Molly's birthday is coming up

[naomikritzer]

...and she informed me tonight that she wants books for her birthday. I asked her why she wants books as a gift when we go to the library every week, and she said that she wants me to get her books she would enjoy re-reading.

So I am soliciting suggestions. She's currently a big fan of Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden. She's read The Wizard of Oz twice. I'm thinking about getting her a nice edition of Little Women, but other suggestions are welcomed. What did you read over and over and over as a kid?

The books I read over and over as a kid are mostly already on Molly's shelves. Some she's read and enjoyed (A Little Princess); others she's picked up and put down without reading very far (A Wrinkle in Time), and some she's ignored so far (The Westing Game, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Emily of New Moon.)

Comments

[journeywoman.livejournal.com]

Maybe the Chronicles of Prydain? The Little House on the Prairie series?

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

Yes, those. Also Scott Corbett's Trick series. And _Half Magic_. Do you think she's old enough for _Over Sea, Under Stone_? The mother of the local child who will be 7 on Sunday thinks Cooper is still too scary for the time being. (Cooper has a new book, _The Magician's Boy_, aimed at younger kids, but I don't recommend that to anyone.)

My reading tastes as a child were quite different from Molly's. My aunt gave me a big box of her old books, with _Little Women_ and a fair few sequels. I don't think I managed more than a few chapters until I was in high school. There were also a lot of Nancy Drew books in the box, and I never found those readable at all. The books in that box I reread a lot were _Black Beauty_, _Charlotte's Web_, and _Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm_.

After <i>Half Magic</i>

[dtm]

The Five Children and It, especially since that may make allusions to other books that she'll then have to go check out from the library.

I forget, has she already been introduced to the Railway Children?

Re: After <i>Half Magic</i>

[naomikritzer]

We have the Railway Children around. She started it but did not finish it sometime in the last year, I think.

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

Anything by Lloyd Alexander.
The rest of the Baum-written Oz books.
Narnia.

[parasitegirl.livejournal.com]

The rest of the Oz books. The Baum stuff is the best but...well.. it's sort of hard to stop once you're addicted.

[silkblade.livejournal.com]

Secret Garden. Island of the Blue Dolphins.

I really liked books of fairy tales.

[rarelylynne.livejournal.com]

These were the two I was thinking of, too.

[halspacejock.livejournal.com]

Enid Blyton? You didn't mention them, but the Adventure and Mystery books are cool, as are the Famous Fives.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I bet the great books you remember from your childhood have been replaced mysteriously by racist sexist Blyton books. That was certainly my experience -- I couldn't believe I'd just read past all that, but I had.

[halspacejock.livejournal.com]

I re-read Island of Adventure just a couple of weeks ago and nothing really raised my hackles. (For most of it I was standing outside a mall waiting for the family, so my attention wasn't 100%) But yes, I'm sure some of the books can mirror prevailing attitudes of the time.

[apis-mellifera.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, that happened to me with the Cherry Ames books. I was really distressed when I started rereading them a few years back (I collect them) and noticed all the really awful anti-Japanese stuff I completely missed when I was a kid (the first handful of books are set during and just after WW2).

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

I had exactly the same experience.

I also couldn't believe what complete rubbish The Five Little Peppers... turned out to be, with every character bursting into tears half a dozen times in every chapter. Very disappointing.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

At that age, Z loved and endlessly re-read the Moomin books by Tove Janssen, starting with Finn Family Moomintroll.

[mindyklasky.livejournal.com]

Harriet the Spy, by Louise Fitzhugh.
The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norman Juster.
The Borrowers series, by Mary Norton.

Hmmm... I'll think some more...

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm like a lot of your other readers -- the Prydain Chronicles/Lloyd Alexander in general (the Vesper Holly stuff is good lighter-hearted adventure with a female protagonist); all the Oz stuff through the first two authors; Phantom Tollbooth; Narnia; Susan Cooper. I was into the Wrinkle in Time stuff but if she's not, oh well. Also, being just girly enough, I got a million books about horses by Marguerite Henry and especially Walter Farley (though in retrospect maybe he was kinda sexist?) and read them a ton. And I owned a ton of Nancy Drew, but you've got that covered :).

Also, Greek mythology. Does she do nonfiction? I had Bulfinch's because I was hardcore that way, but there's D'Aulaire's and stuff if you don't think she'll go for it.

Also, your friendly neighborhood children's librarian.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Noel Streatfeild. Gordon Korman. D'Aulaire's Norse Gods and Giants, which is now D'Aulaire's Book of Norse Myths. The Westing Game. Zilpha Keatley Snyder. Elizabeth Enright.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I know you already said The Westing Game. Sorry; early.

AHA!

[dtm]

Thank you for the pointer on the new title.

