Favorite Children’s Books ~ Take 2

Read the first installment here.

Early Readers

• The Fire Cat was first published in 1960. Pickles is a cat who wants to do big things!

“One day Mrs. Goodkind said,
'Pickles, you are not a bad cat.
You are not a good cat.
You are good and bad.
And bad and good.
You are a mixed-up cat.
What you need is a good home.
Then you will be good.' ”
― Esther Averill, The Fire Cat

 

Beginning Chapter Books

• Jenny and the Cat Club, also by Esther Averill, tells about the adventures of a sweet and shy black cat with a red scarf. Classic (the first stories were written in the 1940s) and lovely—my boys enjoyed the whole series. (Pickles, the fire cat, even makes an appearance!)

 

Chapter Books

• Emily's Runaway Imagination, one of Beverly Cleary’s lesser known books, is set in Pitchfork, Oregon in 1920.
  
• I loved reading The Saturdays aloud to Levi several years ago, wishing that I had read it as a child. I know I would have loved it! Be sure to check out the rest of the books in the series!
  
• The Moffats was published in 1941. Be sure to check out the whole series and more by Eleanor Estes.

 

• The Freddy the Pig books by Walter R. Brooks are hilarious and full of witty adventure and rich vocabulary. The books make great read-alouds because the parents will enjoy them as much as the kids! The 26 books in the series were first published between 1927 and 1958.

 

Chapter Books from My Childhood

• The Cricket in Times Square—about a mouse, a cat, a boy, and a cricket in New York City—was a favorite from my childhood, and I was excited to share it with my boys! And I discovered that there were more books in the series!
  
• The Wolves of Willoughby Chase is a deliciously haunting book (not too scary, or I wouldn’t have enjoyed it as a kid) about two little girls who are left in the care of an evil governess. And there are more book in the series! (Am I the only one who gets excited about series? It’s tough to keep kids in books when you have voracious readers, and series are a blessing!)

 

• I Am David, the story of a 12 year-old boy who escapes from a prison camp in Eastern Europe, had me mesmerized! I loved it just as much when I read it as an adult. (And the movie is wonderful, as well.)
  
• I read several books by Meindert DeJong as a child, and The House of Sixty Fathers was one of my favorites. The story follows a young Chinese boy and his pig who get separated from his parents during the Japanese invasion of China in the 1930s.

 

Fantasy and Adventure

(from literary artists who happen to be Christians)

• My husband read The Wingfeather Saga aloud to the boys, and they’ve been begging me constantly to check on the status of book four for months. They’ll be on pins and needles until July. This series is written by singer-songwriter Andrew Peterson, who has a gift of words and imagination!

• I'm having a little love-affair with N. D. Wilson’s books lately. I was swept away with delight while reading Notes From The Tilt-A-Whirl: Wide-Eyed Wonder in God's Spoken World, and the boys have read all of his children’s fiction. In particular, they enjoyed the 100 Cupboards and Ashtown Burials series.

 

Young Ladies

I had a lengthy Facebook conversation recently with a couple friends/blog readers. One asked about book recommendations for a sensitive 12-going-on-16-year-old girl who has exhausted the regular feminine book-list classics (and then some), but isn’t quite ready for more mature fare. I had to think beyond boys and fantasy books and relive a bit of my own childhood and early adulthood, but we came up with a long list to keep her busy all summer long. (P.S. I love my Facebook world.)

So, for young ladies who have exhausted All-of-a-Kind Family, Understood Betsy (adore!), The Railway Children (by E. Nesbit, one of her only non-fantasy books), Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Heidi (of course), Cheaper by the Dozen (and sequel), and books by L.M. Montgomery, Frances Hodgson Burnett, Louisa May Alcott, and even Jane Austen, may I suggest:

• George MacDonald's Romance Novels. If you are not familiar with George MacDonald, I highly recommend reading a bit about him. C.S. Lewis considered George MacDonald to be a strong influence in his life. These romance novels were written in the late 1800s and more recently edited by Michael Phillips. Most of the books are set in MacDonald’s native Scotland. If you have younger children or romance novels aren’t your style, be sure to check out The Princess and the Goblin and sequel (reported to be one of Tolkien’s childhood favorites), At the Back of the North Wind (also available in a radio theatre adaptation), or The Complete Fairy Tales.
  
• The novels of Gene Stratton-Porter. She was an American author, amateur naturalist, and wildlife photographer at the turn of the century.
  
• Our Hearts Were Young and Gay. This is a side-splitting-hilarious memoir of the European travels of two young ladies in the 1920s.
  
• The novels of E. P. Roe. Roe was a preacher and avid horticulturist who also happened to be a highly successful author during the 1800s. Many of his titles are available free on Kindle!

The novels listed, most of them romance novels, are certainly idealistic and occasionally preachy. But I loved them as a sensitive young lady who did not enjoy tragic or dark stories, and I still enjoy a clean romance story!

Have you read any George MacDonald, Gene Stratton-Porter, or E.P. Roe novels?
What were your favorites?