Down on Ninth Street

Favorite Children's Books. For clarification, this painstakingly-compiled list is limited to books that I read and loved as a child. Children's books that I read during my teens or later (i.e., when I was no longer a child) are not included, even though I read some wonderful children's books during these years, most notably the Harry Potter Series and recent Newberry Award winners. This list is one of the most difficult lists I've ever made. Believe it or not, it was hard to limit myself to forty books.

The books are listed in the order that I read them.

1. The Store-Bought Doll, by Lois Meyer. I cannot remember a time in my life when I didn't know and love this book. Sara and I still have the same old battered copy that we've had since forever, complete with the crayon scribbles and frayed pages, and I'm sure that we could both recite the entire book from memory. This book is enough to make me hope that I have a daughter someday, so I can read about Christina and her little doll Lucy to her.

2. Witch Down the Street: Tale From the Care Bears, by Stephanie Morgan. One of my earliest memories is of begging Mom to read this book to me, over and over and over. When Mom finally got sick of it and suggested that we read something else, I started crying. I can only imagine how much Mom must have grown to hate this book, but all I cared about was watching as the Care Bears ate a peanut-butter sandwich with Melissa and taught her that the "witch" down the street was really just a lonely old lady.

3. A Child's Garden of Verses, by Robert Louis Stevenson. Like most children in America, my siblings and I had a copy of this book when we were kids. All four of us loved it, but I'm the only one who can still remember it well. I was fascinated by the world of Stevenson's childhood, which was at once familiar, via "The Swing" and other poems about universal kiddie joys, and foreign, full of images of nannies and snow and other things I had never known.

4. The Monster at the End of This Book, by Jon Stone. This is such a great book. It is not only cute and funny and perfect for little kids, but I think it has a universal lesson that everyone can appreciate, including adults: Sometimes things that seem scary (like the so-called monster) turn out to be completely harmless (like Grover himself), so don't be afraid to turn the page into something new.

5. There's an Alligator Under My Bed, by Mercer Mayer. My favorite thing about this book was the wide variety of food (candies and soda in his bedroom, fresh vegetables on the stairs) that the boy used to lure the alligator out from under bed, through his house, and into the garage. I always loved the idea of a little boy calmly outwitting a monster under his bed, as I, like most kids, was also convinced there was a monster under my bed when I read this book.

6. The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams. I doubt there are many kids left in the world who don't have a copy of this book. Its theme is universal. It was Toy Story decades before Toy Story existed, and for a little girl who took her stuffed animal friends very seriously, it touched a deep chord. This book was probably what sparked my lengthy childhood crusade to bring my teddy bear and other toys to life.

7. Ira Says Goodbye, by Bernard Waber. Although the illustrations are goofy, this book about Ira's best friend Reggie moving away was one of the first books I remember reading all by myself. Plus, Ira and Reggie had pet turtles, and I would want one of my own even more after reading Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing.

8. Cannonball Chris, by Jean Marzollo. This was another one of the first books I read by myself. Although I was never scared of the deep end of the pool like Chris, I admired his courage in overcoming his fear, and in that sense, this book has a universal appeal. The illustrations are great, too.

9. Amelia Bedelia, by Peggy Parish. I have always been impatient, and when I was a kid, I was frustrated to no end by people who didn't learn or understand things as quickly as I did. The simple-minded maid Amelia Bedelia was one of those people. Whereas Mom and Adam found her misinterpretation of simple directions funny, I read the book more to gawk at Amelia's stupidity than for any other reason.

10. Winnie-the-Pooh, by AA Milne. What better proof of my love for Pooh and his friends than my attempt to recreate the Hundred Acre Wood in my bedroom? I made a house for my toy Pooh Bear out of a cardboard box with SANDERS scribbled on it. Then there was my Pooh t-shirt, my Piglet key chain, my beloved copy of the Disney movie (which I could recite from memory), and my three different copies of this book, which all children should read
.
11. Heckedy Peg, by Audrey Wood. Even though I have my own copy of this book now, I could still tell you exactly where to find it in my old library. I flipped through it at least twice every time we went to the library, once to read the words, once to look at the beautiful illustrations, and usually once more to pretend that I was Wednesday, my favorite of the seven children, turned into milk by an evil witch and then rescued by her mother.

