Books books books

[rabidsamfan]

I'm working on a replacement order.

What children's books or young adult books do YOU think every library ought to own? (Or do you wish that they did!)

Comments

[febobe.livejournal.com]

Oooooh, this could take some thought. . .here's my preliminary list, some or all of which I'm sure you've thought of already:

The Hobbit
LOTR
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Two Princesses of Bamarre (an especial favourite of mine - one of the best books EVER, IMO)
Ella Enchanted
The Door in the Wall
The Secret Garden
A Little Princess
The Winter Prince

and I'll keep thinking. . .I'm sure I'm missing some!!!!

Thanks,
Febobe :D

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Who's the author on "The Winter Prince"?

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

My brain is fried. But off the top thereof:

The Cartoon History of the Universe vol 1 & 2 might actually get some history into them.
Wild Seed by Octavia Butler
The Earthsea Trilogy AND Tehanu by Ursula K. LeGuin
The Murray-O'Keefe books by L'Engle, but you prolly have those already.

I am going to toss this at some more clueful friends of mine.

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Books disappear, my brain is fried. Mention anything whether you think I've got it or not.

[slipperieslope.livejournal.com]

The Forgotten Door, The Outsiders, A Wrinkle in Time, Horton Hears a Who, Where the Wild Things Are, Stuart Little, My Father's Dragon, King of the Golden River, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, Strega Nona, Where the Sidewalk Ends, The Diary of Anne Frank, Little House in the Big Woods, An Old Fashioned Girl, Bunnicula, The Boxcar Children, True Story of the Three Little Pigs, Socks, First Two Lives of Lukas Kasha, Phantom Tollbooth, Misty, My Robot Buddy, Never Go Anywhere with Digby, Old Yeller, May I Cross Your Golden River, Snow Treasure, Ballet Shoes.

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Oooh, Good list. Many of which I have, or must replace, but I'm not familiar with the Golden River books or Digby, so I must go and become educated...

[piplover.livejournal.com]

Goodnight, Mr. Tom
The Fourth Grade Wizards
Catherine, Called Birdy
The Girl With the Silver Eyes
View From the Cherry Tree
The Westinghouse Game
The Three Musketeers
Mrs. Frisbey and the Rats of NIMH
Trapped in the Library

Those are all I can think of for now, though I know I must have left a billion out. I'm sure they'll come to me at the most inopportune moment. :)

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Is Trapped in the Library "Help, I'm trapped in the library" by Eth Clifford?

Got most of these, except my copy of Girl with the Silver Eyes has gone walkabout. I love "Goodnight Mister Tom" with a deep and abiding love...

List - Part 1

[serai1.livejournal.com]

All of E.B. White
All of Edward Lear
The Cricket in Times Square, by George Selden
All of the D'Aulaire books
Padddle-to-the-Sea, by Holling C. Holling
Dr. Seuss, of course
Takes from Shakespeare, by Charles and Mary Lamb
Books by Daniel Manus Pinkwater
Tejima's picture books
The Glass Slipper, by Eleanor Farjeon
The Pippi Longstocking books (These were a great inspiration to me as a girl growing up!)
Anything illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon
The Good Master, The Singing Tree, and Philomena by Kate Seredy
A.A. Milne
J.M. Barrie
Bambi, by Felix Salten
L. Frank Baum

Re: List - Part 1

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Paddle to the Sea! (Did you ever see the film?)

Re: List - Part 1

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

(And I wish "The Chestry Oak" by Kate Seredy was in print. One of my all time favorite books.)

List - Part 2

[serai1.livejournal.com]

Mercer Mayer
Chris Van Allsburg
The Little Prince
The Ship's Cat, by Richard Adams
The Gnu and the Guru Go Behind the Beyond, by Peggy Clifford - a grand book!
The Sheep of the Lal Bagh, by David Mark
Faithful Elephants, by Yukio Tsuchiya - the best inoculation against war I've ever read
The Cookie Tree, by Jay Williams
Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories and the Jungle Books
All of Marguerite Henry
Edward Gorey - I loved morbid humor as a kid
Books by Roald Dahl - The Magic Finger really bent my brain, but not all his books are quite that weird; Fantastic Mr. Fox is lovely.
Blue Willow, by Doris Gates

and last but certainly not least:
The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norman Juster


These are all books that I love dearly, and I think should be available to kids everywhere. Many of them are classics, as you can see, but some are out of the way and hard to find. But they're all gems. (I've included links for the lesser known ones.)

