Children's classics

[Ayla]

I fantasise about collecting up all the classics for my children to read. Sometimes I over-think it though and I wonder if that's a good thing or a bad thing? I have fond memories of a lot of the classics but now I wonder what messages they were imparting early on. It's all part of conditioning, isn't it?

Anyway, I keep a rough list in my head and these are the books I want to fill our shelves with,


Harry Potter series
Faraway Tree series
Narnia series
Little House on the Prairie series
The Hobbit
Watership Down
Charlotte's Web
Peter Rabbit
Most (all?) of the Beatrix Potter books
Roald Dahl books


Ohhh, I just found this (www.hbook.com/pdf/childrensclassics.pdf) and they have great suggestions too! Pippi Longstocking, Bridge to Teribithia, Mary Poppins, Island of the Blue Dolphins (I adored that book), Hundred Dresses, The Borrowers, Winnie-the-Pooh, Sword in the Stone, Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Jungle Book, Little Women, Hans Christian Anderson books, Peter Pan, Wind in the Willows, The Secret Garden, Robin Hood, the Diary of Anne Frank, Seven Little Australians, Enid Blyton books, Anne of Green Gables, Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea...

Seeing those titles evokes many memories of my childhood, imagining myself on those adventures, the magic and wonder, and also how much I learned from those tales. Like the Little Matchstick Girl, such a sad tale and so unfair, or the Island of the Blue Dolphins and how they survived alone for so long. What are your favourites and do your children love them too?

[Beatrice]

My list is pretty similar to yours :) B's reading the Little House series at the moment. Lots of discussion about social questions raised!

[Ceres]

I've looked back at some of the classics I used to read as a child and am just horrified at the language used in them, and the violence. The big bad wolf being boiled alive, the little match girl dying, the wicked witch being shoved into the fire... Sometimes I wonder if it's a really good idea to read them to my little one! I know fairy tales have important messages and meanings but still..

[Ayla]

I guess it seems violent to us now, but death used to be a regular part of life once upon a time (to coin a phrase ;)). We've kind of become disconnected from death, it's become almost taboo. I don't agree with violent consequences, but death as in the LMG, Charlotte's Web, Seven Little Australians, etc I don't see as bad.

[Chameleon]

while I love Enid Blighton(?) Re read some of her stuff now. it's full of good/bad girl/boy, smaking, doing what your parents tell you to. I love them but don't know if I want D brain washed by it all.

[Janet]

I won't do Beatrix Potter either because the children are always being smacked and punished and sent to bed and they're norty and blablabla. Enid Blyton's children are pretty much the same with good whacks of gender stereotyping thrown in. I love the beautiful English and the pics though but I know what an effort it's been to unpack all the gear it was putting in my head as well as how it underlined all the things from the rest of my life. I don't have a problem with death in stories, just not the kind of overt violence from the Grimm stories, for instance. "Seven little Australians" was wonderful but again, all those girls in white frocks, the standard rebel (see "Little Women" for the same character basically) in Judy, sheesh, not what I want. The Laura Ingalls Wilder stuff has more to it, I think, especially since it's autobiographic and can indeed sponsor those chats about social stuff Beatrice is talking about. I'm up in the air about a lot of it... Even the HP stuff irks me with the boys versus girls talk in the later books. I wish Harry could have been Harriet. ;)

[homebirthmum]

We have just read 'the secret garden' which we loved. The girls are now onto 'the wizard of Oz' which they are loving too.

[Currawong]

ah, now I understand why I always mixed up Seven Little Australians and Little Women, Janet. :)

[Currawong]

We're currently reading The Magic Faraway Tree and ds1 loves it. I try to insert 'Father' for 'Mother' and change the names around a lot to get past the gender stereotyping. I omit the word 'naughty' (I'm not sure ds1 would even know what it means :lol). But he loves it. He's creating worlds in the loungeroom (Cushion World being a notable one) and begs to be read it. I'm reckoning by the time he can read it for himself we'll be onto more modern stuff. And besides, I think the gender stereotyping would be a good opening for discussion about such stuff. He thinks it funny that everyone thinks he's a girl because he's got long hair so he's already aware of that sort of stuff from his own experience.

BTW, The Magic Faraway Tree is NOT the first story in the series (like I thought). The Enchanted Wood is the first one, I think. Don't get fooled like I did. :(

[Ceres]

Word substitution only works until they can read! My 4 yr old corrects me now when I do that.

[Chameleon]

for an older reader John Marsden is great!

[Sarasvati]

Watership Down I already have, I LOVE that book.

I also have the Secret Garden. Plus a few more on that list (HP, hobbit and LOTR - which is definitely readable for children).

[bella]

We have most of the books on that list, and more. I've picked up some series new (like the budget Penguin editions) and almost all of them 2nd hand. You can't get this stuff in the libraries anymore.

[Beatrice]

Tove Janssen's Moomintrolls.
E. Nesbitt (B started reading The Magic City but got distracted by Laura Ingalls Wilder).
Lucy Boston's Children of Green Knowe series.
Frances Hodgson Burnet (I was never much of a fan of The Secret Garden but I LOVED A Little Princess and read it to shreds)
Noel Streatfield
Joan Aiken, especially The Wolves of Willoughby Chase
Lloyd Alexander, The Chronicles of Prydain
Diana Wynne Jones (probably for older kids)
Susan Cooper, The Dark Is Rising series, and Alan Garner's The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath.
101 Dalmatians.
Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons (why oh why did I get rid of my full set?!?!?).

