Friday, February 16, 2007

25. A Child's First Love and Books

My most recent column reviewing juvenile and young adult books is in Friday's Marianas Variety. You can read it on line here:

AChild'sFirstLove

Let me know what you think.

And feel free to tell me what books you loved as a child and any recommendations you have for books to review in the column.

9 comments:

Angelo Villagomez said...

Where the Red Fern Grows, the Narnia Series, and anything about baseball

Anonymous said...

The Wizard of Oz (and other Oz books)
Alice In Wonderland
The Phantom Tollbooth
A Christmas Carol
Harriet the Spy
The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe
Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Free To Be... You And Me
Call Of The Wild

When I was very young:
Frederick
Corduroy
Stevie
The Night Kitchen

** I give copies of Frederick, Free To Be, and The Phantom Tollbooth to my young friends.

KAP said...

Lot's and lots, but Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.

Dr Seuss
Dr Seuss.
Dr Seuss!

Fun to read out loud and fun to hear.

Saipan Writer said...

Angelo, I'm always surprised by the popularity of pre-Potter fantasy. I haven't read a lot of fantasy, but it is the fastest growing, most popular genre now.

Excelsior,
The Gilda Joyce mid-grade I reviewed in the February column has been compared by several reviewers to Harriet the Spy.

Ken,
When I was five, my Aunt Eleanor gave me a Seuss book called On Beyond Zebra, about the alphabet letters after A to Z, what you can do with imagination. That sparked my first desire to be a writer (a desire that years of another career has not killed and that I am finally allowing room to grow).

L Sweet said...

How much space do you have?(Smile).
Childhood books were:
-The Hobbit, The Fellowship of the Ring
-The Chronicles of Narnia
-Harriet the Spy
-Are you there God? It's me, Margaret.
-Nancy Drew (that's me showing my age!)
-Pippi Longstocking
-Anne of Green Gables
- Pilgrim's Progress (my parent's had a cool illustrated version)
As a very young girl, my big sister and I were read Curious George and Dr. Seuss. We also had the Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls and books.

Books I recommend now, especially to the middle school/high school crowd I teach are:
Anything by Chris Wooding
Anything by Holly Black
Faerie War and The Faerie Emperor
Lava Girl and Shark Boy
Here be Monsters
Abarat
Peter and the Starcatchers
The Ninth Life of Louis Drax
Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town
Midnight Magic
The Diary of Charlotte Doyle
The Sign of the Crescent
The People's History of the United States (Zinn)
Lies My Teacher Told Me

Saipan Writer said...

I Sweet,
Thanks for the listings.

I read a lot of mid-grade and YA. I find them in all sorts of ways, from recommendations and browsing. Also I read Horn Book Review, lurk on the Children's Writer's list, hang out on JacketFlap, etc. and yet I haven't read most of the books on your listing of current recommendations. Howard Zinn --yes (the only one). I'd at least heard of Lava Girl and Shark Boy, but the others are new to me.

I'd better get busy!

KAP said...

The kids at Student action for a viable environment have an interesting list.

Samatakah said...

I can't believe I forgot Pippi Longstocking and the Richard Scarry books!

aka Excelsior

Angelo Villagomez said...

I also really liked Call it Courage. I think I read every Newbury award book I came across.