| ..
|
what's
your favorite kids' book?
jump
to the discussion
boards
and recommend it. Or talk about your fave actors, movies, music, or whatever else
suits
your fancy!
|
copyright
©1999-2000
DigsMagazine.com.
|
kiddie
Lit
for
quasi-adults
| 1
2 3
continued from page 1 |
Maybe you just have to reach a certain age before you’re old enough
to appreciate your inner kid. But these days, I’ll say it loud
and proud: I’ll take Narnia or Dr. Seuss or even Harry Potter over
Tolstoy any day. Too much of the long-winded, weighty, intellectual,
"grown-up" stuff will just turn you into a dour bore, anyway.
Besides, a good kids' book can get you thinking just as well as a tome
that uses big words and a complex narrative structure. The
difference is that with a kids' book, you'll be guaranteed to have fun
in the process.
So why wait till you’ve got kids of your own to start re-visiting
those books you loved so much in your youth? Visit a bookstore or raid
your parents’ collection -- start building up that kiddie lit library
now with a few of these classics:
Fox in Socks,
by Dr. Seuss
I love words. I love reading them aloud in my head, letting the sounds
loll around and mingle, repeating them over and over again until they
lose all meaning. It’s why I read cereal boxes, and laundry detergent
bottles, and toothpaste tubes. I like the way words look and sound at
least as much as I like their expressiveness. Which may be why Fox in
Socks is one of my all-time favorite read-aloud books. You know how
most books string together words to tell a story? Not so this one, which
revels in nonsensical wordplay, associating words on the sole basis of
how they sound. Think of Dr. Seuss and you probably think of Green
Eggs and Ham, or The Cat in the Hat, or, in this holiday
season, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, all of which are
deservedly classics. But for sheer absurd brilliance, Fox in Socks
takes the cake.
The Lion, the Witch
and the Wardrobe,
by C.S. Lewis
The mark of a true work of Literature is that you find something new in
it with each re-read. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the
first book Lewis wrote in his Narnia series, is not just good children’s
literature. It’s good literature. Period. It’s got so much of that
superficial stuff that makes for a great read – charming characters,
exciting adventure, magic and intrigue and fantasy galore – that as a
kid, you probably didn’t even notice that it oozes Christian symbolism
out the wazoo. (Having been raised in an agnostic-bordering-on-atheist
household myself, I have no doubt that I still haven’t caught all the
Biblical allusions, despite how many times I’ve read this book).
Mostly, though, the beauty of this classic is that it provokes your
imagination … and to this day, I still open closet doors half-hoping
that they’ll lead to some beautiful, magical world.
keep
going, there's more ...
--------------------------->
lounge . nourish
. host .
laze
. home .
|
