Children's Books

[eoin_k]

I had a go at a thread like this before and it sunk like a lead balloon; hopefully this goes better. I am looking for recommendations for children's books. Recently, I have been reading my eldest son classics like Swallows and Amazons, the Narnia series and Just So Stories. He loves the plots but I find myself censoring the worst of the dodgy racial politics and feeling almost as uncomfortable about the gender and class politics... I don't think we are quite ready for a critical reading of the texts. So, can Urban recommend good kids books that won't leave me replacing the word 'native' with 'local', in which the eldest female character isn't a doormat and in which every family doesn't have a maid, a nurse and a father in the Royal Navy. Ideally they should be suitable for reading to an under 5 year old and not too scary.

 

[Orang Utan]

 

[weepiper]

 

[Manter]

weepiper, polly, trashpony, boohoo, May Kasahara, spanglechick, Glitter, @wiskey…..

think you were the ones with good recommendations last time we discussed it though sure I've forgotten someone.

(and isn't this timely?!)

 

[weepiper]

Roald Dahl is good for reading out loud but it depends on the child as some of them are quite scary.

 

[Manter]

 

[Belushi]

The really great thing about this book is you can follow it up with 'and would you like to hear a song about Iron Man?'

 

[Orang Utan]

I have a lot of recommendations but its Friday night and I'm not a parent, so I'm going out dancing til dawn.
Will come back later.

 

[trashpony]

The foal is quite scared of a lot of stuff in Roald Dahl and it wasn't under five material in our house. Your child may be made of more robust stuff!

I really like Oliver Jeffers, particularly his earlier books (how to catch a star/the way back home); Mini Grey (Traction man); Allen Ahlberg (not the books for babies - The Pencil and The Runaway Dinner are both ace) and Mrs Magpie recommended a splendid book called The Naughty Bus by Jan Oke.

All these are slightly subversive, have jokes that work on lots of different levels and a fantastic balance between words and images which I think the best books have. I'm a bit of an illustration geek it has to be said

ETA: For more story type books, Dogger (sniff) or the Alfie books are good, and Mrs Pepperpot.

Christ I could go on all night

 

[Manter]

I have a lot of recommendations but its Friday night and I'm not a parent, so I'm going out dancing til dawn.
Will come back later.

 

[spanglechick]

this age group is a little young for me - though i loved charlie and the chocolate factory at this age - nothing especially scary in that...

my one concrete recommendation would be The Velveteen Rabbit. The child in it is wealthy, in that old fashioned way... but parents are largely absent from the story anyway. It's mostly about the toys, and beyond the wealth of the protagonists, the subtexts are impeccable: don't be looks obsessed; love matters more than novelty; the whizz-bang new-fangled consumer products aren't generally the best; anything worth having takes time; childhood must end but there are better things ahead...

It was the first book i read by myself ([brag] aged three - [/brag]) and i must have read it so often as a small person it's become part of my genetic coding.

 

[trashpony]

Oliver Jeffers:

Mini Grey:

Allen Ahlberg:

Jan Oke (fantastic photography AND typography which appeals to my inner geek)

 

[eoin_k]

Even Stig of the Dump has those frightfully rough children with dirty clothes who enjoy smoking cigarettes in it as bit characters. The other working class characters are criminals who the protagonist foils in their attempt to steal the family silver. As for Roal Dahl I've always had a problem with Charlie's relationship with Mr Wonka - the industrialist who sacked his entire workforce and replaced them with migrant labour, who in turn are supposedly grateful for the cocoa beans he pays them in kind for working/living in some sort of sealed-off underground company town. Danny the Champion of the World seems better, but the real problem with the baddy is that he is some sort of parvenue oik who doesn't know his place, a point made all the more apparent in the film in which the mechanic dad was played by Jeremy Irons.

 

[MrSki]

Depending on the age of the kids then the Temeraire series of books are great.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temeraire_(series)

There are moments that are not suitable for youngungs but you can read about those.

 

[weepiper]

Even Stig of the Dump has those frightfully rough children with dirty clothes who enjoy smoking cigarettes in it as bit characters. The other working class characters are criminals who the protagonist foils in their attempt to steal the family silver. As for Roal Dahl I've always had a problem with Charlie's relationship with Mr Wonka - the industrialist who sacked his entire workforce and replaced them with migrant labour, who in turn are supposedly grateful for the cocoa beans he pays them in kind for working/living in some sort of sealed-off underground company town. Danny the Champion of the World seems better, but the real problem with the baddy is that he is some sort of parvenue oik who doesn't know his place, a point made all the more apparent in the film in which the mechanic dad was played by Jeremy Irons.

yeah good points. Despite being rather middle class on the surface, the Harry Potter books actually have some nice pro-working class elements (Harry's best pal is from a poor red-haired family with lots of children and his nemesis amongst his peers, a bully who everyone 'good' hates, is a spoilt rich brat. Bit scary for under 5s though (mainly because it opens telling you how his parents died)

 

[eoin_k]

I'm not trying to suggest they aren't all great stories by the way. Just looking for some balance.

