kubiac Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 Bumping this because I realized Best in Children's Books series from Doubleday deserves a mention. Incredibly well-edited, not to mention featuring early work by Scarry, Sendak, Andy Warhol and more. I found 7 more at the bookshop today, and I think I'm going to save all of these volumes for when my kiddo can read through them himself. The pleasure of discovering these little volumes is worth the wait! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mathnmusic Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 I've read through the entire thread, and wondering, after all that, if you could only buy one set of anthologies, which would you recommend? I don't own any of them (yet!), and want to get a set that has interesting content based on history or science or world cultures with some fictional content ok, but not completely all fairy tales, with beautiful nostalgic pictures. Picturesque book of progress? Book of Knowledge? Childcraft? Bookshelf for Boys and Girls? Thank you in advance! :001_smile: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stripe Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 I think my favorite remains Through Golden Windows! Childcraft is kind of fun, but I mostly have an edition from the late 1970s so it's not quite so "retro." I found a more recent copy of the volume on places, and it looked identical except for the photos, now in color! Bookshelf for Boys and Girls has some quite nice volumes on non-fiction topics, better than the others. But not amazing pictures. Also the size is a bit too big for snuggling down with. I don't think Childcraft's pictures are phenomenal, either. I'm no help. We are slowly working our way through My Book House as before bed reading. The pictures are nice, but I somehow expected something really fantastic after reading all the glowing reports here, and they're not quite that great. I also can report in that I found an extremely cheap version of most of the volumes of New Junior Classics. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mathnmusic Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 Thanks Stripe! I love hearing your thoughts on these sets. But in the beginning of this thread, it sounded like you weren't too thrilled with the Golden Windows set, but do you like them better now? Esp compared to the other sets? If anyone else wants to help push me one way or the other the best anthology set to get (mostly nonfiction based, but some fiction is ok too), I'm all ears. I just ordered the volume on Mathemagic by Childcraft after reading the amazing reviews about it. Will try to remember to report back after it arrives! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deniseibase Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 I've read through the entire thread, and wondering, after all that, if you could only buy one set of anthologies, which would you recommend? I don't own any of them (yet!), and want to get a set that has interesting content based on history or science or world cultures with some fictional content ok, but not completely all fairy tales, with beautiful nostalgic pictures. Picturesque book of progress? Book of Knowledge? Childcraft? Bookshelf for Boys and Girls? Thank you in advance! :001_smile: Picturesque Book of Progress has no fictional content, or science, just history (as seen through the lens of the culture of 1930s America, of course). It's good for logic stage - I wouldn't use it for a younger child without some editing as facts and attitudes are different now. But if you want to start giving an older child an interesting window into how people viewed the world several decades ago, it's pretty neat. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stripe Posted June 11, 2012 Share Posted June 11, 2012 Thanks Stripe! I love hearing your thoughts on these sets. But in the beginning of this thread, it sounded like you weren't too thrilled with the Golden Windows set, but do you like them better now? Esp compared to the other sets? Ha! Yeah, I think it's grown on me, and I've poked through it a bit more than I had when I first started shooting off my opinion earlier in the thread. I also realize how nice the size! I am not crazy about the two American history books in the Golden Windows series, though. A bit too old fashioned for my tastes. I just ordered the volume on Mathemagic by Childcraft after reading the amazing reviews about it. Will try to remember to report back after it arrives! Enjoy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poke Salad Annie Posted July 24, 2012 Share Posted July 24, 2012 Bumping this older thread up to ask....... I found a set of The Child's World, edited by Esther M. Bjoland, yesterday at the thrift store. I only bought one volume, People and Great Deeds. They are going for 35 cents, so for that price I guess I should hurry back and get the other volumes, right? Has anyone else seen this set before or used it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HejKatt Posted July 24, 2012 Author Share Posted July 24, 2012 Bumping this older thread up to ask....... I found a