I had Norse Gods and Giants as a kid and my dad gave my copy away. I had basically given up any hope of getting a copy again (since, last time I checked, it was out of print and cheap collectors' copies were $75 - that was in 2002 or so)

But now, armed with the new title, I see that it's in print and available for a price I'd be willing to pay from Amazon.

Re: AHA!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I always had it from the library. And by always, I mean always: I would check it out as often as I could manage. So last year's birthday copy made me incoherent with joy.

[1crowdedhour.livejournal.com]

Joan Aiken's The Wolves of Willoughby Chase

[terrie01.livejournal.com]

The book I read and reread every year was Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH.

[apis-mellifera.livejournal.com]

I second Elizabeth Enright, but I'm going to suggest Gone-Away Lake instead of the, uh, other series that everyone else loves and which I couldn't get into. Gone-Away Lake is probably my favorite childhood book.

The Trumpet of the Swan was another favorite of mine when I was about her age (I always liked it better than Charlotte's Web or Stuart Little).

And there's the Little House books, too. Which have aged surprisingly well, but you'd do best to get copies sooner rather than later, because the stinking publisher is going to be getting rid of the Garth Williams illustrations in the paperbacks at some point (BLASPHEMY).

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

And there's the Little House books, too. Which have aged surprisingly well, but you'd do best to get copies sooner rather than later, because the stinking publisher is going to be getting rid of the Garth Williams illustrations in the paperbacks at some point (BLASPHEMY).

BLASPHEMY is right! What are they thinking??

My aunt just got DD the Little House books for her birthday, and now that I hear this I'm very much relieved that we didn't wait another couple of years.

[apis-mellifera.livejournal.com]

In the news article I read, I believe the rationale was that they were trying to make them more "relevant" to modern readers--they're putting photographs of a girl dressed as Laura on the covers, I believe.

What I need to do is start buying the books in hardback--I actually don't currently own a set, which is also blasphemy.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

You know, I don't like it when publishers do that. The books are about the nineteenth century and were written and illustrated (almost) in the nineteenth century. The illustrations are authentic and work really well with the text. (Also, they're great illustrations. I was flipping through Little House in the Big Woods last night, and four-year-old Laura's facial expressions? Classic!) If it ain't broke...

[joxn.livejournal.com]

At Molly's age, I read Enid Blyton, Little House, Doctor Who novelizations (the slim ones which were essentially retellings of the TV scripts), and a bunch of books in an abridged-for-children series (Treasure Island, Hound of the Baskervilles, various Dickens). I was on the cusp of being able to read stuff like the Great Brain, the Ramona books, and real Sherlock Holmes stories.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

At that age I was into Laura Ingalls Wilder, Narnia, E. Nesbit (Five Children and It, The Story of the Amulet, etc.), Frances Hodgson Burnett (A Little Princess and The Secret Garden especially), Eve Garnett's One End Street books, Beverly Cleary, Enid Blyton, the Borrowers, Little Women, and lots of abridged-for-childrens (Black Beauty, some Stevenson, some Twain, and The Three Musketeers are the ones I remember), Bubble and Squeak (which is about guinea pigs or hamsters or something) by Philippa Pearce, Charlotte's Web, and everything by Noel Streatfeild that I could get my hands on. I also adored The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew, but I discovered recently that those books stand up to re-reading even less well than the Enid Blytons or Cherry Ameses mentioned above.

That was also the year I read the abridged-for-children Jane Eyre, which I think I've mentioned before that I don't recommend for seven-year-olds ...

[malachitefer.livejournal.com]

Hmm... Books I was obsessed with at about Molly's age...
Walter Farley - check
Lloyd Alexander's Prydain - check
Little House - check
Marguerite Henry - check
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH - check
Trumpet of the Swan - check
Black Beauty - check

and unmentioned so far:
Swiss Family Robinson (yes, sexist, but I had decided by then that I was going to grow up to be a boy, so it didn't bother me)
the Moomintroll books, especially Finn Family Moomintroll and Comet in Moominland.

[cmpriest.livejournal.com]

Howliday Inn, Bunnicula, and the Celery Stalks at Midnight, by Deborah and James Howe. Awesome, awesome, and awesome. My favorite books as a kid.

[kerryp.livejournal.com]

Besides Harriet the Spy and the Cherry Ames series (which was already mentioned)
James and the Giant Peach
The Hobbit
The Story of King Arthur and his Knights by Howard Pyle
The Mad Scientists' Club by Bertrand R. Brinley and Charles Geer
Alice's Adventures Underground

[notthatedburke.livejournal.com]

Oh, I've read Alice's Adventures Under Ground. It's a good book, and I'm sure Molly would like it, but I rather suspect she'd prefer the book that it turned in to, and we've already got that one.

I don't believe we currently have Sylvie and Bruno though...

[haddayr.livejournal.com]

I read and re-read the Laura Ingalls Wilder books at her age and beyond.