Re: List - Part 2

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Oh, I love these lists. Even if I'm frustrated at not being able to find some of the books in print!

But I did order "Amphigorey" and "Amphigorey Also" and I'll see if I can find some more tomorrow...

[dreamflower]

My word! Your other commenters have posted many of the ones that I would also choose--LotR, The Hobbit and Narnia are almost no-brainers, and I saw lots of others I would second, but here's a few I didn't see:

Howard Pyle's Robin Hood (I know there are lots of versions, but I think his is definitive--and is a great way to get kids to enjoy archaic language)
Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Five Little Peppers and How They Grew by Margeret Sidney(and as many of the sequels as you can lay your hands on)
Treasure Island by RL Stevenson
Everything by Dr. Seuss
Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll
Diane Duane's So You Want to Be a Wizard
A good collection of Grimm's Fairy Tales
Hans Christian Anderson's Fairy Tales
A good collection of AEsop's Fables
Collections of the world's major mythologies: Greek, Norse, Native American, Oriental, African, etc.
Squanto--I don't remember the author, but the book made a major impression on me

Heavens! That's all I can think of off the top of my head!

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Fairy tales I've got, hooray! I wonder which Squanto you remember...

[surgicalsteel.livejournal.com]

All of the 'Little House' books, for sure.

The Dark is Rising, of course. A great children's librarian introduced me to those. ;)

Roald Dahl - James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, etc.

Julie Edwards, 'Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles.'

Little Lord Fauntleroy.

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Day.

Harold and the Purple Crayon.

Can't think of anything else off the top of my head.

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Thanks for mentioning JAmes... our last copy has vanished. I have most of the rest except Fauntleroy, and I'm adding him now.

[gingicat]

(Rubynye sent me; I have an infant on my lap so I'm copying and pasting a similar comment I made recently.)

Answering for my son Joshua: Dr. Seuss' ABC, Hop On Pop, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, and Oh the Thinks You Can Think! - all by Dr. Seuss.

For me, I'd have to say A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engle (and pretty much everything else she's written), The Dark Is Rising series by Susan Cooper, and The Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Also: The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (and its sequelae) by Joan Aiken, anything by Ezra Jack Keats, anything by Lloyd Alexander.

And of course I loved all books about redheads - Pippi Longstocking, Anne of Green Gables, and Caddie Woodlawn.

Oh, and Lois Lenski is an excellent author too. And Eleanor Cameron!

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Ooh, Lenski! I only have some of the picture books...

(And I too love The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. Did you ever read "Midnight is a Place"? Not a sequel, but set in Blastburn, nonetheless.)

[oliviaramirez]

I see that the Little House books have been mentioned, but the sequels by Roger Macbride are also quite good and very readable.
The Anne of Green Gables books.
Sarah, Plain and Tall, by Patricia MacLachlan.
Let the Hurricane Roar, by Rose Wilder Lane.
Lyddie, by Katharine Paterson.

I don't know any books that are suitable for small children, apart from the books by Beatrix Potter, but I suppose those are always available in libraries.

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

I had to deliberately replace all my Beatrix Potters a year or so ago, because we didn't have anything but Peter Rabbit. Its so nice to be able to pass along "The Roly Poly Pudding" and see the children's eyes pop out.

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

Okay, most of my first choices have been mentioned, but a few haven't, so I'll add:

Alison Uttley's A Traveller in Time
Lucy M Boston's The Children of Green Knowe
Susan Cooper's Seaward (as well as the DiR Sequence, obv ;-)
Noel Streatfield's Thursday's Child and Far To Go
Dianna Wynne Jones - *nearly everything*
Kenneth Grahame THe Wind in the Willows
Richard Adams Watership Down
has no-one really mentioned JKR yet ;-)
...brain falling over now...

For little children, I do have some recommendations, but I sort of get the impression that there is more of a divide here between books that do well for US kidlets and UK ones, so I won't go into that unless you ask.