I could go on...I spent my entire childhood reading, I think :lol

[Janet]

Joan Aiken YES!! I was such a budding historian :lol And the Moomintrolls, I remember nothing but loving it. :lol

[Dani]

I would love to get all the books that I loved when I was younger for Ds, just have to remember them all lol

So far DS has on his bookcase:
Harry Potter series
Narnia series
and Charlottes Web, which is really mine but he wanted it on his bookcase :rolleyes

[~*heket*~]

We haven't read any classics to date. My daughter likes other stuff, but classic stuff never ever appeals to her .... not even HP much to my distraction.

I think she might like the May Gibbs Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, I know I loved it.

[Beatrice]

I bought nine of the Arthur Ransome novels on eBay a couple of months ago, and B is stuck into the first one. I got her hooked when I found a copy of the movie (made in the 70s) at the library. Her best friend is also a fan of the books and when they went out on the lake in their little inflatable dinghy of course it was named the Swallow, and the island they visited Wildcat Island :lol

[Blossomtime]

Oohh I loved Swallows and Amazons when I was in my mad keen sailing phase :)

[Beatrice]

Me too :)

[Anaed]

We have a SNugglepot & Cuddlepie book here I detest reading it, same as Blinky bill, so many 'naughties' happening :lol

[Sarasvati]

I wonder if Dot and the Kangaroo is a shocker like that?

I loved Playing Beattie Bow when I was a bit older...

[boy0hboy]

Not classics but the Tashi books are great! I love reading the stories and the boys think they're great too.

Liam is really into The Secret Seven books too.

[Kymade]

Thanks for this thread, I have started making a wish list of what we would like to get!

[Janet]

Oh yes! "Playing Beattie Bow" :) I adored it too. "Cally's Castle" was great as well.

[~*heket*~]

Ok so maybe we don't want to read snugglepot and cuddle pie :lol bugger it!

[Anaed]

Yes lots of spankings too *spew*

[deesalie]

I enjoyed the Paul Jennings books too. Not particularly "classic" but "classic" non the less... if you know what I mean :D

[Ayla]

Oh yeah we need a list of Aussie classics, like the Seven Little Australians, and Megan's Star (I think that was Aussie? I loved it!)

[Beatrice]

K and I are reading our way through Noel Streatfeild at the moment. I find it very interesting when read through the lens of the modern obsession with socialisation as all the kids are educated at home and the rare outside social interaction is very underexplored in the story (where it is mentioned at all), the focus is always on the dynamics within the family.

Before that we read the Laura Ingalls Wilder canon and had a lot of discussion about race and gender. And I've just discovered Louise Erdrich's book The Birchbark House which looks like it would be a useful look at the other side of the story of American colonisation.

[Beatrice]

I bought a copy of Birchbark House but I can't for the life of me figure out what I did with it :runcry

I have to add Rosemary Manning's Green Smoke series. A dragon who lives in a cave on a beach in Cornwall and meets a young girl called Sue who he tells Arthurian legends and takes on magical trips. Another one I read to shreds when I was a kid, and K adored it too. One thing I love about reading these with my kids is discovering that my favourites are part of a series. I only ever had Green Smoke as a kid and then discovered that there are four of them. Still trying to track down two.

Oh, and I MUST add the Bottersnikes and Gumbles series by S A Wakefield to the list of Australian classics. Shamefully out of print, but I snap these up whenever I see them in op shops - I plan to bequeath my kids a full set each :lol

[birthdance]

The Magic Faraway Tree books have been re-released late last year (the large format illustrated ones) with the language modernised. They've removed the references to spankings and slaps and replaced it with being shouted at. The kid's names have also been changed - we now have Joe, Beth, Frannie and Rick rather than Jo, Bessie, Fanny and Dick. I think the word 'gay' has been replaced too. I'm a bit in two minds about how I feel about the publishers messing with the orignal language, which is a reflection of it's time, but it might make the books more palatable to some readers. My four-year-old boy adores them. :)

I remember LOVING Enid Blyton's 'Famous Five' series when I was around 10, but looking back they're probably horribly sexist. I'm just a sucker for all those stories about shipwrecks and smugglers and hidden passengers. Also 'The Three Investigators' series - probably from the 70s? Can't remember who wrote them though.

[SunflowerMum]

There are so many of those titles on our shelves :) My sister and I have decided that we're going to pick a classic book each year to contribute to the bookshelf, as a gift from my kids to her kids and vice-versa (also helps to save on the crazy shipping costs). DD read through The Faraway Tree series that she got for Christmas, and as with some of the language in Beatrix Potter, Roald Dahl and other books written in a different generation, we talk about how they used different words and had different ideas back then with regards to so many things (discipline and gender stereotypes being just a couple of them). We've also had other Aussie classics like Seven Little Australians, The Magic Pudding and Blinky Bill sent our way by my family, and I find alot of those same issues there too, and through talking about it we're able to put it in context.

There's a local kids theatre group here that are putting on a production of "The Secret Garden" in May that we're looking forward to - I'm planning on getting the book from the library to refresh our memories about the story before we go. It'll be interesting though now, because dd6 will be able to read the book herself!

[Kris]

DH read The Magic Pudding aloud to the children and they adored it, as well as the Muddle Headed Wombat which made bed times very noisy with laughter. None of my children liked the May Gibbs books and DD1's reaction to 7 Little Australians was absolute horror.

I see the Grimms as having some valuable life lessons in them and am less shocked by their violence than the casual sledging and violence in many of the popular series today.

We're creating our classics' collection with HP, the Charlie Bone series, most (if not all) of the Tamora Pierce series (want strong women who have adventures because of who they are not because of what's between their legs? Head there). The Little Fur series, Cornelia Funke gets a big tick here. E.Nesbitt we all adore and every time we read one everyone wanders about shouting "My Hat!". A.A.Milne is the perfect classic for the smallest people. I'm also going to include Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching series here too.