12. Karen's Witch, by Ann M. Martin. Sara has always been obsessed with Ann M. Martin's Baby-Sitters Club Series, and when I was in first grade, she also had a few books from its spin-off about Kristy's stepsister Karen, Baby-Sitters Little Sister. I read one of them (I think the first one I read was Karen's School Trip, where Ms. Colman's class went to the zoo), and I was hooked.

13. Meet Samantha: An American Girl, by Susan S. Adler. Addy was my favorite of the American Girl Series, and Kirsten was Sara's, but my elementary school library only had Samantha's books, so hers were the first I read. I would eventually read almost all of the American Girl Series; my cousin (or someone) had Felicity's books, and I later became a much bigger fan of Kirsten, the pioneer girl who lived near the Indians, as I was Indian-obsessed for a few years after reading The Indian in the Cupboard.

14. Bunnicula, by James Howe. My second-grade class voted, and we decided that this book was the one we wanted Ms. Leonards to read aloud to us. I loved it so much that when I discovered that there were more books about Howard the dog, Chester the cat, and Bunnicula the vampire rabbit, I read the entire series. I can still remember sitting by myself at recess, my back against the school's red brick wall, reading and reading and reading.

15. Little House on the Prairie, by Laura Ingalls Wilder. My third-grade teacher Ms. Myers didn't let the class take a vote. She chose this book and its companion, Little House in the Big Woods, to read aloud to us, and I've always been glad she did. I bought both of them at a book fair in the school library a few months later, and I've loved reading about the adventures of Laura and her family ever since. These books are great comfort food.

16. The Boxcar Children, by Gertrude Chandler Warner. My mom recommended this series to me because the Alden family had two boys and two girls (Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny), just like ours. That was about as far as the similarities went between us and the Aldens, who liked things like hard work and healthy food. Although they're a bit dated, I still think that these are great books for kids, especially the first one, which is big on honesty and independence.

17. Charlotte's Web, by EB White. When I was a kid, the one thing I loved more than reading was swinging, and the beautiful description of Zuckerman's Swing in chapter ten of this book was enough to make me fall in love with it. Although I read and enjoyed the entire book, the scene where Fern and Avery take turns on that amazing swing was the one I read over and over again. I was so jealous of them.

18. Where the Sidewalk Ends, by Shel Silverstein. This book was a gift at my ninth birthday party. After I unwrapped it, I immediately flipped it open to my favorite poem, "Sick," which made all the kids at my party laugh out loud. Shel Silverstein is a modern-day Robert Louis Stevenson, a poet who remembers what kids love, what makes kids laugh, and most importantly, what it was like to be a kid.

19. The Indian in the Cupboard, by Lynne Reid Banks. All of the books on this list hold an important place in my childhood, but none of them can even come close to this one. Between fourth grade and seventh grade (when I read Watership Down), this book was my Bible. It was probably the first book that I really, truly loved, and it was definitely the first to make me realize how deeply books can affect our lives. This book was also the entire reason for me getting in trouble at school for the very first time. I knew that I shouldn't be reading it during class, but it was as if the book was a terrible addictive drug that had taken control of my body; I simply could not put it down, to the point that Ms. Landry had to send a note home to my parents about it.

20. Henry and Beezus, by Beverly Cleary. The praise on the back cover of my copy of this book claimed that Henry, Beezus, and their friends were as real as the kids on the next block. Although I loved this book, Henry's Klickitat Street of the 1950s felt almost as far away as Robert Louis Stevenson's poetry. I still think that the scene where Henry buys a used bicycle for only four dollars confused my perception of money and value for a long time.

21. The Giver, by Lois Lowry. I read this haunting book for the first time when I was in fourth grade (Athena lent me her copy), and by the time my entire class read and studied it in eighth grade, I had reread it several times, each times, each time learning and understanding a little more. It doesn't have the laugh-out-loud humor of most of Lowry's books, but it does explore a lot of important issues. Is safety worth sacrificing freedom? Is it right to sacrifice one person to save many? What is family? What is wisdom? While many of the books on this schmaltzy list may be buried and forgotten someday, this is one will always be brilliant -- and important. It is simply one of the greatest children's books of the twentieth century.

