15 Favourite Children’s Books

Reading was one of my favourite activities as a child – still is, in fact – and of course, good children’s books are a pleasure to all ages. Here are some of my favourites, in no particular order.

Wilcox
The Monster at the End of This Book (starring lovable, furry old Grover) and written by Jon Stone. A brilliant example of how you can play with the physical bookness of a book (although I hear the tale has now made an appearance on Twitter).

The House that Sailed Away by Pat Hutchins. Grandma! Cannibals! Pirates! The first time I ever encountered the word posthumous! (Side note: why is it that cannibals are always depicted as boiling people in large iron pots? If you live on a desert island, as such cannibals generally do, where on earth are you going to get a large iron pot from?)

The Search for Delicious by Natalie Babbitt (perhaps better known for her novel Tuck Everlasting). This is the kind of book I hope to be able to write, and you can’t say better than that.

Carved Stone Mermaid Mural
Big Max by Kin Platt is possibly the first detective story I ever read. Big Max is the greatest detective who ever lived. Everyone knew it. The King of Pooka-Pooka knew it, which is why he called Big Max in when his pet elephant Jumbo went missing. It has been decades since I last read this book, but the phrase “The King of Pooka-Pooka knew it” is still current in my family.

My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes is a New Zealand book, written by Eve Sutton (and illustrated by Lynley Dodd, who went on to write the Hairy Maclary books). Cats from around the world do marvelous things, but “my cat likes to hide in boxes.” This book shall forever live in family history as the reason for the following exchange:

Father (who ought to have known better): Look, there’s Mr. Anon! He’s from Norway.
Small children (with gusto): “The cat from Norway –”
Father (knowing how it ends): Shhh! Shhhhh!

Cat refuge (423926200)
Embroidery Mary by Priscilla M Warner is a book that I have loved for years. The little community library where I grew up had the only copy I have ever seen, and great was my delight on the day when it was decommissioned because it had only been borrowed twice in the past ten years (and both of those borrowers were me).

The Warden’s Niece by Gillian Avery tells the story of Maria, a Victorian-era girl who flees her bullying school and is taken in by her uncle, the Warden of an Oxford College – mostly because he is impressed by her dream of becoming Professor of Greek (this was at the point when women had only just been admitted as students).

Mistress Masham’s Repose by T.H. White (better known perhaps for his book The Sword in the Stone and its sequels) is the story of another Maria; a delightfully odd book, full of crumbled grandeurs and vigorous characters. My favourites are Cook (“Any character of yours, Mum,” said Cook superbly, “is what I’d not besmirch my own possession of which with the application of,”) and the classic absent-minded professor.

Beginning reader
Toot by Leslie Patricelli is not a book I enjoyed as a child, mostly because I was in my late twenties by the time it was published. It is a children’s book, however, and it is a favourite, so I make no excuses for including it here. Toilet humour may be considered infra dig by some, but I, like C.S. Lewis, have grown out of wishing to be thought terribly grown up.

Speaking of C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia are such widely cherished favourites that I had probably better be a bit more detailed in my preferences. I particularly enjoyed reading (and re-reading) The Horse and His Boy; and often also The Magician’s Nephew. The Last Battle, on the other hand, I mostly only liked the ending of.

The BFG (by Roald Dahl) is another of those once-read-never-forgotten stories (with, of course, a certain amount of tooting, or rather whizzpopping, of its own). I find it hard to pin down what it is I love about this book, but I do.

The Long Patrol by Brian Jacques was the first Redwall book I ever read – I picked it out by chance in a bookshop – and from the first I loved its unashamed adventurousness. Good stuff.

At A Reading Desk by Frederic Leighton
A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett is one of those books which combines dreamy wish-fulfillment with the comforting knowledge that someone has it worse than you, and if they can hack it with grace – and of course, imagination – then so can you. And of course, everyone gets what they deserve in the end, which is always satisfying.

Of course, not everything I read as a child was fiction. There was the children’s encyclopaedia, for a start. I don’t remember what sort it was, but it came in a number of volumes and was my invariable resort when I’d run out of other reading. But I usually started afresh from the beginning of Volume 1 each time, thus learning a fair bit about Abbeys and Abbots if nothing else.

And there was a book of crafts which I still wish I could find a copy of, full of vintage photos and fun things to make. There was a stuffed toy lamb with wire coat-hangers keeping its legs straight; a gardening set which included a rake and wheelbarrow; and dozens of other things. If anyone knows the book, and where I can find a copy, I shall be greatly indebted to you and all my sorrows shall be at an end.

William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) - The Difficult Lesson (1884)
What are your favourite children’s books? Have you re-read them recently? Feel free to share your recommendations!
Oh, and the cat from Norway, in case it is still preying on your mind, “got stuck in the doorway.”

Read It Again!

Thus goes up the cry from many a small child, with their insatiable desire for the same bedtime story to be told, over and over (and over) again.

Felix Schlesinger Die Gute-Nacht-Geschichte

But it’s not just little kiddies who do it. Scratch a reader and you will find a re-reader – but what is it we’re re-reading? And why?

The winner of the gold medal, blue ribbon and all-around first prize for re-reading (re-readiness?) is the Scriptures; unsurprising given the emphasis so many traditions put on reading, re-reading, memorizing and internalizing the words of God. As Jesus said, these are “foundational words, words to build a life on.” But, leaving the Scriptures aside, as the best-seller lists do (since the same book invariably tops the list), what are the most popular re-reads?

