You Asked ... :-) Book Recommendations for Your Young'uns

"Do you know of any good books for {fill in child's name} to read?"

Those of you who are known to be avid readers probably get this question fairly regularly. Nota bene: If you publish a book AND are known as an avid reader, you will get this question CONSTANTLY - by e-mail, by message on Facebook, in person, by word-of-mouth-from-someone-who-knows-someone-who-knows-you.

Personally, I LOVE it. I love - love - love giving book recommendations. :-) But sometimes, my poor sinus-pressurized head cannot think clearly and I forget to include a certain book or two about which I really ought to have told the questioner.

Hence, this list for those of you who asked ... and for those of you who didn't, but like to pick up good books! I'm not listing based on reading ease, by the way, as, after picture books, my Mom just let us push our way through with a dictionary at our elbow. As Oswald Chambers says, that's probably the best way!

{Please Note: I may not have read some of these titles for years, and so I cannot vouch for every square inch of their contents ... I recommend based on my overall impression of the book and will note anything major that I remember that could be "iffy." In the big picture, it's your call what your child should or should not read, and I advise you to skim any book first before handing it over to your young 'un. :-)}

So here we go!

If your kids like dogs and horses:

• Big Red, by Jim Kjelgaard - about a trapper boy and his champion Irish Setter - some violence
• Where the Red Fern Grows, by Wilson Rawls - Be ready to weep.
• Misty of Chincoteauge, by Marguerite Henry - I think I read this twenty or more times as a child.
• Justin Morgan Had a Horse, by Marguerite Henry - the background of the Morgan horse breed in story form
• Album of Horses, by Marguerite Henry - Ms. Henry wrote dozens of books for children featuring horses - If you have a real horse-lover on your hands, check them out! :-)
• The Dog Who Wouldn't Be, by Farley Mowat

For real-to-life stories:

• An Old-Fashioned Girl, by Louisa May Alcott
• Eight Cousins, by Louisa May Alcott
• Little Women, Little Men, & Jo's Boys, all by Louisa May Alcott
• Five Children and It, by Edith Nesbit
• The Railway Children, by Edith Nesbit
• The Story Girl and The Golden Road, both by L.M. Montgomery - be sure to get the "real" ones, not the Disney-ized versions. :-)
• The Boxcar Children, by Gertrude Chandler Warner - There are so many in this series, but my favorite is The Yellow House Mystery.
• All-of-a-Kind Family, by Sidney Taylor - There are several in this series, but each book can be read alone.
• The Betsy-Tacy series, by Maud Hart Lovelace
• The BFG, Fantastic Mr. Fox, James and the Giant Peach, and a few others by Roald Dahl - These books are hilariously creative, but the humor occasionally - and only occasionally - becomes vulgar.
• The Grandma's Attic series, by Arleta Richardson
• The Boyhood of Ranald Bannerman, by George MacDonald
• The Little House series, by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• Little House: The Rocky Ridge Years series, by Roger Lea MacBride
• Once Upon a Summer, by Janette Oke - for middle-grade & teens
• The Animal Friends series, by Janette Oke - These have been edited since I last read them, but the originals were very good!
• The American Girls series Felicity, Kirsten, Molly, Addy, & Samantha - I can't vouch for the newer series, but these five were wholesome reads for younger girls.
• The Bronze Bow, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, & The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare - The second one is not really about a witch, just so you are aware!
• Johnny Tremain, by Esther Forbes
• The Door in the Wall, by Marguerite De Angeli - a beautiful, encouraging story that just becomes richer as you grow older.

For adventure and/or fantasy:

• The Cooper Kids Adventure series, by Frank Peretti - FYI: These can be very frightening at times due to the spiritual nature of some of the adventures.
• The Spirit Flyer series, by John Bibee - Again, sometimes frightening, especially in the later books, but so worth the read and discussions that will ensue! :-)
• The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis - So excellent that there are no words.
• The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien
• The Bracken Trilogy, by Jeri Massi
• The Iliad & The Odyssey, by Homer - Yes, I challenge you to read them for fun, not for schoolwork.
• The Once & Future King, by T.H. White - for older {mid-to-upper} teens due to mature themes
• The Princess and the Goblin & The Princess and Curdie, by George MacDonald - not just for girls, despite the feminine title character!
• The Borrowers series, by Mary Norton

Whew! That's a pretty good start, isn't it? I'm sure I'll be adding to this list as I remember more.

Now a question for you, dear readers: What favorite books do you remember from your childhood? Why did you like them so?

Rocky Point, Bribery, & the Peiffer Giveaway Winner

When I was a little girl, there was only one way to get to Rocky Point Amusement Park.

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Through reading 100 books.

From June 14th {the day after our school "let out" for summer vacation} until the last few days of August, my sisters and I added star stickers to our book charts.

Each star denoted one book read. We planned what books we'd each read, my sisters and I and my mom, carefully stacking them until the wobbly towers reached our waists. As a child of four or five, my books were usually just picture books with simple storylines, read about to me by my Mama-Bee. As we grew, the books grew with us: Caddie Woodlawn, Eight Cousins, Encyclopedia Brown, Charlotte's Web, The Little House Books, Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood, Stuart Little, Big Red ... Most books were new to us - fresh-as-watermelon reads for the sticky days - but Mama-Bee allowed a few repeats as well, as long as the books stayed within our reading level: The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler appeared multiple times for some very odd reason. :-)

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Oh, we did things other than read as well: swam and bicycled and played baseball and went to camps occasionally. But we knew one thing: Mom wouldn't budge on the 100 books. If we didn't read them, we weren't going to Rocky Point for that last summer hurrah before school began.

We each read 100 books. Without fail. Every summer. Until Rocky Point closed in what was a very mournful day for the Roque family.

Was that it? Did we stop reading since there was no longer any point? {Pun not intended. :-)}

Not at all. In fact, I think we picked up speed. :-) Which is why I believe in careful bribery to teach good habits, to help an immature one to see the good of something that - on the surface - seems tedious but bears great rewards.



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They say the teachers of Israel used to coat the school tablets with honey as a sharp, sweet reminder to their pupils of how delightful the Lord's Word is {Psalm 119:103}. As the pupils memorized the words on the tablets, they could lick off the honey.

So it was with us - my two sisters and I. We licked the "honey" of Rocky Point and learned to love the "tablet" of reading beneath. This summer, I won't be reading 100 books, but here are five that I will be getting to {Lord willing and the crick don't rise!}:

1. Keep a Quiet Heart, by Elisabeth Elliot - I admit, a re-read. My sister introduced this book to me, and Elliot's quiet words of deep wisdom are so helpful as I walk toward Jerusalem.
2. Robert Falconer, by George MacDonald - I've been wanting to read this one for years! Sir Gibbie, Donal Grant, and others by MacDonald have been mind-baptizing books for me. I can't wait.
3. The Space Trilogy, by C.S. Lewis - I've read Out of the Silent Planet, but I've not gotten around to the other to yet.
4. The Faerie Queene, by Edmund Spenser - A partial re-read, this is one of those books I love reading but somehow never manage to finish.
5. Jonathan Edwards: A New Biography, by Iain H. Murray

And we have our winner for a signed copy of one of Caleb Peiffer's novels! :-) Thanks to everyone who entered. Kristen, I will be putting you in touch with Caleb shortly via e-mail so that you can let him know which novel you would like to receive! :-)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

How Much is Too Much? Thinking about Historical Fiction

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This will come as no surprise to those who know me personally, but I read A LOT of fiction. Very little of it is so-called contemporary - actually, I can't think of the last book I read that was contemporary unless you count C.S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet, which I would count more as "vintage literature." :-) I read both historical fiction and "classic literature," as well as the odd fantasy book thrown in for good measure. And the last few historical fiction/classic lit books that I've read have made me start to consider a question that's important for me as a writer:

How much is too much?

In other words, how much "history" - from everyday life details to background events to popular movements - overwhelms the storyline, makes me as a reader start skipping, turns the "plot" into a glorified dry-as-dust history lesson?

I've come across at least two books during this past winter that have done this. The funny thing is, I love history ... but, if I'm reading a story, that history must be worked into the storyline so deftly that I barely notice its presence. Otherwise, I feel like the writer just calls attention to their extensive research which otherwise wouldn't be used explicitly {which temptation I understand - when you spend hours researching a topic, only to use a scrap of the info in the book, it can be a little disgruntling!}. Indeed, there is one particular author whose work I love - His storylines soar with truth - but I usually skip entire chapters in his books because he devotes so much space to background history - history that I don't need to understand the story.

And that brings me to "classic lit"...

Upon the recommendation of a couple of friends, I recently read Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South. {I love the film version of this, and the book equaled that version in strength, a happy finding!} The interesting thing about North and South, as well as other classic literature choices, is: the author doesn't feel the need to fill you in on all the background historical info, the exact clothing designs of that era, how streets were built, etc., interesting as those snippets might be. Because classic writers are usually writing approximately-contemporary stories, they don't let the reader know every little detail of daily life or national history. What the reader needs to know comes out through story for the most part. 

So, I'm thinking...

What I as a reader prefer is the classic literature approach, where the "history" part is more organic, even assumed, shall I say? I am better able to lose myself as a reader in such a story, in general.

However,

I have come across a couple of historical fiction books recently that seemed to be doing just that - not switching focus back and forth from official "history" to the main storyline but trying to integrate the two seamlessly - and they didn't work well. Rather than being transported back to a definite time and place, I felt lost. Curious because the storyline and character interested me. But still lost. {And no red shoes to get me home.} There wasn't enough history to provide structure. And a historical fiction book without enough appropriate history is like a chocolate cake with too little frosting. {Unacceptable, to say the least!} So what would I have loved to have with these stories?

1. Footnotes or brief descriptions in the text. Personally, I don't mind footnotes, but I know a lot of readers dislike them, feeling like they are reading a history book. {Well, they are, but it is a fictional history. :-)} So a simple description of the weapon/clothing item/household tool within the story serves the same purpose. If done deftly, the storytelling spell will remain unbroken, and the reader will continue to follow along. Annotated versions of classic lit books do this very well. I particularly appreciated this with North and South and, less recently, with Daniel Deronda, as both stories weave current-events movements deeply into their stories. Glancing down at the footnotes to understand a comment one of the characters made, etc., furthered my enjoyment of the books. It would have worked equally as well to incorporate that info into the story, for a modern-day writer of historical fiction.
2. A short historical note at the beginning of the book. For a time period with which most readers have little familiarity, the same kind of short blurb that occurs at the beginning of historically-based films {such as Gladiator - no, I'm not vouching for the accuracy of that film!} helps a great deal.
3. A map - though this is the one I could let go most easily.

Hopefully, thinking this through will reap benefits for me in my own writing. You see, as a writer, I have lots of research in my head when I sit down to write, and I can get into "trouble" one of two ways - one, by assuming the reader has the background research that I do and so including very little to shape the world I'm creating for them; or two, deciding that the reader must know everything I've researched to enjoy the story.

What about you? Do you agree or do you see this differently? What authors make the past come alive for you - classic or contemporary historical fiction writers?