kahlanne Posted August 9, 2011 Share Posted August 9, 2011 (edited) I need some classic advice. What is your all-time favorite classic? Do you have a favorite for a read aloud? or is it different depending on age? Do you have a favorite for elementary grade school? Do you have a favorite for middle school ages, 6th-8th? What is your favorite for high school age, 9th and up? Lastly, when did you start reading the classics and enjoying it. Thanks, Carol Edited August 9, 2011 by kahlanne adding another question Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chepyl Posted August 9, 2011 Share Posted August 9, 2011 We just read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and my son LOVED it! We also read Dr. Seuss books over and over. He is almost 6. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satori Posted August 9, 2011 Share Posted August 9, 2011 Here's my list I'm currently working on for children's literature K-8. You can sort the list by Year or Genre (classic) to find the classics in the list. We started reading books off this list at age 4 (although I just started compiling the list this summer). Some recent favorites for my dd6 have been: Trumpet of the Swan, The Secret Garden, Roald Dahl books, Anne of Green Gables, Pinocchio, and Doctor Dolittle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KristenR Posted August 9, 2011 Share Posted August 9, 2011 My girls and I just finished Peter Pan and we all enjoyed it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KristenR Posted August 9, 2011 Share Posted August 9, 2011 Here's my list I'm currently working on for children's literature K-8. You can sort the list by Year or Genre (classic) to find the classics in the list. We started reading books off this list at age 4 (although I just started compiling the list this summer). Some recent favorites for my dd6 have been: Trumpet of the Swan, The Secret Garden, Roald Dahl books, Anne of Green Gables, Pinocchio, and Doctor Dolittle. I LOVE your list Angela! One question though- I see you have Anne of Green Gables listed as a 3 for interest level but you stated that you and your dd have already read it together and enjoyed it. Did you put the interest level at the recommended age or did you go by your own instinct? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dolphin Posted August 9, 2011 Share Posted August 9, 2011 My all time favorite is Jane Eyre. However, my mum had me read it around age 14 and I hated it. I was assigned it in college and LOVED it. I read it every few years. Dickens and Poe are what I remember from when I was younger. My dad read us A Christmas Carole every other Christmas, and that was a good introduction for me. Then when I was 9 he read A tale of 2 cities, and I really enjoyed that too. Sometime around that he also started to read us Edgar Allen Poe (Classic ghost stories almost) He first read us the tell tale heart on a camping trip around the camp fire. I am doing what TWTM suggests and doing a lot of step into classics. I gave my 8 year old (advanced reader) Gulliver's travels, and he was not interested. However he flew through the step into reading version. It is getting him familiar with the stories and that is working really well. Oh, and I read little house, Anne and such at all the regular ages. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rosie_0801 Posted August 10, 2011 Share Posted August 10, 2011 What is your all-time favorite classic? Les Miserables. It was the first real "grown up" classic I read that showed the grey areas of life. The goodie was a criminal and the baddie was an honourable policeman. Do you have a favorite for a read aloud? or is it different depending on age? Uh, I don't like reading aloud so I don't have a favourite, :blush: just a list of books that are worse to read aloud than others... Lastly, when did you start reading the classics and enjoying it. I suppose I've been reading children's classics since I was able to read chapter books. I was brought up on Enid Blyton, read the 'Katy Did' series, the Little Women series, Heidi, Anne of Green Gables etc. when I was in primary school. Mum bought me a few Australian classics (adult, not kiddie books) when I was in grade six. Other than those three, I didn't move past children's classics until year 9, when a teacher friend/neighbour introduced me to Les Mis and others. I was an adult before I learned to appreciate the likes of Jane Austen, though I had read them when I was younger. My mum was a high school drop out and has mental illness which knocked off too many of the little grey cells over the years. She gave me a pretty good grounding in children's lit. We have a habit of buying for our kids what we read ourselves, don't we? But she wasn't able/ didn't think of taking me further, though I was still the most well read in my circle. That says more about reading anything at all being for nerds like me than any worthy accomplishment on my part. Rosie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satori Posted August 10, 2011 Share Posted August 10, 2011 I LOVE your list Angela! One question though- I see you have Anne of Green Gables listed as a 3 for interest level but you stated that you and your dd have already read it together and enjoyed it. Did you put the interest level at the recommended age or did you go by your own instinct? We loved Peter Pan too and coincidentally, a month after we read it, it was playing at the Boulder Dinner Theater. That was fun! I didn't want to add an interest level column but it made the list much more useful. It's hard to gauge such a subjective indictator, mostly I had to go by many sources which listed interest or reading levels, which seemed on the high side to me. I also had the advice of several people here. Sometimes the number of pages or complexity of language was taken into account, in addition to more mature themes. Children will have varying interest and maturity levels. Quite a few of those 3's Satori really loved at before age 6, before I made the list. We've already read and loved: Crispin: Cross of Lead, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Golden Compass, Ella Enchanted... She's reaidng a few higher level interest ones herself already: The Underneath, Mrs. Frisby and Rats of NIMH and a few other Kathryn Lasky books. I can see her enjoying many of the 3's listed and I know we'll be reading much of them in the next few years. At any rate, it can be a handy guide to start to tackle the list. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Satori Posted August 10, 2011 Share Posted August 10, 2011 Oh and I recently became an Audible member, and in a few weeks' time, we already have listed to several classics. We drive 90 minutes (there and back) to get to places such as the grocery store plus take frequent road trips, so we can easily enjoy the audiobooks and the membership has been so very valuable for our literary life. :) Some books we can finish in one trip. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted August 10, 2011 Share Posted August 10, 2011 Fiction is hard for me. I get distracted. I'm trying REALLY hard to include more fiction in my life. I've been eyeing lists lately and I'm thinking of tackling the list in WRTR starting with grade 1. I read stories as a child, and as a young adult, and then...at some point...just transitioned entirely to nonfiction. Supposedly doing things like that is supposed to make me dull :-0 I'm also eyeing the lists in TWTM of course. And ordered a used copy of TJE. I bought some books about applying Northrop Frye's ideas on literature to children's lit. I have a bad feeling that I'm going to end out just reading nonfiction books ABOUT reading fiction, rather than reading the fiction ITSELF :-( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KristenR Posted August 10, 2011 Share Posted August 10, 2011 Oh and I recently became an Audible member, and in a few weeks' time, we already have listed to several classics. We drive 90 minutes (there and back) to get to places such as the grocery store plus take frequent road trips, so we can easily enjoy the audiobooks and the membership has been so very valuable for our literary life. :) Some books we can finish in one trip. Since we do a fair amount of driving I too have tried getting into audio books. However, I was trying to do things on the cheap and just borrowed from the library. It is a bit discouraging, and tends to ruin the experience, when 90% of the books we try to listen to are scratched and skip around. Maybe I'll have to throw out the idea of Audible to dh and see if we can squeeze in another monthly bill. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rosie_0801 Posted August 10, 2011 Share Posted August 10, 2011 Maybe I'll have to throw out the idea of Audible to dh and see if we can squeeze in another monthly bill. You can buy single books from Audible, and don't forget Librivox- that's free. Rosie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tammyw Posted August 10, 2011 Share Posted August 10, 2011 You can buy single books from Audible, and don't forget Librivox- that's free. Rosie We had downloaded The Railway Children years ago, from Librivox. We listened to it over the past week in the car and the voice of the woman who recorded it was really fantastic. Very enjoyable! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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