Read this, not that ~ books for your voracious reader!

Do you know this “eat this, not that” series of books? The idea is to help you make good choices in food and drink to avoid hidden calories that will tank your health. Well, Rosie had the thought that we could do something similar with books for the Library Project*.

 

I am concerned when I see reading lists out there for children, that a lot of them have books from a 20-year time period — that is to say, from now. And they are about “now” — about kids “like you” — only, how does that work? Could it sometimes work that a child reading these stories acts more like the child in the stories… who are supposed to be just like him? Maybe that’s not such a good thing. Modeling behavior that reflects your own behavior will tend to spiral downwards, behavior-wise. We don’t want that.

And then, not only do we want our children to read good books, we want them to know how to find good books on their own.

Call it a “lost tool of learning” — the skill of being able to find things to read on one’s own.

Truly, this was one purpose of the public library: to allow the reader to follow his nose. Sadly, unless your library is old and too poor to have purged its stacks, you probably can’t trust it enough to let your child loose in it.

(Teaching children to be active about finding what they are interested in is another reason I highly recommend the Bobbs-Merrill readers, old as they are. Many of the selections have, in the “assignment” section, suggestions for looking things up in the library. You will find that they are so helpful for getting your child to learn to look things up in the library and go on a hunt of his own.)

And that is why I do recommend having more books, actual, physical books, in your home than you are necessarily reading at the moment, even if it goes against your minimalist tendencies, and even if you do have good reading on the Kindle. It has to do with exposure, and a sort of externalizing of the list — putting it out there where it can be seen, handled, explored, and even abandoned for the moment.

The other day I got down a couple of boxes I had stowed in the attic. And so I came across these books again:

 

They are called Best in Children’s Books, published by Doubleday. They are out of print, but you can get them for pretty cheap ($5 or so including shipping). You can probably find them at book sales. You could get them one by one and it would be like having a hard-cover literary magazine for your children, delivered! You can find a whole list of them, in order, here.

 

 

Each book has a fantastic assortment of poetry, tales, history, and geography. The illustrations are charming. There’s something for each age level, which I endorse, because not only does it challenge the slower/younger reader to do more, but it allows the faster/older reader to linger on material that might still offer something for his development. And then, there’s always the possibility that your older child will read something to the younger ones!

If your child finds a story he likes, why, you can help him find more of the same author.

I also want to be sure to mention some other authors for your older, more voracious readers, both boys and girls, although perhaps the boys will enjoy the first ones more:

C. S. Forester, the Horatio Hornblower series. High adventure featuring a boy who has to work with his unhardened youth and essential sensitivity to survive in a man’s world. The TV shows were very good as well, but of course, read the books first.
Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers and its sequels. Robert Louis Stevenson loved this book, and why not? Adventure, romance, friendship, swashbuckling swordplay! The only thing to prevent a young person from adoring this book is the first page. Just tell him to keep at it.
Baroness Orczy, The Scarlet Pimpernel. A romantic and adventurous tale of hidden identity set during the French Revolution.
Also by Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo. Nothing, nothing can compare with the beginning of this book, with its tale of unjust imprisonment and impossible escape. Even though the second part of the book doesn’t quite live up to the first, it’s a story well worth reading. Kind of the ultimate beach book, going on and on…

Don’t get abridgments, by the way. The whole point is to keep them reading!

*What is the Like Mother, Like Daughter Library Project?

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