Tag Archives: I read this as a kid

Watership Down

Posted on October 30, 2025 | Comments Off on Watership Down

I still can’t believe I read this book aloud. It is huge. There are names that are very challenging to pronounce. There is a seagull character who is supposed to have a Russian accent (who I’m afraid ended up sounding like he came from the south-eastern part of the United States) And did I mention that it is huge? But the boys were getting older and they really enjoyed it, so it was all worth it.

(No, I did not show them the movie. I saw snippets of it as a child, about the same time as I saw snippets of The Last Unicorn and it terrified me–and apparently everyone else, this really is not a movie for children.)

I expect this will be the final entry for this blog. My boys are now well past the optimal age of reading aloud, which means there are no new books waiting to be added. So, although I read this to the boys using a mass market paperback, as a special treat, and commemoration of the end of this project, I purchased an illustrated version of this book from England, pictured below. It has been a true pleasure working on this blog; this time with my boys was incredibly precious and this project has brought back and preserved so many memories. All the best.

Author: Richard Adams

Illustrator: John Lawrence

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Classic Fairy Stories of the World

Posted on October 22, 2025 | Comments Off on Classic Fairy Stories of the World

This book, from Cliveden Press (the 1979 edition), was the other primary fairy tale book of my childhood. As with the Childcraft book discussed below, when I think of fairy tales, a lot of the default versions in my head come from this book. And, also as with the Childcraft book, the boys didn’t spend nearly as much time with this book as I had as a child.

Authors: Many and uncredited

Illustrator: Uncredited

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Childcraft Folk and Fairy Tales

Posted on October 16, 2025 | Comments Off on Childcraft Folk and Fairy Tales

My family of origin had the whole 15-volume Childcraft set (the 1961 edition) when I was a child, but I ignored most of them (with the exception of this volume, Storytelling and Other Poems, Animal Friends and Adventures, Life in Many Lands, and Great Men and Famous Deeds). Most of them were non-fiction, and already VERY dated. This volume, however, was a favorite. It contains a variety of (mostly European) folk and fairy tales by lots of different authors and illustrators. When I think of fairy tales, a lot of the default versions in my head come from this book.

While I read some of the stories in it to the boys (fairy tales are important for cultural literacy!), they didn’t spend nearly as much time with this book as I had as a child. (After looking at the rest of the 1961 set as an adult, I ended up donating all the other volumes).

Authors: Many

Illustrators: Many and uncredited (although some pictures are signed)

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Corduroy

Posted on October 16, 2025 | Comments Off on Corduroy

This is another classic. Corduroy, a stuffed bear with a missing button, tries without success to find his button in a very large department store. Ultimately, he finds a home and a friend (and learns that being perfect isn’t required for either of those things to happen).

A sweet book with lovely soft pictures. And just look at the fashion choices!

Author: Don Freeman

Illustrator: Don Freeman

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Posted in Board Books, Picture Books

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Slip the Otter Finds a Home

Posted on October 14, 2025 | Comments Off on Slip the Otter Finds a Home

This is a book about helping children adjust to moving, like The Berenstain Bears’ Moving Day, but a bit more subtle. Slip’s otter family can’t find enough food, so they have to move to a new home, and Slip is sad. But when Slip finds a friend (and her family builds a new mud slide), she starts to feel better.

When I was small, I loved to look at the pictures in this book. And otters were very popular here when the boys were small. We liked visiting them at the zoo and we liked reading about them, in A Lot of Otters, Do Unto Otters, and this book too.

Author: Olena Kassian

Illustrator: Olena Kassian

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The Hobbit

Posted on October 13, 2025 | Comments Off on The Hobbit

This is another one that was so much fun to read aloud! If you’re reading this blog in English, you almost certainly already know the basics of this adventure. But the vibe may be unexpected. J.R.R. Tolkien told this first to his children and it really shows; there is a lightness and sense of play that largely goes by the wayside in the Lord of the Rings series that ended up following it.

Main character Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit and homebody, not a traditional heroic type. But he becomes a hero nonetheless by stepping outside his literal comfort zone and trying new things, while always maintaining his interest in creature comforts (as so lovingly described by Tolkien). It is not to be missed (and neither are the Lord of the Rings movies, which are masterpieces). Unfortunately, however, the three (!) movies made from The Hobbit should absolutely be skipped.