22. Wayside School is Falling Down, by Louis Sachar. I loved all of the Wayside School books, but this one was my favorite. I loved the long-suffering yard teacher Louis, the nonexistent Miss Zarves, the spiteful principal Mr. Kidswatter, and the lingering mystery surrounding Miss Gorf, who supposedly haunted the school. I felt like I knew all of the students in Mrs. Jewels's class very well, and my favorite was probably Allison, with her sky-blue eyes and blond hair.

23. Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, by Judy Blume. I bought this book at a book fair in my fifth-grade school library. I read most of Judy Blume's Fudge books, but I never loved any of them nearly as much as this one, the first in the series. I admired Peter Hatcher so much for having a pet turtle, living in New York City, and for being able to put up with his immature parents, his spoiled little brother Fudge, and the neighborhood brat Sheila.

24. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain. Almost all elementary school girls go through a tomboy phase, and when I went through mine, this was my favorite book. Like most kids, I was madly jealous of Tom, his adventures, and the incredible amount of freedom that he enjoyed: He could climb right over fences, but when I tried, I hurt myself; he could run away to an island in the Mississippi River or get lost in a dark cave, but I could only go on short bike rides through my boring suburban neighborhood.

25. The Big Lie: A True Story, by Isabella Leitner. I'm putting this book on the list because I read it a lot when I was a kid, but I'm not sure if I would call it a favorite. Years after reading this children's book about the Holocaust, and after taking a college course focused exclusively on Holocaust literature, I don't know if anything as horrific as the Holocaust can ever be made into a book that's appropriate for children. I also don't know if I should have been allowed to read this book at such a young age. Although I do strongly believe that children should be educated about the Holocaust, a less graphic book (for example, Number the Stars, by the ever-brilliant Lois Lowry, which I've since read) would have been much less disturbing to me.

26. Matilda, by Roald Dahl. When I was a kid, I adored all of Roald Dahl's children's books, and I read most of them in about an hour. This book was probably my favorite one by him. In the vein of There's an Alligator Under My Bed, I liked the image of a child calmly and cleverly outsmarting a monster (in this case, the tyrannical Trunchbull), and I also liked to think of myself as similar to Matilda in that we both read so much.

27. The Island of the Blue Dolphins, by Scott O'Dell. This book is a little similar to The Boxcar Children in that both present young people learning to fend for themselves, finding their own food, shelter, etc., and they both taught me that with independence comes responsibility (freedom doesn't mean total fun, as it seems to for Tom Sawyer). I liked watching Karana grow and mature as she learned to provide for herself on the island.

28. Bridge to Terabithia, by Katherine Paterson. The first time I read this book, I didn't understand some important parts of it. Why did Miss Edmunds seem to enjoy spending so much time with Jesse, her student? If Leslie's parents were rich, why did they live like they were poor? What kind of "strength and courage" (quoted from the back cover of my copy) did Leslie's death bequeath to Jesse? But my confusion over this book was exactly what made me love it. Real life was confusing, and sometimes painful, and this book never tried to hide that or dub it down because I was a kid.

29. Hot and Cold Summer, by Johanna Hurwitz. Although I never had a talking parrot or a snowball fight using scoops of ice cream, the one thing that I always copied from Bolivia was her method of eating pizza -- two slices stuck together with crusts on the outside, the pizza sandwich. I still eat my pizza like this, too!

30. Soup, by Robert Newton Peck. This book is packed with nostalgia and fun, but it doesn't gloss over the politically incorrect atmosphere of the 1920s, either. Robert and Soup have adventures that any kid would envy (their attempt to hit the church bell by whipping apples was always my favorite), but they also both agree that there's no such thing as a good Jew when they try to steal from the owner of the junkyard. And then there were Soup's "torture tests" that bordered on S&M. Those always weirded me out.

