we skyped tonight with greg's brother who asked what we'd done today and it quickly became apparent our day was not that exciting. exciting for william because he got to go to a birthday party dressed as a ninja to battle pirates and monsters. a bit less exciting for the other three-fourths of the family who went grocery shopping.
but tonight, greg took henry on another run while william and i read the exciting (as in, william was on the edge of his seat) climax to 'peter pan and wendy' which we got back from the library awhile back. it is such a cool book-- so clever, so well written that even if you don't have a kid to read it to, you should read it. and this got me thinking that since the day's events could be told in a paragraph (as above), perhaps instead i would share the list of books we've read with william in the last two years (not counting picture books and not counting the ones we tried but didn't work from the start or tried and just sputtered out before the last page), because we would have liked a list like this (and maybe someone else will too), for a boy who loves hearing about adventures and has a high tolerance for sitting still apparently...
here it is, i think mostly complete, in roughly the order we read them:
Fantastic Mr. Fox - Roald Dahl
George's Marvelous Medicine - Roald Dahl
Little House in the Big Woods - Laura Ingalls Wilder
Farmer Boy - Laura Ingalls Wilder
On the Banks of Plum Creek - Laura Ingalls Wilder
By the Shores of Silver Lake - Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Long Winter - Laura Ingalls Wilder
Little Town on the Prairie - Laura Ingalls Wilder
These Happy Golden Years - Laura Ingalls Wilder
The First Four Years - Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Mouse and the Motorcycle - Beverly Cleary
The Boxcar Children - Gertrude Chandler Warner
The Boxcar Children, Surprise Island - Gertrude Chandler Warner
The Boxcar Children, The Yellow House Mystery - Gertrude Chandler Warner
The Bobbsey Twins' Adventure in the Country - Laura Lee Hope
Charlotte's Web - E.B. White
Indian in the Cupboard - Lynn Reid Banks
Stuart Little - E.B. White
Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
Return of the Indian - Lynne Reid Banks
adapted or abridged versions of The Voyages of Dr. Doolittle, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and Robinson Crusoe
Ramona the Pest - Beverly Cleary
Winnie-the-Pooh - A.A. Milne
House at Pooh Corner - A.A. Milne
The World of Christopher Robin - A.A. Milne
Island of the Blue Dolphin - Scott O'Dell
Runaway Ralph - Beverly Cleary
My Side of the Mountain - Jean Craighead George
The Door in the Wall - Marguerite de Angeli
The Cricket in Times Square - George Selden
Ben and Me: An Astonishing Life of Benjamin Franklin by His Good Mouse Amos - Robert Lawson
Peter Pan and Wendy (finishing up the last couple chapters soon) - J.M. Barrie
4 comments:
the Big Black Horse .. The Black Stallion for children with grand illustrations. If you were here I could lend you my copy, from when I was six.
And then there's the Redwall series, by Brian Jacques, Zach's favorite when he was a couple years older than William. We started with the novel entitled Redwall, and then moved on to others in the series. I loved it as much as my son did!
William is amazingly well-read for a kid his age!
Hi Martha and Phyllis,
Thank you for the recommendations!
Awesome list! We are going to have to borrow from that list. At our house we've been on a Magic Tree House kick. Quick, fact-based fiction with 2 young kids as protagonists who travel through time at the behest of Merlin the Magician. Also, highly recommend the three books in the series the Dragons of Blueland series.
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