Books my Mother Read Me

[Mara]

The Indian in the Cupboard Series by Lynne Reid Banks



The Indian in the Cupboard
The Return of the Indian
The Secret of the Indian
The Mystery of the Cupboard
The Key to the Indian

Like many series (including Prydain, above) my mother only read us aloud the first of these, and we went on to read others ourselves. I think my brother and I only made it up to the third in the series, because the rest were published when we were a little older and had lost interest.

A nice, creative series, though, and one that I think would be particularly good for young boys or reluctant readers. It's the story of Omri, who discovers that an old cupboard and key can bring plastic figures to life and through time when locked inside. Most notably, he brings to life Little Bear, a 19th century Indian.

The book has fun with differences both cultural, generational, and fantasical between the two as they eventually become friends. The difference is size leads to some Borrowers-esque creativity, but most of the conflict comes from the unwise re-enlivening of other plastic figures.

No explanation is ever given (as far I as know) for the magical properties of the cupboard, but if you can suspend your disbelief enough to swallow the premise, it's good fun.

[Mara]

Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie, sometimes published as Peter and Wendy or Peter Pan and Wendy



This is one of several books on this list that really shouldn't be confused with the film edition. Nothing against the Disney version, really, but it isn't a good indication of what is in the novel. Some feathers have been ruffled by the emergent romantic feelings displayed by the children in the book, but I thought that was realistic and gently played. The biggest difference, though, is that the book is pretty violent-- brutal, in places. I remember the first time we read it and my mother paused a moment before finishing a sentence that ended with "mopping up the blood."

With that heads-up aside, though, I think the stripping of all violence from childrens' books is a mistake. Children are naturally inclined to anger as well as any other emotion, and the catharsis of reading about violence without necessarily participating in it can be very healthy. If your kids start trying to scalp each other after reading the book, well, then, it's time for a little talk.

From a psychological perspective, though, I think that Peter Pan is really fascinating to children. I'm actually a fan of the pro-Freudian text The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales by Bruno Bettelheim, and I think he would argue that the fear of growing up in a profound anxiety for children, and that the myth of the boy who rejected his parents and chose to remain a child forever-- contrasted with Wendy, who chose to return to her parents and become a woman-- can help them think and play through those fears.

[Mara]

The Oz Books by L. Frank Baum



The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The Marvelous Land of Oz
Ozma of Oz
Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz
The Road to Oz
The Emerald City of Oz
The Patchwork Girl of Oz
Tik-Tok of Oz
The Scarecrow of Oz
Rinkitink in Oz
The Lost Princess of Oz
The Tin Woodman of Oz
The Magic of Oz
Glinda of Oz

This is one of the rare series that I know my mother read all of them out loud to us. Kurosawa Fan (sorry!) recently criticized the prose style of the novel, but I was honestly too young when we read them to be that discerning about style.

What I knew, and still know, is that these are truly imaginitive books. Baum never seemed to run out of crazy characters and bizarre creatures. The characterizations were wonderful. (As a child, I was a huge fan of Ozma, much more than Dorothy. It probably helped that she was lovely in the illustrations.)



Actually, googling that image has brought it all back, for a moment. I wanted to be Ozma.

In terms of wacky creatures, though, by favorite was Tik-Tok, the round copper robot.

[Mara]

The Paddington Bear Books by Michael Bond



A Bear Called Paddington
More About Paddington
Paddington Helps Out
Paddington Abroad
Paddington at Large
Paddington Marches On
Paddington at Work
Paddington Goes to Town
Paddington Takes the Air
Paddington's Garden
Paddington's Blue Peter Story Book a.k.a. Paddington Takes to TV
Paddington on Top
Paddington Takes the Test
Paddington Rules the Waves
Paddington Here and Now


Wow. There are a lot of these. I'm fairly certain we only read two or three.