31. In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson, by Bette Bao Lord. My favorite thing about this book was the clear unity that developed between the students of Mrs. Rappaport's class. Mrs. Rappaport even moves from teaching fifth grade to sixth so they can all stay together. Even though I never really liked baseball like all of them did (by the time I read this book, I had played baseball for one season, and I sucked at it), I loved her class almost as much as I loved Mrs. Jewels's class.

32. The Good Master, by Kate Seredy. This book is simply wonderful, and I've never understood why it hasn't gotten all the praise and attention it deserves. This forgotten classic chronicles the adventures of Jancsi, a strong little farmer living in the Hungarian countryside, as he learns to get along with Kate, his spoiled city girl cousin from Budapest. I still laugh when Kate uses the words "phone" and "taxicab," and Jancsi (who has never heard either word before) tells her to stop swearing.

33. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, by EL Konigsburg. I didn't set foot in the Metropolitan Museum of Art until years after reading this book, and I'm glad that I got to read the book first. That way, when I finally did visit the museum, I remembered Claudia and Jamie, the bathroom stalls where they stood on the toilets, the fountains where they took baths, the sixteenth-century bed where they slept. Sometimes when I'm lying awake at night, I still use Claudia's method for falling asleep -- glide, fur, banana, peace.

34. The Sign of the Beaver, by Elizabeth George Speare. After reading The Indian in the Cupboard launched me into a long Indian obsession, I had soon finished every kid's book in the library about Indians, and this one was one of my favorites. Like Omri, the British boy of The Indian in the Cupboard, pioneer boy Matt also becomes stronger and wiser after making an Indian friend. Further proof that this book is great is that Adam read it, and he doesn't often read books that don't have the word comic in front of them.

35. Harriet the Spy, by Louise Fitzhugh. Harriet M. Welch always puzzled me. Her family was rich, she got to eat cake and milk everyday after school, she was an only child with a cook and nurse, she didn't have to go to public school with "things like shop that we don't have," and yet she still somehow managed to have her share difficulties in life. I eventually decided that although I liked reading about her, I would hate her if I actually knew her. Harriet hated certain kids in her class, e.g. Pinky Whitehead, for no apparent reason, even before they read her notebook. Many of the things she wrote in her notebook were very mean, and in the end, they were all published in the school paper!

36. Caddie Woodlawn, by Carol Ryrie Brink. As with The Little House on the Prairie, here again is the feisty pioneer girl, her home on the prairie, her devoted dog. But whereas Laura would be happy to see just one Indian papoose, tomboy Caddie has a Indian friend who gives her a dog and a scalp belt. I know that if little Laura Ingalls could ever read this book, she would want to be Caddie Woodlawn, and when I read it, I wanted to be her, too.

37. Hang Tough, Paul Mather, by Alfred Slote. This book about twelve-year-old Paul, who must give up playing baseball, his favorite thing, when he is diagnosed with leukemia, wrenched my eleven-year-old heart right out of me when I read it for the first time. The descriptions of Paul's chemotherapy treatments were a little brutal for a sensitive child like me, but I think such realistic depiction makes this book one of the most touching children's books about leukemia.

38. Lassie Come-Home, by Eric Knight. Behind the sappy TV shows and the cliched cries about Timmy falling down the well, this original story of Lassie, and her original owner Joe Carraclough, remains an incredibly sophisticated classic. The big words, long sentences, and serious plot overwhelmed me at first, but I have always been a dog-lover, and so I managed to plow through the whole book. I've loved it ever since.

39. Rascal, by Sterling North. By the time I read this book in fifth grade, the list of literary animals that I wanted for my own had gotten quite lengthy. I wanted Bunnicula, Toby and Pete's vampire rabbit; I wanted Wilbur, Fern's pig; I wanted Dribble, Peter's turtle; I wanted Lucette, Bolivia's parrot; I wanted Milky, Kate and Jancsi's horse; and I wanted all the dogs -- Jack, Watch, Rontu, Prince Terrian, Nero, Lassie. But then a new pet topped the list. I wanted Rascal. I wanted a pet raccoon.

40. Down the Road, by Alice Schertle. I still remember my surprise when I came across this children's picture book in a library meant for teenagers. I was fascinated by it, probably because it was so out-of-place, and read it several times.

Labels: books