1001 Children’s Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up
Julia Eccleshare, Ed.
Universe, 2009
This kind of reference makes you think about devoting an entire year to reading just children’s books. When you see so many favourites discussed herein, you only want to reread them. And when you see something completely new to you on the page next to a favourite, it only makes you want to read that one instead. It’s a book filled with temptations. (There is a short description in yesterday’s chat, which gives you an idea of the book’s structure, if you missed that.)
I mean, who knew Louise Fitzhugh wrote about characters other than Harriet and Sport? Who knew that Anita Desai wrote for children, too? Should I be adding her, like Penelope Lively, to my MRE list? And do I really need to hear Margaret Mahy’s name yet again before I finally get around to reading her? And why haven’t I already gobbled loads of Monica Hughes books? (Okay, it’s the slightly weird covers: they’ve always put me off, but I know, I know, I know that I need to get past that.)
Nan Chauncy’s Tangara (1961)
Mavis Thorpe Clark’s The Min-min (1966)
Patricia Wrightson’s The Nargun and the Stars (1973)
Louise Fitzhugh’s Nobody’s Family is Going to Change (1974)
Monica Hughes’ Crisis on Conshelf Ten (1975)
Anita Desai’s The Village by the Sea (1982)
Robert Swindells’ Brother in the Land (1984)
Margaret Mahy’s The Changeover (1984)
Victor Kelleher’s Taronga (1986)Gudren Pausewang’s The Cloud (1987)
Bernardo Atxaga’s Memoirs of a Basque Cow (1991)
Malorie Blackman’s Noughts and Crosses (2001)
Jonathan Stroud’s The Amulet of Samarkand (2003)
Rafael Abalos’ Grimpow (2005)
Ursula Dubosarsky’s The Red Shoe (2006)
Timothee de Fombelle’s Toby Alone (2006)
Are there books here that you would nudge me towards sooner rather than later?
Gavin – I hope you have fun with it (I don’t know how you could NOT, really!) and add lots of titles to your lists.
Olduvai – Oh, yes, that will definitely change some of your reading priorities. In a wonderful way!
I remember reading Desai’s The Village by the Sea when I was a kid, and that story is still my favourite of Desai’s today. Can’t say anything about the other books as I’ve never read them! But with the arrival of the reader-to-be next year, I’m going to have to start keeping my eye out for children’s books!
Wow, I’m going to have to get my hands on this as I am keeping a list of books to add to our elementary and middle school library! I love Desai, I would try that one first.