Auntie Michele weighs in...
Posted by MB on December 04, 1997 at 14:36:44:
In response to Book Title Suggestions: for Kids!!, written by Karen R on December 03, 1997 at 18:17:53
] Mean Old Aunt Karen has decided to buy the kiddies BOOKS this year. After Thanksgiving's chit chat with the kids, I am thoroughly disgusted....
] Anyway, I'd like your help for (1) a boy, aged 13, who knows absolutely nothing if it doesn't have to do with sports and (2) girls, aged 9 and 11. For the girls, I had thought of getting maybe the book and the video of a Bronte or an Austen...but are they tooo young to enjoy?
For your nephew, try Crash by Jerry Spinelli; it's a great book that is superficially about football but goes much deeper! Your 9-year-old niece might be a little young for Austen and Bronte, but I started reading these two at 11, so..... For your 9-year-old niece, try a book and video from one of the classic selections below. The video of The Secret Garden put out by Warner in 1993/94 is the best I've seen, and PBS/Wonderworks has a great "mini-series" of A Little Princess, as well as their famous Anne of Green Gables.
] I'm looking for classics...something to expand their mind and help them when they play their "Wheel of Fortune" games and they look blankly at the screen when something even somewhat cultured is the phrase!!!
As far as classics go, I can't think of any that involve sports! Maybe he'd be interested in Sherlock Holmes mysteries or an adventure like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, tales of Robin Hood or King Arthur, or The Call of the Wild by Jack London? How about a modern classic like Johnny Tremain by Eleanor Forbes, the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, something by S.E. Hinton, Gary Paulsen, or Robert Cormier, or My Brother Sam is Dead by Christopher and James Collier (a fantastic Revolutionary War novel that I still love; my "jock" brother hated to read and even he raved about it!) Or maybe a sports biography of a "classic" athlete like Lou Gehrig, Jackie Robinson, or Knute Rockne?
For the girls, try Little Women, A Little Princess, The Secret Garden, Alice in Wonderland, The Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank), Misty of Chincoteague, Anne of Green Gables. Or modern classics like Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler or anything else by E.L. Konigsburg, Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren, or The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare. Or a collection of folktales like Her Stories (collected by Virginia Hamilton), The Woman in the Moon (collected by James Riordan), Clever Gretchen (collected by Alison Lurie), The Practical Princess and Other Fairly Liberating Tales by Jay Williams, or Cut from the Same Cloth (collected by Robert San Souci).
] Thanks so much...I look forward to suggestions from this erudite group.
You might also want to e-mail or post Amy about this; she was collecting a list of gift recommendations. Good luck!
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