...more...

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

Margaret Mahy - the Changeover, and some others
The Prince and the Pauper
Michael Ende - The Neverending Story
John Masefield - The Box of Delights

[tuskel.livejournal.com]

Noone should grow up without Astrid Lindgren's and Michael Ende's books (yes, he wrote more wonderful things than just Neverending Story. I simply love Momo.), get as many as you can. :D And Jostein Gaarder is quite an interesting author, in his books there is philosophy mixed with fantasy and real life - suitable for teenagers, I think. All kinds of fairytales and myths from different cultures are good as well. Oh, and has anyone mentioned Dr. Dolittle? :) More later, if something comes to my mind. :)

Iris,
sincerely

[jane-somebody.livejournal.com]

Seconding Momo, and Gaarder's Sophie's World should suit, I agree: questions of identity and reality.

[sayhello.livejournal.com]

Edward Eager's 7 magic books:
Half Magic
Knight's Castle
The Time Garden
Magic by the Lake
Magic or Not?
The Well-Wishers
Seven-Day Magic

Jane Langton's The Diamond in the Window

Scott O'Dell's Island of the Blue Dolphins

Lloyd Alexander's The Chronicles of Prydain:
The Book of Three
The Black Cauldron
The Castle of Llyr
Taran Wanderer
The High King

Edward Ormondroyd's
Time at the Top and it's sequel
All in Good Time

Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth

Sydney Taylor's All-of-a Kind Family Series:
All-of-a-Kind Family
More All-of-a-Kind Family
All-of-a-Kind Family Downtown
All-of-a-Kind Family Uptown
Ella of All-of-a-Kind Family

And of COURSE, Jo Rowling's Harry Potter books, but it's highly unlikely you need to buy those!

Hewene

[shirebound]

Karen, by Marie Killilea
The Chronicles of Prydain, by Lloyd Alexander
The High Adventure of Eric Ryback by Eric Ryback

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Oh, gosh, I wonder if Karen is still in print. I loved that book! (And I had a cousin with cerebral palsy, so it touched home!)

[shirebound]

You've got me thinking, now...

Eighth Moon by Bette Lord and Sansan
The Story of the Trapp Family Singers by Maria von Trapp
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Who Gets the Drumstick? by Helen Beardsley

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Is "Who Gets The Drumstick" the book they based "Yours Mine and Ours" on?

[mariole.livejournal.com]

Marguerite Henry - horsie books! Particularly love "King of the Wind"
Jim Kjelgaard - doggies stories! Irish Red, Big Red, etc.

These might be a bit dated, but I loved them:

Three Dog Tales: Old Yeller, Sounder, Savage Sam (Harperperennial Modern Classics) by Fred Gipson and William H. Armstrong

Smoky the Cowhorse by Will James (note: contains "breed" and "halfbreed", which might be dated these days-- but wow, the pictures!!!)

I see you already have Jungle Books.

Winnie the Pooh, natch.

Charlette's Web

SE Hinton - Outsiders and TWTTIN

Sherlock Holmes

[mariole.livejournal.com]

Holes by Louis Sachar!

I imagine you get all the Newberry Winners, but they've been kind of weird lately.

The Giver is great also.

[lilybaggins.livejournal.com]

All the books by Beverly Cleary! I adored those as child---read the "Ramona" books over and over and over. And I haven't seen Judy Blume mentioned---I know some of her books are controversial, but I loved most of the ones I read back then.

Other favorites:

All the Betsy books by Carolyn Haywood (these may be dated now, I don't know)
Old Yeller
Grimm's Fairy Tales
Where the Sidewalk Ends
The Giving Tree
The Velveteen Rabbit
The Boxcar Children
All The Black Stallion novels
All the Little House books

Westinghouse Game

[(Anonymous)]

Hi All,
I'm trying to track down a copy of the Westing House Game (I have found memories from my youth), but can't find it anywhere. Can anyone remember the author or tell me where to find it? Thanks!

Re: Westinghouse Game

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

It's actually called "The Westing Game" and it's by Ellen Raskin. It's also a Newbery winner, so just about every public library in America ought to have a copy or be able to get you one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Westing_Game