heads up. the little house book oringinals are pretty racist in parts.
the first book has lots of songs from PA that might have offensive lyrics about darkys etc and then there's Ma's constant comments about only good injun is a dead one.
I didnt remember this from when i read them as a kid. It was a bit of a shock reading them out loud to DD. but at least i could edit as i went. I was glad i didnt just hand them over as approved reading materials when she was little.
i was kind of sad as i remembered them so fondly from my childhood as books with good parts for girls in them.

Yes-- I did remember that. The blackface scene in particular stuck with me all these years, the idea was so repugnant to me even at seven.

The other thing to note about the Little House books is that there is definitely corporal punishment in them-- of a nature and magnitude that modern kids (or parents!) may find downright shocking.

I should probably have mentioned that until DD was about ten years old, we vetted all of her reading material because of her dramatic asynchrony and because of her penchant for reading materials published prior to 1980. I really encourage parents of gifted children to do that if we can possibly manage it.

It's only been in the six to twelve months that I don't vet reading material for her at all, and she's just turned 13. She's also never been particularly emotionally OE/sensitive, I'd say, so I've allowed her to read material that other children (even gifted children) probably should NOT read at similar ages.

I can only recall restricting a few books, and those for (as alex'smom also notes) quite specific reasons that relate to my DD particularly. A Taste of Blackberries was one of those books. Otherwise a good book, but not one that I needed my five year old reading. She read it when she was about 11 and it was still pretty overwhelming.

I have been told that Enid Blyton is also racist in some books--can anyone speak to this?I haven't read her.

I must say, I just got out the Little House books to read aloud to DS4 and am not feeling very inspired to "do" them again. The racism is pretty bad, and Pa is sort of a lunatic IMO. I guess once was enough to revisit my childhood nostalgia. I'll see if DS asks for more, I guess. I need to refresh my memory on good chapter book readalouds for 4yos...he's probably not ready for really advanced stuff yet. We did My Father's Dragon and that was a smash hit.

I don't recall very well-- it's been at least four years since I've looked at any of those. DD was most fond of the "Noddy" books.

I loved listening to James and the Giant Peach and The Secret Garden from my first grade teacher.

Yes, true. Noddy is the best known series with that problem, but I believe I've heard that editions sold these days have been sanitised. I vaguely remember a girl called Carlotta in some series I used to read who was "gypsy" and portrayed in a way that today I expect I'd see as racist towards Romany people. But tbh I think really what's true is that Enid Blyton draws on every kind of stereotype - she doesn't use racial stereotypes more than other stereotypes! - but the racial ones are what's shocking today. Roll on the day when the gender/class/region/job stereotypes are equally shocking or perplexing...

The new versions of the Enchanted Forest and Faraway tree have been sanitised a little (ie the girls don't do all the housework) but they are wonderful reads and DS4 loves them. He also enjoyed the Wizard of Oz, dragon Keeper series (can't remember the author), Roald Dahl - well anything really