Author: J.R.R. Tolkien

Illustrator: J.R.R. Tolkien

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And to Think that I Saw it on Mulberry Street

Posted on October 13, 2025 | Comments Off on And to Think that I Saw it on Mulberry Street

This book is such fun. The words nearly sing as you read them aloud. The illustrations leap off the page. It’s hard to believe that this was Dr. Seuss’ first book–he really had his voice fully in place from the beginning. And I wish that was all I had to say, but this one has a serious caveat.

As mentioned, this book was Seuss’ first. That means it is close to 100 years old. And it shows–it is dated to the point where Seuss edited it in 1978 and his estate took it out of print altogether in 2021 (long after my boys’ picture book days were past). The copy that we have is an edited one, as was the copy I read as a child. I’ve looked up the original version now and… yikes. And knowing Dr. Seuss’ background creating political cartoons during World War II targeting Japanese Americans does not help matters at all. I’m honestly not sure I would read it to a child today. Read this one to yourself first before sharing it.

Author: Dr. Seuss

Illustrator: Dr. Seuss

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The Last Unicorn

Posted on October 11, 2025 | Comments Off on The Last Unicorn

I have very little to say about this book because it speaks for itself so beautifully. It is my absolute favorite book and has been since I stumbled on it in a used bookstore as a young teen. (The snippets of the movie I had somehow seen pieces of terrified and confused me as a young child, but I got over that with time. Beagle himself wrote the screenplay, and the studio who made it later later split and became Studio Ghibli, all of which is very cool.) I loved reading it to the boys and they each have a signed first edition that the absolutely lovely Peter Beagle inscribed to them (for more on that encounter, see my entry on The Sneetches and Other Stories).

I’m not alone in loving this book; over and over again I’ve seen authors pay tribute to it. For example, Ursula Vernon (aka T. Kingfisher), another especial favorite of mine (and of the boys), notes:

It is made of spun glass and fairytales and iron knives and there are individual lines that I would give my lungs to have written.

She’s right. I mean, my goodness, just look at the first page below.

Author: Peter S. Beagle

Illustrator: N/A

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James and the Giant Peach

Posted on October 10, 2025 | Comments Off on James and the Giant Peach

In my opinion, this not a top-tier work of Dahl’s (Charlie and Matilda are my favorites of his, and I’m very found of Danny, the Champion of the World, although I didn’t read that one to the boys). But, as I realized when I started reading his books aloud, even his second-tier work sets a high bar. This book is odd and fun and surprising–how many authors would dare, have the hero’s parents, on the first page of the book, “suddenly . . . eaten up (in full daylight, mind you, and on a crowded street) by an enormous angry rhinoceros which had escaped the London Zoo”? Or have the hero’s companions be giant insects? (For obvious reasons, like other Dahl books, this would not be the best book for a particularly sensitive or anxious child. Things are truly terrible for James before they get much better. )

Like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I far prefer the original illustrations to those by Quentin Blake (who is now the default Dahl illustrator). Burkert’s pictures are very weird and atmospheric (James looks positively haunted, which makes perfect sense in the context of the book) and I love the subtle light peach color throughout the illustrations. I didn’t find its stop-motion movie very interesting and didn’t show it to the boys.

Author: Roald Dahl

Illustrator: Nancy Ekholm Burkert

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A Little Princess

Posted on October 9, 2025 | Comments Off on A Little Princess

Like Matilda, this book focuses on a child escaping from awful circumstances by the power of her mind and creativity. I read it over and over as a child–Sara’s times of luxury and deprivation, love and misery, were enthralling (as was the glimpse into British boarding schools of the nineteenth century). And the sumptuous pictures! I read The Secret Garden by the same author around the same time. It never spoke to me in the same way (perhaps it would have if I’d had a copy of the edition Tasha Tudor illustrated), but it did make a a musical I hugely enjoyed as a young teen. (Avoid the movie of A Little Princess with Shirley Temple at all costs.)

Caveat: Keep in mind that both A Little Princess and The Secret Garden are about 120 years old and aspects of them have not aged well at all–read them alone first, there are a lot of things you’ll want to be ready to discuss if you read it to a child.

Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett

Illustrator: Tasha Tudor

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