I am starting to break and am joining my first event/challenge for 2013. Next month, Amanda at Simpler Pastimes will be hosting a challenge to last throughout January on Classic Children’s Literature. I already have The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lange on my Kindle (also on my classics club list) and on my last trip to Barnes and Noble I may have hinted that their leatherbound edition of Little House books would make a great gift from Santa.
Details:
- During the month of January, we will read as many Children’s Classics as we wish and post about them on our blogs. I will have a link page starting the first of the month to gather posts so that we may share as we go.
- The optional RAL title will be The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald. I plan on discussion the weekend of January 25-27.
- For those who prefer to read digitally, The Princess and the Goblin is available free in multiple formatsHERE or in a HTML format HERE.
- I think many of us have read more recent children’s books that we may already deem “classics” (for example, many people feel that way about the Harry Potter books), but for this event, I’d prefer if we read books that were written prior to 1960. This will still allow a lot of options, and will hopefully avoid the “but what is a classic” dilemma!
- Defining “children’s,” especially prior to 1900 or so can be a challenge as some books we think of as “children’s” today may not have been intended that way at the time. Personally, I’d say books appropriate for approximately an elementary-school aged child or preteen (to read or to have read to them) should be fine. I’d also count the various fairy tales, even though some of the earliest versions were not exactly always family friendly.
- Books from any country, in translation or not, count. I have limited exposure to non-American children’s lit, so I’d love to learn about books from other countries myself.
- Jean and I will be sharing a suggestions list of some pre-1960 titles closer to the start of the event, but feel free to read anything within the guidelines.
I'm glad you will be joining in, Whitney, and thank you for mentioning it here! I think I read all of the Andrew Lang fairy books one about the summer before I was in fifth grade and had lots of fun with them–I hope you do too.
I've been think I need to reread the Little House books. The leather edition sounds lovely. I hope Santa takes the hint!