[penmage.livejournal.com]

Old Books: Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising sequence.

New Books: My favorite new book at the moment is The Shadow Thieves (http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Thieves-Cronus-Chronicles/dp/141690588X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-9482201-8387132?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1186786838&sr=8-1), by Ann Ursu. It is smart and brilliantly written, and wonderful, and while it has a sequel, it doesn't end with a cliffhanger. I really can't recommend it enough.

[notthatedburke.livejournal.com]

Just what Molly needs...more books.

[naomikritzer]

It's what she asked for. Well, that or a Nellie doll. Come to think of it, what DOES Molly need more of?

[elizabethth.livejournal.com]

Come on now, wanting more books is good and healthy and normal, isn't it? (Speaking here as a long-time book accumulator, not as a purveyor.)

[notthatedburke.livejournal.com]

Oh, wanting more books is healthy. I'm not sure putting more books into her room would be healthy. Maybe we can rent her a storage locker.

[elizabethth.livejournal.com]

I spent a chunk of my teen years trying to figure out what was wrong with the "decorate your room like this" pictures in teen-girl magazines, and finally realized that none of their oh-so-cute decorating schemes included three large bookcases. One of those light-bulb moments in life.

[elizabethth.livejournal.com]

(Accidentally posted as a reply to another comment, then deleted and reposted as a new comment.)

Does she get the same favorites over and over again from the library? Because I did, and would have loved to own copies of those titles. (I mostly do now, but it took me years to find some of them.)

How about Pat Wrede's Dragon series? And some Diana Wynne Jones?

Frankly, most of what I loved as a kid makes me cringe at least a little when I read it now. Eilonwy is pretty much a Disney princess, and Meg Murry is a whiner. The Little House books are interesting as a view of Midwestern history, complete with the racist bits. Which is not to say I don't love them anymore, but I've spent decades trying to get ideas out of my brain that I absorbed from books when I was a kid. And I'm thinking about that, because lots of posts on my friends page this week are talking about IBARW. We should be careful what we pour into those porous little brains.

[naomikritzer]

We have Pat Wrede and she won't pick it up. We have Tamora Pierce and she won't pick it up. We do not have Diana Wynne Jones -- well, we don't have her children's books, we do have the Tough Guide to Fantasyland. I think Molly will richly appreciate that book someday, but not yet.

The "porous brains" and "racist children's books" issue is a big one for me, and honestly, I am not sure how to deal with it. Molly reads a LOT of children's books that were written in the 1950s and 1960s, because they tend to hit her level just right. They're meaty enough to be interesting, but written for her sensibility (no sex, no graphic violence, no incomprehensible themes like drug addiction...)

For the most part, black people are simply absent from these books. Which is not optimal, but when we're talking about books written by white people in the 1950s, probably just as well. But Native Americans are frequently present. What's really interesting is that the really overt vicious crap like the open bigotry in the Little House books is relatively easy to address because it's so obvious in its evil. What stymies me are the books that are written from a pro-Native-American perspective by writers in an era that did not understand that patronizing depictions of noble savages who are saved by ten-year-old children (see, for example, the Great Brain series) are also seriously problematic. How do you even begin to explain this issue to a six-year-old? But Molly reads VORACIOUSLY and this problem crops up EVERYWHERE. And I don't like censoring her reading, aside from noting when a book might be pretty disturbing or scary. And the Great Brain series is fabulous, and so are many of the other books that have similar problems. (Caddie Woodlawn, for example.)

[elizabethth.livejournal.com]

Seems like there should be some counter-programming available, to give a different perspective. Maybe you can get some suggestions from the Carl Brandon Society folks. Because we're clearly a mainly white bunch who grew reading mainly white authors.

[murumatsu.livejournal.com]

two authors I haven't seen mentioned yet that I'd think might be good:
Lois Lowry & Jean Little (the first will be easy to find, but not the second--I loved the Little books in elementary school, and they stand up well to re-reading (and she's kept on writing more).

[naomikritzer]

She loved the Anastasia Krupnik series.

Jean Little -- we have two of her books, both of them memoirs, basically. Molly hasn't read them yet.

[olddog299.livejournal.com]

Frankly, I don't really remember reading books that "stayed with me" all that much at seven. But shortly thereafter, I was trading my Hardy Boys and Tom Swift series volumes with the red haired girl up the lane for her Nancy Drew mysteries, simply because we'd exhausted most of the stuff available at school (a one-room school house) and the bookmobile. We were reading some Mark Twain, particularly the expurgated versions of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, cowboy and and indian tales, as well as most of what has already been mentioned. The Oz stories, some Dickens, all was grist for our voracious reading appetites. The Brothers Grimm (originals) and the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tales and folk tales were a constant bedside companion in those years, Treasure Island and Robinson Caruso were also regular re-reads. I don't know how much that'll help, but they're options to consider.

wil