It is a dirty secret of mine that I didn’t read much during most of my youth. I was a fairly active reader until third or fourth grade and then kind of stopped until high school. I read some, but not like Cate did. I skipped the young adult genre entirely and she often mentions books or series that I have never heard of.
But that, of course, doesn’t mean I don’t have opinions about books I want my children to read as they grow. I could, I suppose, make this a quick list and call it a day, but I think I’ll break it into parts a bit. I’m going to start with those first chapter books that kids might read (Simone has pretty well read every picture book in existence, so there seems little point in starting there).
Winnie the Pooh
and The House at Pooh Corner
by A.A. Milne – One of the ways I can tell these are wonderful books is that I use them in my writing class to teach characterization. For Simone and James, however, it’s more about how the books present the different characters. Everyone is different, and though no one is perfect, everyone is also accepted. The House at Pooh Corner is especially excellent for a child who is just becoming aware that they will, in fact, grow up some day.
The Hobbit
by J.R.R. Tolkien – This is much more about sharing something I love with my children. I fully intend to read this to each of them at bedtime as soon as they are old enough. It is such a fun book and I came to it much, much too late. Once I found it, however, it opened up a whole world of interest to me. I’d love for it to do that with either Simone or James.
The Harry Potter
series by J.K. Rowling – I didn’t come to these too late so much as they came into existence too late. They were, of course, among Cate’s very favorite books growing up, and she made me read them and I really quite enjoyed the experience.
Sadly, that’s it among books I’ve actually read. Cate swears by the Little House
books, and I need to read those eventually. Once I do, I’m sure they’ll be added to the list. What I have here is much too male-heavy, which is a fault of most children’s literature and something I’ll be trying to remedy myself over the next few years.
Echoing Cate’s enthusiasm for the Little House books! I watched the Little House on the Prairie series as a child, but only started reading the books as an adult. I’m not through the whole series yet. I feel a little funny reading The Long Winter in July! Louis Erdrich wrote a series that is considered to be the Native American voice to contrast the Little House books. I’ve so far read The Birchbark House which I really enjoyed. When/if you read the Little House books, you’ll see Caroline Ingalls, very sadly, can be quite a racist when it comes to the Native Americans.
Oh, I agree with Cate about the Little House series! I read and re-read that series as a kid.
The Hobbit is a perfect choice, as is Harry Potter. My eldest daughter loves the Little House series and I read them as a child, but never got into them. It was a little too “and then and then and then” for me, even then. I feel awful for being unable to think of a single female author I enjoyed as a kid. I’m sure there was one. I read a lot of Paulsen, O’Dell, Avi, and similar.