Classics, Nonfiction, and Children's Literature
Washington: The Indispensable Man by James Flexner (published 1974) is a one-volume abridgement to Flexner’s comprehensive four-volume biography about our first president. I did not find this volume wanting in anyway, and I found both the writing and the content to be straight-forward and relevant as I learned about Washington’s life. The stories in Flexner’s
The First Four Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder (published posthumously in 1971) is the author’s “rough draft” of one more book about her early life, in this case the first four years of her marriage. Because it was only discovered after her death and was published in essentially the same form it was found it,
Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret by Judy Blume (Bradbury Press, 1970) is the classic puberty book, which talks frankly about a girl’s concerns with menstruation, a changing body, and wearing bras, among other things. But, it is even more about a young girl’s changing perspective on herself, on learning to accept herself as
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O’Brien (Atheneum Books, 1971) is a tale about a strong field mouse mother determined to save her family from the imminent danger that comes from the spring plowing. With the advice of a wise owl, she turns to the rats who live under the rosebush
The world lost a legend when we lost Tomie dePaola recently. The Cloud Book that he wrote and illustrated (Holiday House, 1975). is a one-of-a-kind, semi-comprehensive volume about clouds for early elementary children. It is written in the second person, immediately drawing in a young child. First, the book introduces clouds as drops of water
Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley (Doubleday, March 1976) is a truly powerful book. It follows the life of one man’s descendants, beginning in the mid-1700s, and following through to the author himself. The most amazing thing is that all of it was based on a family story passed down for
Socks (1973) is not a Beverly Cleary book I ever discovered as a child, but I love it! It’s a simple story told from the perspective of a cat named Socks, beginning with his first day of true consciousness: the day he would be sold by the boy and girl who had taken care of
The Great Gilly Hopkins is not an easy book to read. Gilly is a child in a difficult situation. She is a child without a family, moved through the foster care system. She does not make it easy for her foster parents, because she believes that her mother loves her and needs her. She dreams
In The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty (Random House, 1972), middle-aged Laurel Hand evaluates her life and that of her childhood associates in the wake of her father’s recent death. It is a contemplative novel about relationships, life, and hopes and dreams. At the beginning of the novel, she visits her ill father as he recovers after
The story of Goldilocks and her visit to an unoccupied house of three bears has inspired a plethora of picture books, retellings, and rewritten accounts of the story. Robert Southey first recorded the folkloric story in an 1834 collection. (See Wikipedia for a rundown of the story’s history and reincarnations). My three-and-a-half-year-old son loves the
The Snowman by Raymond Briggs (published 1978) is a wordless picture book capturing the creation and life of another best-friend snowman. The unnamed boy spends hours making his snowman perfect, then in the night has hours of adventures. With some prompting, my son can tell me the story, and each time it’s a little different, which
I have special memories of Robert Frost’s Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening (written in 1923) and the picture book illustrated by Susan Jeffers (published 1978) is a beautiful rendition. I love how reading or reciting this poem is calming. It reads like I really am stopping in abandoned snow-covered woods for a breath. It’s
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