The comments on this post reminded me of the widespread passion for re-reading The Lord of the Rings – and not just re-reading it, but re-reading it again every year. That’s dedication, especially if you aren’t a fast reader.

Some people re-read other classic novels such as Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice or Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, although I have yet to hear of anyone who repeatedly reads War and Peace – apart from Countess Tolstoy, who apparently recopied and edited it seven times. That’s going above and beyond the call of duty, it seems to me. Bearing thirteen children is one thing; reading War and Peace seven times is quite another.

woman writing at desk

Many people obsessively re-read C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia as children, and some continue the habit. I myself, as a child, re-read pretty much everything I could get my hands on, as I was a voracious reader with limited (re)sources. I even read our children’s encyclopaedia by the volume (Vol. 1, Article 1: Abbey, which may be connected to my subsequent interest in all things monastic).

More recently, I have noticed a pattern to my re-reading. When I am tired and want to relax, I read either an old favourite – Agatha Christie, Patricia Wentworth, Ngaio Marsh, Ellis Peters – or a book by an author with whom I am sufficiently familiar to be sure I will enjoy the book. And yes, this means that when I want to relax I almost without exception curl up with a mystery (although I did curl up with The Curse of Chalion the other day).

When I am not in need of book-induced relaxation – when I have more mental energy – I tend more toward the reading of non-fiction. Books about writing, books about whatever I have an interest in at the moment, books which happened to show up in an old box from someone’s grandmother. Reading entirely unfamiliar fiction doesn’t happen as often, unless the book is very compelling when I glance into it, because it doesn’t fit into either of my two settings: Relax or Absorb Information.

Simon Glücklich Hausaufgabe

But once I’ve read a non-fiction book, I seldom feel the inclination to re-read it, and I think this reveals something about why people re-read – or at least why I re-read. I re-read books because there is something in them which I cannot fully obtain from one reading. If it’s non-fiction, it’s because I didn’t absorb enough of the information it contained the first time round.

With fiction, that doesn’t apply. I mean, look at the enormous popularity of P.G. Wodehouse’s novels. Read one, you’ve got a pretty good idea of them all, but that doesn’t stop people reading the rest and then re-reading them. Because the essence of the book isn’t in the facts of it, it’s in something altogether more evanescent. The style of the book, or perhaps its soul. You can’t break that down to its component parts to analyze why it works. The letter kills, but the spirit gives life, you could say.

Or, to steal a structure from Maya Angelou, people will forget what the book said, they’ll forget what the characters did, but they will never forget how the book made them feel. And that, I am convinced, is the secret of all re-reading. Reading the book produced in us a feeling – and with great books it’s a feeling no other book creates – and re-reading the book is the only way to feel that again. This is how reading prescriptions work; and also why we have fan-fiction.

What do you think? What books do you re-read, and why?

The Artist's Way: A Sense of Catching Up

Covering July: a Sense of Connection, August: a Sense of Strength, and September: a Sense of Compassion.
Lightly covering – a crisp linen sheet, say, rather than a fat and puffy quilt.

July revealed such gems as “I believe I am getting better at socks” (knitting them, not the Pratchett kind) and “I feel more possible” (although the Caped Gooseberry assures me I am not only possible, but actual – I think my meaning may have escaped him).
Also “As a kid, we never had enough: books” (whether you can have enough books is debatable; our perceived lack drove me to read encyclopaedias and Agatha Christie at the age of six, so it’s not all bad).

Reading the encyclopedia

August asked me to complete this sentence: In a perfect world I would secretly love to be a…
All right, there’s not much secret about it, but I want to be a full-time writer.
In five years’ time, I’d like to be writing full time with one novel published and two plays produced.
What can I do now to help make that happen?
Write hard on Mondays. Make the most of morning spaces. Get to bed on time.

I was also invited to select a role model. The three women who sprang to mind are not only among my favourite writers (international women of mystery) but are also all three writers who balanced novels and the theatre in some way or another: Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh and Dorothy Sayers.

mystery of marie roget set

The one woman who sprang to mind whom I most certainly do not wish to take for my pattern is P.D. James – at least having a DDJ until reaching retirement age. In the areas of literary achievement, faith and perseverance (not to mention the life peerage) I’d be most happy to follow her example.

Also, if I was a colour, I’d be russet: colour of earth and blood, rich cloth and poor, and the bindings of old books. The colour of autumn leaves, the colour of rust.

September brought an insight – I should stop calling myself lazy. I wrote “you may be scared, self-doubting and self-flagellating, feeling tired, heartsick and guilty – but you are not lazy.”

Procrastination isn’t the result of laziness, Cameron says. It’s the result of fear.  “Fear is what blocks an artist. The fear of not being good enough. The fear of not finishing. The fear of failure and of success. The fear of beginning at all.” (p.152)

There's no fear in love.

Another insight: “Over any extended period of time, being an artist requires enthusiasm more than discipline. Enthusiasm is not an emotional state. It is a spiritual commitment…” (p.153).

Much like marriage: you can’t stay in the same emotional state for 50 years, you need commitment. But commitment shouldn’t be replaced by discipline (hug two three! kiss two three!) because discipline isn’t rooted in love – except perhaps in love with how wonderfully disciplined we are!

The trick is to find our enthusiasm for the task at hand – and how to find it quickly in the pre-dawn dark when getting out of the nice warm bed seems like a particularly sadistic rebirthing technique.

As always, your wisdom welcomed! Or witty folly (better a witty fool than a foolish wit) – we’re not fussy here!

Sinistra Inksteynehand250