set of The Child's World, edited by Esther M. Bjoland, yesterday at the thrift store. I only bought one volume, People and Great Deeds. They are going for 35 cents, so for that price I guess I should hurry back and get the other volumes, right? Has anyone else seen this set before or used it? Bumping this for you. I only found these images from Amazon and Etsy: http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-media/product-gallery/B007EFH0ES?ie=UTF8&index=3&isremote=0 http://www.etsy.com/listing/79912732/vintage-childrens-story-prose-book-1947 OpenLibrary has a couple of books by Esther Bjoland, I'll check if I can borrow one of them. The one you have, People and Great Deeds, is only available in Daisy (not sure how to access). http://openlibrary.org.ezproxy.plsinfo.org:2048/search?q=Esther+Bjoland The titles in the series appear to be: Stories of Childhood People and Great Deeds Plant and Animal Ways The World and Its Wonders Countries and their Children Guidance ETA - if this price on Amazon is believable, then I'd run back to the store to get the rest at 35 cents each. :tongue_smilie: http://www.amazon.com/The-Childs-World-Six-Volume/dp/B000KL7V8I 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poke Salad Annie Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 ETA - if this price on Amazon is believable, then I'd run back to the store to get the rest at 35 cents each. :tongue_smilie: http://www.amazon.com/The-Childs-World-Six-Volume/dp/B000KL7V8I Wow! I guess I'll make a trip to the store tomorrow. Thanks for your help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
helena Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 Get them! Get them! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alte Veste Academy Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 Get them! Get them! :iagree: Your progeny will thank you. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HejKatt Posted July 25, 2012 Author Share Posted July 25, 2012 The titles in the series appear to be: Stories of Childhood I just browsed Stories of Childhood from OpenLibrary/Internet Archive. http://openlibrary.org/books/OL24220642M/Stories_of_childhood It's similar to the first two books of My Book House - Mother Goose rhymes, famous poems (Stevenson, Rossetti), old tales (Aesop, Grimm), realistic stories (Margery Clark, Kate Seredy) and nature stories (Thornton Burgess). Illustrations are gorgeous - some are full color, others are 4 tone. The front page specifically states that this book was aimed for preschool/elementary age, so I guess the other books in the series (such as Heroes) will target the later ages. I'll join the others in saying it looks good, especially for 35 cents! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HejKatt Posted July 25, 2012 Author Share Posted July 25, 2012 Bumping this because I realized Best in Children's Books series from Doubleday deserves a mention. Incredibly well-edited, not to mention featuring early work by Scarry, Sendak, Andy Warhol and more. I found 7 more at the bookshop today, and I think I'm going to save all of these volumes for when my kiddo can read through them himself. The pleasure of discovering these little volumes is worth the wait! Kubiac, these are a great find. Thank you for updating the thread with them! As a side question, it's probably cheaper to source these books individually at thrift stores than to buy as a lot, isn't it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori D. Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 (edited) Bumping this DREADFUL thread that is making me buy books (LOL!) because LAST year -- thanks to Alta Veste -- I added the Tenggren illustrated Arabian Nights and Canterbury Tales to my collection, and just this year (yes, just this MONTH!), I have acquired a 12-volume set of My Book House (the white cover edition, 1971). May I just say -- WOW! :001_tt1: LOTS of works I've not seen before, lots of famous authors, and many, MANY of the selections are not in Through Golden Windows or Collier's Junior Classics: The Young Folks' Shelf of Books. The volumes progress in age/interest, with vol. 1 = all nursery rhymes and children poems, vol. 2 = traditional folktales, Aesop fables, and more poems, up through vol. 10 and 11 having excerpts and abridged retellings of classics such as Beowulf, Sir Gawain & the Green Knight and Wagner's ring cycle operas, to vol. 12 being biographies (Chaucer, Louisa May Alcott, Frederick Douglass, Charles Dickens, Jesse Owens, Thor Heyerdahl...) I've jumped in randomly at vol. 11, which is geared for middle school/early high school, and what I'm really enjoying is the inclusion of the old language -- the rhythm and poetry, vocabulary, and sentence structures. Most are retellings and abridgements, but retain much of the flavor of the original language, making these ideal "stepping stone" versions for readers not quite ready to jump up to full translations or the complete original work. These editions are wonderfully for "tuning the ear" to hear and understand the original language. While I like Through Golden Windows, it feels a bit... I don't know, lacking? I think partly it is because I adore the Ruth Manning Sanders "Book of..." series for fairytales (very nicely written, plus the wonderful pen & ink illustrations by Robin Jacques -- here's a sample), and I also really enjoy the adaptations of classics at various grade levels in the old vintage readers from Ginn publishers (Ginn Basic Readers series). (I like the grade 3 and up books especially.) And then the Collier's Junior Classics are great to step in right when those Ginn books end at grade 6. Don't get me wrong -- glad to have Through Golden Windows set -- it just has more overlap with my Ginn Basic Readers and fairytale volumes than I would like, and, like Stripe, not fond of the majority of selections in a few of the volumes... 