 

[buscador]

You might think this a rubbish suggestion, but I'm going to say, poetry, nonsense verse. I think it's important to enjoy the sound of language and it almost matters less what you read than that you read it interestingly. If you can do accents then you can always take the piss out of the posh characters anyway.

Obviously I wasn't as advanced as spanglechick because I couldn't read before I went to school, but apparently I could recite vast chunks of Belloc and A Child's Garden of Verse. (And sometimes still can.)

 

[eoin_k]

He was pissing himself to some of Winnie the Pooh's poems tonight, so you might have a point.

 

[weepiper]

You might think this a rubbish suggestion, but I'm going to say, poetry, nonsense verse. I think it's important to enjoy the sound of language and it almost matters less what you read than that you read it interestingly. If you can do accents then you can always take the piss out of the posh characters anyway.

Obviously I wasn't as advanced as spanglechick because I couldn't read before I went to school, but apparently I could recite vast chunks of Belloc and A Child's Garden of Verse. (And sometimes still can.)

Mm, yes. Michael Rosen and Spike Milligan.

 

[trashpony]

Oh yes! Spike Milligan does fantastic kids' poems. The foal has been able to recite On the NingNangNong for years. They're great reading aloud books. And Edward Lear.

ETA: It's not reciting as such. We shout it together

 

[MrSki]

The trouble with some kids books is that you don't know their content until you are reading it.

 

[Manter]

Even Stig of the Dump has those frightfully rough children with dirty clothes who enjoy smoking cigarettes in it as bit characters. The other working class characters are criminals who the protagonist foils in their attempt to steal the family silver. As for Roal Dahl I've always had a problem with Charlie's relationship with Mr Wonka - the industrialist who sacked his entire workforce and replaced them with migrant labour, who in turn are supposedly grateful for the cocoa beans he pays them in kind for working/living in some sort of sealed-off underground company town. Danny the Champion of the World seems better, but the real problem with the baddy is that he is some sort of parvenue oik who doesn't know his place, a point made all the more apparent in the film in which the mechanic dad was played by Jeremy Irons.

Depends what you're looking for I guess- Charlie is also poor, in over crowded accommodation, and gets his dreams (including ownership of the means of production) by being non-materialistic

 

[Manter]

Oh yes! Spike Milligan does fantastic kids' poems. The foal has been able to recite On the NingNangNong for years. They're great reading aloud books. And Edward Lear.

ETA: It's not reciting as such. We shout it together

Ogden Nash. Mantito's toy dragon is called custard but only one person (my dad) has ever got why

 

[May Kasahara]

My 5yo loves the Grubtown Tales series.

 

[purenarcotic]

Charlotte's Web is a great book (about a spider who saves a pig), Babe, The Meteorite Spoon (that may be a bit on the old side actually), Flat Stanley, Professor Brainstorm's Crunchy Crockery, Michael Rosen's Helen Highwater, the Mog books, the books by Oliver Jeffers, The Tiger who Came to Tea, the Elmer books.

 

[spanglechick]

Charlotte's Web is a great book (about a spider who saves a pig), Babe, The Meteorite Spoon (that may be a bit on the old side actually), Flat Stanley, Professor Brainstorm's Crunchy Crockery, Michael Rosen's Helen Highwater, the Mog books, the books by Oliver Jeffers, The Tiger who Came to Tea, the Elmer books.

lots of sadness and death in 'charlotte's web'. it made me cry the other day and i'm 40...!

 

[purenarcotic]

lots of sadness and death in 'charlotte's web'. it made me cry the other day and i'm 40...!

I'm sure my mum read it to me around that age. I went to see it on stage as well and I don't remember the death and sadness. Perhaps that's why I was an emo teen.

 

[Saffy]

Matilda by Roald Dahl
The Owl who was afraid of the dark by Jill Tomlinson
All because of Jackson by Dick King Smith

Not the longest of books but nice bedtime reading

Don't put mustard in the custard is still one of children's favourite poems.

 

[quimcunx]

Mr Gum books, Train your dragon books, David Walliam books are meant to be very good too.

 

[maya]

The Borrowers? I loved all the books. No dodgy racial stuff, a lovely story about exploration and adventure and seeing the world from a different perspective... The stories are quite exciting too as there's lots of dangers out there for our tiny little heroes (not only animals, I still remember with horror the volume where some wicked old man captures them and plans a whole fenced-in doll house village where one side of the houses are made of glass so that paying visitors could watch them all day, every day for the rest of their lives... it's pretty scary!) And the Snufkin-like character of the more wild and independent nature boy borrower, who doesn't want to be domesticated (a good romance, but still not too 'romancey' to put off the 'argh! yuk!-romance!' young readers) It's a great series all round.