Paddington is a great character, and he's really what sells this fish-out-of-water story. The Brown family finds him, wearing a raincoat and a floppy hat, at Paddington station. He has journeyed from Darkest Peru, and has a tag on his coat that says, "Please look after this bear." As a walking and talking animal, Paddington is polite and gentle, but constantly flustered by a big world he doesn't understand.

The manners and social rules that Paddington learns in the books contributed, along with several other books on this list, to a misapprehension I had as a child that I lived in England.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Someone in the Book Discussion Thread recently criticized the prose style of the novel, but I was honestly too young when we read them to be that discerning about style.

:sad:

I'm only a "someone" to you now?

[Mara]

Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink



Carol Brink apparently based this novel on the pioneer experiences of her grandmother, who raised her. Set in an early settlement in Wisconsin, Caddie is presented as an irrepressable red-haired tomboy, who consistently rejects the more traditional role espoused by her mother in order to slip out and have wild adventures. The novel also has a very sympathetic and thoughtful view of the Indians in the area, with whom Caddie has a close relationship.

Despite the more pro-feminist agenda of this novel, I have to admit that I'm a bigger fan on the Laura Ingalls Wilder books (which will be showing up on the list later.)

[Mara]

:sad:

I'm only a "someone" to you now?

Oh, like I was going to go and look it up. I think you underestimate my laziness.


Humph.




*runs off to edit post*

[Mara]

A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett



This book is a victim of the Misleading Title Syndrome. There is no princess in this book, and readers who expect it to be a fantasy novel are going to be disappointed.

Which is a shame, because this is a particularly charming and moving work.

It's the story of Sarah Crewe, who is the pampered and beloved daughter of a rich widower in India. At the age of seven, she is sent back to England to a girls' boarding school run by the fawning and devious Miss Minchen. Sarah is unfailingly kind and gentle, even to those who are considered beneath her (like the scullery maid, who becomes a friend.) Sarah's most powerful obsession, however, is in imagination. She loves to read and tell stories, and pretend that she is a princess. (Hence the title.)

After the first couple of years in the school, however, Sarah's father dies and leaves her penniless. Miss Minchen turns on her with a vengeance, and forces her to become virtually a slave in the household, living with hunger and filth and disdain, in order to keep from being turned out on the street. This, of course, is the true test of Sarah's character, to see if she can remain a good and hopeful person after all her advantages are taken away.

The book is virtuous and gentle without being didactic, and some of the moral moments are actually quite moving. A starving and miserable Sarah, at one point, discovers a sixpence in the snow and buys herself some hot rolls at the bakery. Upon leaving, however, she is confronted by a begger child, and slowly ends up feeding her all the rolls but one, because she cannot bear to watch the girl suffer.

...I think I'm going to go home and reread this book. It's been years.

[Mara]

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett



I love this one.

Forget all the film and stage adaptations. They have a few charms, but really pale in comparison to the original, which is a classic for a very good reason.

Mary Lennox is a sour, unhappy, unloved child raised by English parents in India until her entire household is wiped out by an outbreak of the Cholera. She is therefore bundled off to live with a sad and mostly absent uncle in Yorkshire, which is wet and cold and alienating.

Mary eventually becomes influenced by the only two people she ever sees; Martha the chambermaid and Ben the gardner, and begins to be interested in the outside world, especially the gardens. Her worldview shifts entirely when she manages to find the "secret" garden on the grounds of the manor, which has been walled off for a decade after the mistress of the house died there. Mary is eventually introduced to her even more ill and unhappy cousin Colin, and both of them are introduced to the poor (but happy and healthy) Dickon, who loves wild creatures and the outdoors.

Dickon teaches them how to care for the garden, which eventually heals their bodies and minds, letting them learn to love other people and creatures.

This book heavily romanticizes the outdoors as a place of healing and growth, which is an idea that has never quite left me.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Oh, like I was going to go and look it up. I think you underestimate my laziness.


Humph.




*runs off to edit post*

Your laziness is forgiven. I'm the last person who can admonish others for that particular trait.

