Sunday, January 13, 2013

book list for children

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:

Martha said...

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.

Unknown said...

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!

greg|regan said...

Hi Martha and Phyllis,

Thank you for the recommendations!

Anonymous said...

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.