If I may be so bold, the fact that someone's pre-literate child loved such and such book does not qualify as a recommendation. I don't think I've ever read my kids a book that they would later claim to dislike, since kids like stories and like having stories read to them. So a kid liked a book. Big deal!
In high school, my friend Leah would only ask Dianne whether a party that we had both attended was any good. "Why don't you ask me about it?" I would whine. "I was there!"
"Oh Rebeca, you always think everything is fun. I want to know whether it was a good party or not, not whether you thought it was good. I already know the answer to that."
Kids being read to are like high-school-me at a party: since they like everything, their judgment can't be trusted. The real question is, did the adult whose literacy was pressed into service like the book? In most cases, I wager, they didn't, or don't know whether they did because they weren't really paying attention.
What makes a good children's book, for me, is one that I can read many times without feeling like I have to tune out and think of other things just to cope with the banality. Curious George is, I gather, considered a classic, but personally, I can't stomach it. I don't even care about the colonialism glorification aspects, I just find the stories completely hollow and tedious. Book burning is out of vogue, but I long for a roaring fire whenever the Deetman demands a reading of anything starring the curious little monkey, or any character originally conceived by Disney inc., or Bob the Builder.
But there are plenty of children's authors whose work doesn't make me feel that I need to find my happy place. I love James Herriot's farm animal stories, Ian Falconer's Olivia series, anything by Shel Silverstein or Beatrix Potter, and my current favourite, which is maybe a bit surprising for the under-four set, Oscar Wilde.
In the beginning of this century, my friend Denise had a book website called "Stomp of Approval". I won a draw and she sent me The Happy Prince and Other Stories. When Rara was three and four we read them at bedtime, over and over again. They are perfectly constructed little tales that are just challenging enough in length and theme to gently tax a small child's mind while keeping their interest. I'm starting to read them to Deetman now. I typically get teary at least once in each story, twice in The Selfish Giant.
A little bit longer, and slightly more challenging in languge and content, is The Canterville Ghost, which I would classify as a novella, but which is officially a short story. I see here that it has been adapted into graphic form. Based on the review, I don't think I'll bother hunting down a copy. We've been disappointed by graphic adaptations in general and the reviewer's comment that "it ends up just being a series of dull panels loosely tied together, more reportage than actual prose and certainly nothing like the gorgeous Wildean prose" could easily apply also to Graphic Shakespeare's Macbeth. Except for the Wildean part.
I read the Lisbeth Zwerger-illustrated version of The Canterville Ghost to my kids and the pictures were gorgeous and hilarious. Tobias raised his eyebrows when he saw what I had chosen as a bedtiime story. Deetman has been waking up occasionally due to bad dreams and Tobias thought a ghost story was ill-advised. I said I'd play it by ear and after a few pages, realised that the book's scare factor hovers near zero. The laugh factor is high, though some of the jokes may be too subtle for teeny kids. Deetman got his cues from his sister, and as she was holding her belly half the time, he never got scared and laughed along with us, even if he wasn't entirely sure what was so funny.
The Tobias series by Danish author Ole Hertz is also a pleasure, rather than a chore, to read to Deetman. I found Tobias Catches Trout at the library last year, fell in love, and ordered the full series of four Tobias books for Christmas. We read them all on Boxing Day and then modelled Deetman's birthday celebration ( on December 27th ) on Hertz's description of a traditional Greenlandic child's birthday in Tobias Has a Birthday. Guests arrive and sit in one room eating cake and drinking coffee. Once everyone has finished their second cup, the hostess announces "You may now smoke" and the group moves to another room to do this, making way for the second shift of guests, who sit down in the now-vacated cake and coffee room. This type of time-limited socialisation is highly appealing to me, since I often think that if I could only guarantee that dinner guests would leave at nine o'clock, I would host dinner parties much more frequently.
My favourite thing about the Tobias books is the incredibly simple, highly evocative art: line drawings with watercolour highlights. O to draw like that. The text consists of very clear, plain descriptions ( translated by Danish-American writer Tobi Tobias, I kid you not ) of activities in the life of 12-year-old Tobias of Greenland. Two of the books contain maps of his settlement. Maps in a book make me swoon. My Tobias took one look at Tobias Goes Seal-Hunting when it arrived in the mail and said "Oh now I get why you ordered these. This is right up your alley." He's right. The combination of a northern theme, descriptions of domestic life, skillful art, and maps ( swoon ) is exactly the kind of thing I like.
Since Rara doesn't require me to read books to her anymore, I am a less obsessed about the quality of books she reads. I suggest things and pick up things from the library for her, but she can and should read what she likes and I would never criticise something she's into. As a result, we have a lot of J.K. Rowling around the house.
From time to time I still do read to her at bedtime as well. It's terribly inefficient, since she reads at approximately double my silent speed and five times my read-aloud speed, but it's cosy and lovely, so I like to do it. Recently we've enjoyed Momo by Michael Ende, Little Women and Good Wives by Louisa May Alcott, and The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Inevitably we get to a point in the book where she can't stand it anymore, tears it from my hands and finishes it off on her own. Then, if I want to know what I missed, I have to read it on my own time.
