long to be free of it. But there is nothing to be done. If you were born with the gift, then you must serve it, and nothing in this world or out of it may stand in the way of that service, because that is why you were born and that is the Law."
Susan Cooper: The Dark is Rising, p.43

Mr. Gumpy's Outing

John Burningham's 1970 award-winning story begins--"This is Mr. Gumpy." (Note: NOT Grumpy)
A Kirkus reviewer said it well: "Mr. Gumpy's little scow becomes a miniature ark when he takes two children and one each of various domestic animals for a ride... The water appears so warmly inviting, and the tea they all share so satisfying, that the promise of the first glowing page is fulfilled. Burningham's sketchy yellow lines make the sun shine on his pages, and his animals--sometimes jaunty, more often appealingly hesitant--are his alone, unostentatiously distinctive. Mr. Gumpy has a bumbling charm, and his outing is an unqualified pleasure."