[thefourthwall]

We continued reading aloud to each other occasionally, especially on family vacations. Now, as adults, we have been communting to and from work together and we still read.

I love this thread, although I'm going to work to remember what my parents were reading to me. My friends and I will do this now whenever we're on road trips. I love it!

The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander

Awesome x 5 books = Awesome to the fifth power, which is pretty awesome, which is what these books are.

The Search for Delicious by Natalie Babbit

I also love this one and quote it constantly when I partake of what the book finally deems as 'delicious'.

[Mara]

I also love this one and quote it constantly when I partake of what the book finally deems as 'delicious'.

Oh, yay! Not too many people have read this book, in my experience, so it's always fun to find someone who has. The final definition of delicious is quite brilliant.

[Mara]

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and what Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll



These two books are often mixed up by silly people. The first involves Alice falling asleep outside, falling down a rabbit hole, and getting involved with a deck of cards. The second involves her accidently slipping through the mirror inside her living room to an alternate version of her own house, where she gets involved with an elaborate chess game. Cards. Chess. Different.

Anyhoo, these books are nonsensical, fantasy-like, and just about as creepy as literature gets. Yes, Carroll (Dodgson, really) was a weirdo. Yes, he probably did a bunch of drugs. There is an anti-logical bent to the books, which float between characters and places the same way dreams do. Through the Looking Glass is particularly dark and disconcerting. As a child, I found the atmosphere fascinating.

As a side note, I deliberately didn't choose to put any books of childrens' poetry on this list, but I really must point out how great Carroll's poetry is for children. It's nonsensical, lyrical, and memorable. To this day, I can quote all of Jabberwocky and How Doth the Little Crocodile and You Are Old, Father William all the way through.

[Mara]

The Tripod Trilogy by John Christopher



The White Mountains
The City of Gold and Lead
The Pool of Fire

There's a prequel, too, but I was never a fan.

If the Prydain are good for a child's first fantasy series, this is probably the counterpart for a child's first science fiction series. All the main characters are boys, as well, which is unusual and nice for masculine readers.

This series takes place in the future, when a very large portion of the human race has been wiped out, and those who are left live peacably on farms and in small communities. All children are "capped" when they are fourteen years old, when giant metal tripods (which they worship) come to the villages and take the children away briefly. When they return, they are shaven and small metal caps have been surgically melded to their heads, making them docile and amenable.

The story follows a young man, Will, who begins to believe the rumors that there are still pockets of free, uncapped men in the world and so, at thirteen, he runs away from home and goes in search of them. He is eventually joined by two young companions as they travel through what we would call England and France, going into Switzerland (the White Mountains.)

It's quite an adventure, and very tense and scary at times. The first book is basically a long chase between the tripods and our heroes. In the second book (my favorite) Will goes undercover into the tripods' secret world, and in the third the human race tries to fight back against its oppressors. It's all very exciting.

[Mara]

The Ramona Series by Beverly Cleary



Beezus and Ramona
Ramona the Pest
Ramona the Brave
Ramona and Her Father
Ramona and Her Mother
Ramona Quimby, Age 8
Ramona Forever
Ramona's World

I only read up through Ramona Forever, because the last one was published fairly recently.

Cleary wrote many classic books, but this series was special to me, probably because I was just about Ramona's age when my mother read them to me (between kindergarten and third grade) and I was also kind of a pain.

Let's be honest: our favorite child characters are those who behave badly.

The books, as I recall, are funny and thoughtful and geared towards very young readers.

[Mara]

The Dark is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper



Over Sea, Under Stone
The Dark is Rising
Greenwitch
The Gray King
The Silver on the Tree

You know, I really need to reread these. I'd forgotten a great deal about them, but remembered enough to be offended when they tried to adapt the second book in the series a year or two back, and it looked terrible.

This is a good fantasy series for the middle years-- say, 8-11 years old. It draws heavily on Arthurian legend, and in my favorite of the series, The Grey King they get heavily into Welsh folklore. Other than that, my memories are a little bit hazy-- it's a huge epic struggle between a family of siblings and The Dark. I really should dig these out again.

