The Washington Post did a list about two weeks ago about this:
Washington Post, Alyssa Rosenberg, 6 Dec / updated 19 Dec 2022: Opinion | To build a delightful library for kids, start with these 99 books
Then today posted an article about reader responses.
Washington Post, Alyssa Rosenberg, 19 Dec 2022: Opinion | We made a list of 99 great kids’ books. You told us what we missed.
I remain inordinately fond of some books I read as a child, to the extent of rereading some of them every decade or so, and I suspect most people (at least people who read books) do as well. So of course in reviewing these lists I’m attentive to spotting any of the titles I grew up with. No, virtually nothing. I’ve blogged about the books I grew up with before. Books by Enid Blyton, Elizabeth Enright.
At the same time I’m always on the lookout for what I’ve missed. So called “kids’ books” that affected so many people. And over the past decade, I have sought out some of those titles, and read them. They don’t have the impact on an adult that they do on children, is my conclusion. In fact, I suspect, it becomes more and more difficult for any book to have the same kind of revelatory effect that the right book can have on the right child, read at the right time.
I’ll have another book story post sometime, about Book Trails, a set of books I grew up with, but which was an incomplete set. I’ve completed it. Here’s a preview.
