Children's Fiction

I've read 31/51 of the Children's Fiction selections, and will probably read most of the rest. They're easy reads, and offer a handy list when I'm looking for bedtime stories for my 7-yr old son. I do so with caution however, since the target ages vary greatly and there's not much in the descriptions to help you guage.

Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang was perfect for my 7-yr-old son, and he's also enjoyed Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Five Children and It, and especially Swallows and Amazons. Peter Pan and The Secret Garden are tough reads but geared to his age story-wise. The Last Unicorn is an interesting case of being accessible to his age, but having a lot of deeper meaning that I enjoyed myself. Same would go for The Little Prince.

The youngest-geared are Dr. Seuss (obviously) and Where the Wild Thing Are, which my son has had for years now.

I wouldn't dream of introducing him to "Fellowship" yet (we read The Hobbit instead). I suspect The Colour of Magic and The Weirdstone of Brisingamen are old for him too; they're on my own TBR pile for now. The Human Comedy steers for the 9-12 crowd thematically.

I've had no luck finding Emil and the Detectives, The War of the Buttons or The Golem, so I can't speak to any of those.

If your seven-year old especially enjoyed Swallows and Amazons, he'll probably enjoy the rest of the series as well. My just turned eight-year old daughter has enjoyed each volume as far as Coot Club so far, as bed-time stories. We've just finished Peter Duck, which we abandoned earlier as being a bit too intense, and had come back to.

One of the books we read in the meantime was T. Llew Jones's Barti ddu. Black Jake, captain of the Viper, is a pussy-cat compared to Bartholomew Roberts. She's chosen T. Llew Jones's Trysor y mor-ladron as our next story, showing a real taste for pirate stories.

Mrs C. and I do alternate nights, her with Dr Seuss, Kitten Friends, Rainbow Fairies sort of thing, and me with longer ('proper'?) books, alternating Welsh and English titles, so like the author of a recent article in the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/apr/07/parenthood-final-moments), I'll probably get the old heave-ho before we get to Great Northern?.

Our library, unfortunately, doesn't carry anything but the first volume, and I almost never see even that in bookstores. Perhaps because we're in central Canada?

I'm currently "exposing him" to the original Anderson's fairty tales in all their un-PC glory, which we're both getting a kick out of. On the side I've been sampling Perrault's fairy tales as well, and they're even more outlandish. I didn't know the Disney version of Sleeping Beauty ends only halfway through the original story ... *shiver*

I've a few non-501 titles I want to explore with him; top of the list is The Phantom Tollbooth.

Still have not found The Golem by Isaac Singer (from the kids lit list), but I keep confusing it with The Golem by Gustav Meyrink (not a 501 title) which unfortunately sounds like the better of the two.

My records say I own At the Back of the North Wind and I'm trying to think where it might be shelved. I remember the Princess and Curdie books with fondness. Possibly the first writer who empowers a fictional princess.

I was the kind of kid (and probably you were too) intrigued by school library shelves enough to find and read some obscure stuff that nobody had checked out in a very long time (in those days / at that school, you could read the card at the back with the names and dates of every predecessor), and with no prompting at all chose At the Back of the North Wind. I only remember the north wind appears as a character to some boy and she takes him on various adventures, at one point to the moon I believe, and there was something sad about the ending. But I also remember I really liked it. I've never held or seen a copy of it since, but I'd like to.