OT: “Children’s Books” most Adults think Beneath their “Dignity”

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This began as suggestions to Wendy for “powerful yet escapist readings” to have restful powerful refuge in noisy chaotic places or times. Then I thought why not write more generally.

And so I request you all to add your own, and here are mine:

The Odyssey, by Homer, as spoken by some great voice (it was after all written NOT to be read, but to be spoken to an audience by a master of poetic voice!) — Ian McKellan’s is quite good.

The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling, best read by your own self, both the adult and child versions of your self. I place it just under Aristotle for illuminating the roots of civil society and conflict, and as a peer to John Muir in pointing us toward the glory of original creation

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson is a study and celebration of how to mature into wisdom through love and vital courage. The movie attempts never came close to the book.

His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass was written to enthrall both adult and childish minds in separate ways, is a brilliant sci-fi + fantasy riff on human beings in a universe parallel and extremely like ours, occasionally intersecting with us, and is utterly captivating. If you like it the story continues for two more volumes.

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The best “child-adult” book I know is “Le Petit Prince,” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

But I wouldn’t bring it to a stressful situation because even thinking about it makes me cry.
Wendy

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Thanks for this. My 12 year old devours books like this. Ordered today!

A classic. We have it in English, Spanish, and German.

Haven’t read this since college. I’ll add the spoken version to my podcast/book-on-tape list…

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If I spoke/read French it would be top of my list.

The translated written version so struck me as a little boy, and I so loved my naval pilot uncle, that I dared to dream of going to Annapolis in pursuit of becoming a battling Little Prince/Antoine. I failed of that (near-sighted) but took up the book “Stick and Rudder” on Uncle’s recommendation, and later flew fixed wing gliders, leading me to a few “close to g_d moments.

Wendy, my list for you is safe from stress crying, and I do believe the young heroine of Golden Compass (and the boy she goes to rescue) will grab you.

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The Boy , the Mole, the Fox and the Horse is a sweet little illustrated book. It was made into a short film and won an Academy Award. Warning to Wendy- it might make you cry.

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In my experience, Arthur Hailey novels are very diverting. I lost count of how many times I read “Airport”. “Wheels” and “Hotel” are good too. I would shy away from “Overload”, as the way the main character’s girlfriend dies is a bit disturbing. I gathered up all my Hailey novels and offered them, as a lot, on eBay a year or two ago. Along with the others, I had “In High Places”. I’m not sure I got around to reading that one, based on having no memory of anything that happens in it.

If you like travel adventure, check out the books by Richard Halliburton. “Royal Road To Romance”, “The Flying Carpet” and “New Worlds to Conquer” are good. “The Glorious Adventure” and “Seven League Boots” were not as good.

I inherited my mom’s set, all printed in the 1930s. Read them all, then offered them as a lot on eBay. The woman that bought the set, sent me an e-mail, telling me how her mom had read them aloud to her father, while she, as a small child, would sneak out of bed, sit at the top of the stairs, and listen. as her mom read.

Steve

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When I was a kid (in NYC), our libraries had a children’s section and an adult section separated by a low wall (with a gate that only the librarian could open). My mom took us kids to the library every Friday after school. I would carry my milk crate full of books to return, and then fill it up with new books to read over the next 7 days. Well, around age 10 1/2, maybe close to 11 (but not over 11 because we moved around that time), I ran out of books in the children’s section! Really ran out, I read all the “boys” books and then read all the “girls” books (Nancy Drew, the Ramona books, etc), and there wasn’t enough new stuff coming in to fill my reading schedule. So one Friday afternoon, my mom had a conference with the librarian and got me permission to enter the adult section, BUT I was only permitted to check out books approved by the librarian. She was a tough old lady (probably 20 years younger than I am now) and never really believed that I read all ~40 books in my milk crate each week. This was even after her “quizzing” me on some of them a few times. Anyway, she tried to dissuade me from reading “adult” books by recommending and approving “The Source” by James Michener as my first book from the adult section, a book with about 1000 pages. Next Friday I came back to return the book, and she started discussing it with me (to see if I really read the whole thing). Well, we ended up discussing it for an hour until my mom wanted to leave the library already! After that, the librarian recommended a bunch of good books, and shortly thereafter allowed me to check out pretty much anything I wanted (I assume she only filtered out the risqué stuff).

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You must speed read. Not the formal, run your fingertips down the page speed read, just read really really fast. That was me, going through everything I got, my sisters’ books, the encyclopedias in the hallway, Mom’s RD condensed novels, and anything else I could get my hands on. At breakfast I would read the ingredients in the cereal boxes when I was bored.

In grammar school we had what were called “The Iowa Tests”. (No idea where the name came from.) Anyway, there was a timed reading test, and I got to the end of the passage long before time ran out. So I raised my hand and the proctor (teacher) said “Well then read it again.” So I did, but that was boring. Then came the comprehension quiz and I did great.

Been reading like that my whole life. A little harder now with an old guy’s fuzzy eyesight, but it’s one of my greatest joys. Subscribed to Apple News so I get a wide spray of publications, news, and opinions.

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There are several Paulo Coehlo books that our family still reads from time to time. The Alchemist is a classic.

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I’ve re-read many “children’s books” over the years. To get the full effect, need to get the unedited version. Found it very interesting how sanitized many stories were. You get a very different Swiss Family Robinson, Robinson Caruso, et al, and often more violent.

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It seems that is a theme of this board — a lot of us are crazed readers.

At age 3 I was so obsessed with Kipling’s Kim and The Jungle Books that I unintentionally taught myself to read over Mom and Dad’s shoulders as they (re-read for umpteenth time) them to us. Then my 3 year older brother’s Tom Swift Jr Books, and then the World Book Encyclopedia (I skipped “boring stuff” using I have no idea what decision structure). Older brother taught me how to hide good books inside school texts etc when sitting in classes, and to always be shy and polite about it if caught.

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Not really children’s books (some adult themes) but books that are not my typical fare that really pleasantly surprised me.

And my recent obsession(s):

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I have been a voracious reader since I made the connection between letters and sounds at the age of 2. My parents could always count on having me behave by simply handing me a book.

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We had two sets of encyclopedias, the 1930s World Book which my grandparents bought for my dad and the 1960s Golden Book. These weren’t the same since the older encyclopedia had photos of things (like a Chinese woman with bound feet) that weren’t current in 1960. My elementary school teachers were often annoyed by my class participation since I memorized the encyclopedias at home.

I read all the children’s classics but also my father’s constant stream of science fiction magazines (“Analog”) and novels.

In college, I joined the Science Fiction club. The organizer and president of the club, who is still a good friend, has a collection of literally thousands of science fiction books, mostly paperbacks. The question is: what to do with them if/ when he moves out of his Brooklyn home (where he grew up)?

Wendy

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I had that encyclopedia too. Hardy Boys mysteries too. And tons of comics. Unlike their cartoons, the Disney comics were surprisingly literate, especially Uncle Scrooge. Sometime in the 80s, a publishing company bought all the old Gold Key comic printing plates, and republished some of the classic Disney comics.

The inhabitants of Duckburg were the creation of Carl Barks.

Steve

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Special rec for the Foundation Series. Haven’t read that since the 70’s or thereabouts.

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For me, it was getting tired at an early age by “age appropriate” books and asking my MD father if he didn’t have something more interesting. I think the first was Eugene Sue’s The Wandering Jew. But, he was a big fan of Graeco-Roman history, so I was soon into Herodatus and the like. Snuck a few of the medical books as well …

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Yep, As a kid I read EXTREMELY fast. But I’ve noticed that now that I’m older, I read quite a lot slower. I finished a book (“Mickey 7” because we just was the movie based on the book) over the weekend and then started another (“The Memory Keeper’s Daughter”, my wife’s current book club book) and I am halfway through. @WendyBG I think you might like the latter one. When I was a kid, I could easily go through 10+ books on the average weekend, but now I’m down to 1 to 2 books a weekend.

SAME!!! And not just once, again and again and again. I remember one year, because I did it constantly, I noticed than an ingredient got added to our frosted flakes (or whichever cereal it was … ironically, I don’t remember which one).

In High School, at the start of each year when the books were handed out … I read ALL the books from cover to cover during the first few days that I had those books in my hot little hands. Same in college, I’d go to the college bookstore, pay a ridiculous amount for books (sometimes very lame ones) and then start reading them on the way home, and usually complete them before the second class. Biggest book ripoff was this one - Hydra C.mmp for nearly $100, and in the early 80s, $100 was a heck of a lot of money! It was boring as heck thin hardcover, very short (I think the thickness of the cover and the back was just slightly less than the thickness of all the pages in between), maybe 100 of 120 pages, and was probably just a slightly modified copy of someone’s dissertation. And it was useless, nothing at all to learn from it. Even the classroom discussion didn’t center on it at all. But the prof said it was mandatory.

I had a science fiction and fantasy kick for a few years. I bought pretty much all the Asimov books (a few hundred as I recall) including his bible book. I bought all the Heinlein books. I bought all the SF anthologies with tons of excellent short stories in them. I bought all of Piers Anthony I think. And Tolkien. And many others. By now, my wife has discarded almost all my paperbacks, we use the library for the vast majority of our books now.

When I was still working, I had 2 bookshelves full of technical books that I had collected over a 4 decade career. Most of those I left behind as we don’t have space for them at home. I think I took my set of Knuth, but they are probably still in boxes.

Now most of my reading is online, a lot of junk, but also a lot of good insightful stuff.

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