Comments on: Top 100 Children’s Novels Poll (#50-46)

By: Maggi

Maggi — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 23:32:34 +0000

So satisfying to see Red Fern on the list. Loved, loved, loved it as a child. Have not yet re-read it as an adult. Having recently read The Yearling, which was a hundred times sadder than anything else I’ve read this decade, I’m interested to see how it compares.

Frindle – yes!!

It is very exciting to hear that there will be FIVE Penderwicks. I feel happy just thinking about it.

By: Jenny

Jenny — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 07:42:44 +0000

I have to say that “Where the Red Fern Grows” pretty much ruined animal books for me. My 4th grade teacher read it out loud to our class and it was so horrifyingly sad that now I’m afraid to even read “Shiloh” or “Because of Winn-Dixie.”

By: Scrumptious

Scrumptious — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 03:38:37 +0000

Well, here’s the first one from my list to appear: Island of the Blue Dolphins! I have faith that several others from my list are waiting ahead, but now that we’ve passed the #50 mark I am quite sure my lesser-known darlings are not going to make the cut. So sad! I would have loved to see them introduced through this amazing forum! I’ll keep mum for now just in case by some freak miracle they do turn up later (there are certainly a few books in every batch that I’ve never heard of, so who knows what lies ahead?) but once the final post is up I’m going to start shilling for the one that got left behind!

By: DeAnn

DeAnn — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 14:25:14 +0000

Yay, 2 of my top 10 make the cut… and a quote to boot! Thanks!

By: Sandy D.

Sandy D. — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 07:39:01 +0000

Also, I’ve never read Hatchet! Must rectify that immediately. I don’t why I’ve never read it, since Paulsen’s (adult) “Winterdance” is one of my favorite books of all time.

By: Sandy D.

Sandy D. — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 07:37:08 +0000

Oh, I love the snark, even when it’s on my childhood favorites.

I do feel a little bad because I totally forgot about Curtis, and I would have actually booted one of my top ten and put “The Watsons” in there, I like that book so much. I loved “Bud, Not Buddy”, but the portrayal of the sibling relationships in “The Watsons” was just amazing. I can’t be the only one who feels this way, so I’m betting “The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963″ is still going to turn up here. (The only thing I don’t love about that book is the unwieldy and unenticing title).

By: Dreadful Penny

Dreadful Penny — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 04:46:14 +0000

Oh, Hatchet was one of my #11s. I’m still absolutely terrified of the part where he dove for the plane wreckage and saw the pilot eaten by fish…. ack.

By: Fuse #8

Fuse #8 — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:36:33 +0000

I happen to agree with you Dreadful Penny. And Hatchet vs. My Side of the Mountain? No contest, to my mind.

By: Dreadful Penny

Dreadful Penny — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:31:48 +0000

Oh, and here’s hoping Julie of the Wolves is yet to come! This is the first day one of my picks has made it on the list!

By: Dreadful Penny

Dreadful Penny — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:29:21 +0000

Please, don’t anybody sic your pet trained falcons on me! I never knew my My Side of the Mountains snark would have a chance of making it into Betsy’s commentary (and I’m fully aware of the cognitive dissonance in putting down one Jean Craighead George book to praise another).

Here’s why I prefer Island and Julie to My Side: even though I read My Side a bunch of times as a kid, I always found something kinda prissy and condescending about Sam’s Thoreau-esque turn… prissy, like when the Swiss Family Robinson make basins for their running water out of some giant tortoise shells. The girls in Island and Julie weren’t living out some bourgeois back-to-the-land fantasy; they were struggling on the edge of survival, needing every bit of their considerable wit and skill to just get by. While I never could have articulated it as a kid, I think this lasting aversion is a class thing. Sam was wealthy enough to have a life to run away from (and that he could always return to if things got too rough)… a place in the city AND a country farm upstate, and stable parents to rescue him and coddle enough to let him do this semi-crazy thing.

Plus, I have a thing for wolf-fur hoods and cormorant-feather skirts.