😉 But they are beautiful books, with lovely colored covers and color illustrations. :drool5: Bwah-hah-hah! Cackling evilly at sucking you all back into the vintage book drooling and addiction... Saluting, now that I've done my duty ... :gnorsi: [whispering: The problem is, now I'm eyeing that 16 volume Children's Hour set by Barrows...] Edited August 6, 2020 by Lori D. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HejKatt Posted January 29, 2014 Author Share Posted January 29, 2014 Just popping in to link a set I read about in another thread: Journeys to Bookland And an anecdote about owning anthologies: my toddler learned number sequence because she kept watching us put them back. I've seen her standing in front of the bookcase, muttering "1, 2, 3.." to herself while pulling out books that were out of sequence and putting them in the right place. So there you have it - anthologies can double as math manipulatives. :tongue_smilie: 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lorisuewho Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 I have been going through our set of Through Golden Windows today and I really think I'm going to use it as my spine for kindergarten literature for next year. I had been looking at a few different book lists and reading plans, but really Through Golden Windows has a great selection of stories and poems for little people. It is like having a built-in reading list. I'm not sure why I didn't think of it sooner. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori D. Posted March 2, 2016 Share Posted March 2, 2016 bumping to give these lovely anthology collections more exposure ;) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tohru Posted July 7, 2016 Share Posted July 7, 2016 This thread is old! But I came across it while Googling for Golden Books Nature or something. Now I've got Bookshelf and Through the Golden Window on the way. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori D. Posted May 2, 2018 Share Posted May 2, 2018 Bumping, to attract new moths to the alluring flame that is vintage books... 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LauraBeth475 Posted May 2, 2018 Share Posted May 2, 2018 I just bought a My Book House set at Half Price Books. It’s been there a few months, and I stopped by to admire it multiple times, and that was just ridiculous. The stories are lovely, of course, and the indexes are impressive. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LauraBeth475 Posted May 2, 2018 Share Posted May 2, 2018 The one thing I would love to have for My Book House is a chronological index. Anyone aware of any? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragonflyer Posted May 3, 2018 Share Posted May 3, 2018 Here is a guide mapping My Book House with Junior Classics: http://librariesofhope.com/new-story-guides.html 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nixpix5 Posted May 3, 2018 Share Posted May 3, 2018 I love my set of My Book House. I have the white set with the pastel coloring and gold swirls on the spine. They are just precious. I have the two extra volumes "In Your Hands" and "Your Child's World" which are kind of neat too. One of my favorite aspects of My Book House is their kids rendition of Dante's Inferno. I just never see a kid friendly version that gives exposure to it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LauraBeth475 Posted May 3, 2018 Share Posted May 3, 2018 44 minutes ago, dragonflyer said: Here is a guide mapping My Book House with Junior Classics: http://librariesofhope.com/new-story-guides.html Excellent! I have both sets. There is a ton of nicely organized free, vintage stories on that site as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori D. Posted September 28, 2019 Share Posted September 28, 2019 bumping 😄 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arliemaria Posted September 29, 2019 Share Posted September 29, 2019 On 5/2/2018 at 9:01 PM, LauraBeth475 said: Excellent! I have both sets. There is a ton of nicely organized free, vintage stories on that site as well. Is there an updated link? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LauraBeth475 Posted October 3, 2019 Share Posted October 3, 2019 On 9/28/2019 at 11:47 PM, arliemaria said: Is there an updated link? As far as I can tell, the anthologies are now integrated into the reading suggestions Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.