[Ezee E]

Boxcar Children, Wrinkle in Time, The Bible, The Indian in the Cupboard (the first few at least, I hated one of them in the series and just stopped), and Paddington Bear are the ones I remember the most. Although I did most of the reading to the parents.

[Mara]

Boxcar Children

We never read these, and I feel like I'm left out a little bit, because a bunch of people in my generation did. Are they really good? (Like, worth visiting as an adult?)

A Wrinkle in Time is going to show up on this list. I'm not counting the Bible as read-aloud time, since it was for instruction instead of pleaure. Also, my dad would read instead of my mom.

By the way, my dad (step-dad, actually) is getting a little bit ignored in this thread. He did read us picture books when we were very young, and would sometimes tell us stories he made up at bedtime. When it came to bonding with the children, though, he was much more into play and games than books.

[Mara]

The BFG by Roald Dahl



I would almost consign this to being one of Dahl's "minor" works (although even they are quite enjoyable) except that, even as an adult, I still can't quite get over how much I love the way that the Big Friendly Giant talks.

"The matter with human beans is that they is absolutely refusing to believe in anything unless they is actually seeing it right in front of their own schnozzles."

The story is actually quite slight, although chock-full of Dahl's somewhat macabre sensibilities. In this one a young orphan, Sophie, encounters the BFG, who likes to create dreams that he trumpets into the bedrooms of sleeping children. Unfortunately, his giant brethren are hulking savages who like to gobble children up.

A cute story (I think): Just last week, my somewhat serious-minded brother-in-law came over and was using my computer to conduct some business. While he was waiting for a reply to an e-mail, he picked up a copy of The BFG and began reading it. I got nothing out of him but "mm-hmms" for the next hour, because he couldn't quite put it down. This from a twenty-nine year old man! I was quite amused.

[megladon8]

You've got some wonderful looking books here, Mara, but I'm sad to say I haven't read any of them save "Tuck Everlasting".

And I'm in the "parents didn't read to me much" camp as well. We often looked at books together - usually National Geographic books about the ocean - but most reading I did myself.

[Mara]

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl



This entry is unusual, because not only did I like the film adaptation of this book, I liked it twice.

Still, obviously, the book is the best. It mixes up the fantastical with the nonsensical in a mish-mash of escapism. The descriptions of the inside of the magical chocolate factory are a child's wonderland, with strange creatures and concoctions and, of course, with just about everything being edible.

And, as previously mentioned, it's always fun to watch children behaving badly. The kids are little demons in this one (although our hero Charlie is a saint.) Veruca is my favorite.

[Mara]

You've got some wonderful looking books here, Mara, but I'm sad to say I haven't read any of them save "Tuck Everlasting".

Really? There's a few of these you really shouldn't miss, even as an adult. The ones I feel that strongest about are coming up later, I think, but I'll point them out as I go.

[megladon8]

Really? There's a few of these you really shouldn't miss, even as an adult. The ones I feel that strongest about are coming up later, I think, but I'll point them out as I go.

I've also read "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory".

*nods*

[Mara]

James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl



I don't know if this would still be my favorite Dahl book, but it certainly was when I read it. It's the tale of a boy, James, who accidently spills a bag of magical greenish things on the ground, where they get into the roots of a peach tree, and also into several insects. The insects become enormous, and end up living inside the pit of the giant peach, which grows off the tree. James eventually joins them, and the peach rolls off into the ocean, where they have adventures.

It sounds a little silly when I write it out, but trust me-- Dahl makes it charming.

As a side-note, I was an adult when the Harry Potter books first came out, and I was skeptical. I bought the first one, and the first couple of chapters reminded me very strongly of the first chapter in James and the Giant Peach. I figured if the book was reminding me of Dahl, it was doing something right.

[megladon8]

Read that one, too :lol: