Books Even Busy Boys Will Come Inside For

Look at my muddy sons!  This photo brings back fun memories.  In our family, summertime meant lots of outdoor playtime, swim lessons, and jaunts to the beach.  But we also encouraged trips to the library and summer reading. 

How could books ever compete with sunny days full of bikes and mud??  With choices like the ones below (as promised, I'll be blogging about fun summer reading for the month of June).


Books Even Boys Will Come Inside For...eventually:
The Stories Julian Tells (series) by Ann Cameron. 

I immediately went out and found this book at the library after reading Jim Trelease's summary in his Read Aloud Handbook. "The author takes six short stories involving Julian and his brother and weaves them into a fabric that glows with the mischief, magic, and imagination of childhood. Though centered on commonplace subjects like desserts, gardens, loose teeth, and new neighbors, these stories of family life are written in an uncommon way that will both amuse and touch young listeners." It really engaged our boys' imaginations.


The Great Brain (series) by John D. Fitzgerald. (ages 8-12)

This book was an all time favorite of my oldest son, about the hilarious adventures of an Irish-Catholic family in Mormon Utah in 1896.  Tom - a.k.a. "the Great Brain" - is a 10-year-old genius con man, always interested in making a profit (and always learning a lesson.)


Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and sequel, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator by Roald Dahl (ages 8-12). 

These books made a huge impact on my oldest son.  Along with Norman Jester's The Phantom Tollbooth, Roald Dahl's books introduced him to imaginative fantasy through quirky humor and fun wordplay. Dahl's books are about childhood justice and delight, full of imagination and the best kind of storytelling. Charlie Bucket lives with his mother and four bedridden grandparents in their one-room home. Charlie wins a trip into the magical, fantastical world of Williy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. A satirical look at want and need, greed and generosity, all remedied through the methods of the eccentric candy maker. Not to be missed!


Maniac McGee, by Jerry Spinelli (ages 9-12). 

This is the story of a 12-year-old runaway boy. As a stranger to the town of Two Mills, he is naively ignorant of the racial divide between the East and West sides of town. He's also unaware that his life will become legend as he performs one amazing feat after another (like running 49 touchdowns in a single game!) You won't believe the miraculous things he does - the most courageous being the healing of the division in the town and the end of the racial prejudice there. Good contemporary fiction.

The Indian in the Cupboard (series), by Lynne Reid Banks. (Ages 8-12) 

Exciting, absorbing, and thought provoking story, alive with magic as two boys discover they can bring their toys to life by putting them in an old medicine cabinet that one of them receives - along with a small plastic Indian - for his birthday. They are faced with the responsibility of this tiny person and the consequences of their actions. Gives new meaning to the phrase, "the dignity of human life".


Summer of the Monkeys by Wilson Rawls.

I guarantee your boys won't be able to put this book down! (If you missed it, you can read my past post here). Independent Readers: grades 5 and up. Family Read Aloud: ages 9 and up.

NEED A GOOD READ FOR A WINTERY NIGHT?

I hope you'll consider the exciting children's novel The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, (published 1962) by Joan Aiken, for your next read aloud this winter.

Most of the action of this Gothic-era story takes place inside a grand English manor house, "Willoughby Chase" (oddly enough, the wolves are mainly in the background of the story); add a wicked governess, two cousins (a plucky rich girl and a penniless orphaned girl) and a kind country gooseboy, and you've got characters and drama that would rival any Frances Hodgsdon Burnett story (with some abusive Roald Dahl-style authority figures, Agatha Christie twists and turns, and a Charles Dickens prison-like-school thrown in)...can you resist that for a cold winter's night?

Young Bonnie and her cousin Sylvia are threatened not only by wolves, but by a new governess - their distant relative "Miss Slighcarp" - who is sent for when Bonnie's doting parents leave Willoughby Chase for a healthful sea voyage.  Simon the gooseboy tries to help the girls escape the trials and misfortunes as things go from bad to unbearable, thanks to their grim governess.  But it's not all darkness and drear.  The cruel adults in the story are balanced by kind and caring ones and, in the end, good overcomes evil.

My niece and nephew recommended this book to me - I wish I'd read it as a child!  Your child will like it, especially if he or she enjoyed The Secret Garden, A Little Princess, Little Lord Fauntleroy,  James and the Giant Peach, Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, or Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.  If you are the designated adult reader, you will like it if you enjoyed Jane Eyre, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, or any of the Agatha Christie mysteries.

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase is the first in a series of books by Aiken. Click HERE to read more about Joan Aiken's 12 fantasy books that make up the Wolves of Willoughby Chase Chronicles. (Disclosure: I have not personally read the whole set.  The first book stands alone just fine). Ages 10 and up.

IT'S ROALD DAHL'S BIRTHDAY

September 13 is "Roald Dahl Day", celebrated every year on what would have been the author's birthday. This year also marks 50 years since Dahl's classic tale James and the Giant Peach was first published.  Your child can celebrate by sending a Peach-gram to a friend!

illustration by Jed Alexander

From THE GUARDIAN:
According to his biographer Donald Sturrock, in Storyteller: The Life of Roald Dahl (2010), Dahl was "a conundrum". Certainly, by any standards, he led a strange and complex life. Born to Norwegian parents, brought up in Wales and in England, he crashed in a plane in the desert in the second world war, and then became a spy in America, befriending the great and the good, before eventually settling back down in England, where he overcame three great tragedies: an accident that caused his baby son, Theo, brain damage, in 1960; the death of his daughter, Olivia, aged only seven, in 1962; and his wife's stroke in 1965. (A fourth tragedy occurred in 1990 when his stepdaughter, Lorina, died of a brain tumour.)


Dahl's daily retreat from the world was his famous writing hut. "I go down to my little hut, where it's tight and dark and warm, and within minutes I can go back to being six or seven or eight again," he said. In the hut, snuggled up in a sleeping bag, with his famous green baize writing board across his armchair, his lined yellow legal pads and his Dixon Ticonderoga pencils, he wrote, pausing only for lunch, The World at One, and then dinner, drinks and a game of snooker.

Dahl's writing hut, "The Gipsy House", Buckinghamshire, England.
Photo: Eamonn McCabe

The interior has been left unchanged, since Dahl's death
from Leukemia in 1990.
Photo: Eamonn McCabe 

To read my 2010 birthday post for Roald Dahl, click HERE.