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    Joined: May 2009
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    Mr7 is reading (I should say ploughing through) The Hobbit (when he can wrestle it off me). It is fantastic. I read it a long time ago but forgot what a treat it is.

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    Our book of the day today was Thomas Keneally's "Ned Kelly and the City of Bees" (1978, repr. by David Godine, ca. 125 pages, approx. grade 5? reading level). Set in Australia (in maybe the late 1940s?), it's the story of 10-year-old Ned, who is confined to hospital with acute appendicitis. His loneliness is assuaged by the visit of a friendly worker bee, who shrinks him down to her size and takes him back to her hive, where he spends his summer. A curious and enjoyable book (with lots of information to be gleaned about bees and their habits), with a surprise ending...

    peace
    minnie

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    My DS7 loves mysteries, so I'm constantly on the look out for good ones. His favorites so far:

    Encyclopedia Brown- good, short mysteries that let the reader try to solve it before they reveal the answer and how Encyclopedia solved it. Grade level: mid elementary for difficulty, but DS was devouring them at 6.

    Series of Unfortunate Events- he started this series recently and I worried that it was too dark, especially because it's a mystery without a happy ending. It actually ended up being a good bridge between the lighter, fluffier mysteries written for 3rd or 4th graders and the somewhat darker books written for Middle Schoolers. Grade Level: mid-late Elementary, but not for really sensitive kids.

    Great Illustrated Classics- there are 3 Sherlock Holmes Mysteries available from them. They are very, very abridged versions of the originals, with illustrations that take up whole pages and huge typeface. But my DS loved them! The books inspired him to look for the original Sherlock Holmes books and while he wasn't able to read them yet, I am all for a book that motivates kids to find out more, even if it isn't the truest rendering of the original stories. Grade Level: difficulty is probably mid elementary, but the text size and copious illustrations make it accessible to much younger taglets.

    Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys, the original series- DS found these a few weeks ago and is absolutely in love. I like that they're written at a higher level, but because they're from the 50s, other than some mild sexism, there aren't hugely inappropriate themes or situations. It's also nice that both series have a huge number of books, which can be found for dirt cheap at garage sales and Goodwill when we exhaust our library's offerings. Grade Level: Middle School for difficulty, but the text size and occasional illustrations make the books friendly to 6 or 7yo taglets.

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    Can't believe the "Magic Far Away Tree" just got a mention! Thanks for the link. I literally just started in on this book with DS6 this week and was wondering if anyone, anywhere else still reads Enid and her British books! They are so British in tone - they make me giggle now that we live in the US! I was wondering if they were still available and up on Amazon. I'm reading him the book I've owned since I was a child. I'm a big "Famous Five" and "Island of Adventure" series fan of Enid's. They were always the "Nancy Drew" counterpart weren't they? Although I read many of these books as late as 10 yrs of age and older - because I wasn't exposed to them earlier - I think many a younger child can enjoy them. We recently also read her "Bedtime Stories" - many of which were silly and old fashioned - but she does clever things for children, like use rhyming words or riddles in her stories, poetry mixed in, old fashioned morals - always a consequence to your actions type tone - and sometimes prayers - depending on the book - and she never ceases to fire up the imagination. I think there is something about her writing that just totally resonates with how children think. DS6 is alreayd in love with Moon Face, the slippery slip slide down the center of the Tree and the thought of magical lands appearing int he cloud. We are only on Chatper 3 and he is begging eveyr night to read the next chapter before th next day comes around! It's innocent 5-6 yr old fun that you don't really find easily these days in popular culture anymore. "Pop Biscuit" anyone?

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    Originally Posted by Raddy
    And of course there's "Stig Of The Dump" by Clive King
    marvellous!
    http://www.amazon.com/Stig-Dump-Puf...mp;s=books&qid=1247838274&sr=1-1

    Oh my goodness........flood of forgotten childhood memory ..wasn't that a BBC TV Series at one point ....I'm having flashbacks to totally loving that story and show and had totally forgotten about it ........Raddy freaks IronMOM out this week!!

    Last edited by IronMom; 07/23/09 12:00 PM.
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    Yup - seem to remember "Tom's Midnight Garden" was a tv series too - and that's still on Amazon as a paperback - unlike Enid Blyton - it's still in print . Great story about finding a window in time - which I think appeals to kids - especially gifted kids that can understand the concepts.

    JAW HITS FLOOR - Enid's collection of "Far Away Tree" stories worth over $1000.00 if anyone has copies lurking at home !!!!!!!!! Who knew? Typical for such great and innocent stories to be completely OUT OF PRINT today!! But Sponge Bob - he's still alive and kicking. (Excuse me whilst I barf).

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    LOL about Sponge Bob reference...

    I remember a book I loved called "the Egypt Game", and another one, "A Summer to Die" sad, but great for kids that feel misunderstood or in someone else's shadow-

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    Aaahh, IronMom, you're a woman after me own heart....

    BOO SpongeBob, Hiss, Moan....

    Our benighted public library keeps DISCARDING lovely children's novels (by Dick King-Smith, for instance, or William Mayne) and replacing them with cartoon tie-ins; it makes me very cross (even though we personally benefit because I scoop up lots of nice books for a quarter apiece!)--there are so many wonderful books that kids visiting the library might never see. My rants in the suggestion box have so far gone unheeded, however!

    peace
    minnie

    PS I think Frenchie has read every Enid Blyton in existence! Too bad so many are out of print, as it would be fun to reload his shelves with the Five and the Seven, at least.

    PS again--A friend gave Harpo a SpongeBob "book" (I use the term loosely, you understand) for his second birthday, and I just couldn't read the thing--Bob was supposed to be having a garage sale, and that pink thing, whatever it's called, was helping him move stuff out of his cave to sell; Bob, greedy thing, decided he couldn't part with any of his possessions because he was all about the stuff! Nice message. We changed it to Bob and the pink thing gathering up all their stuff to give to the St Vincent de Paul, and then we just threw the silly volume away.

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    DD2 is too young,just what I read as a child:

    Astrid Lindgren (author of Pippi Longstocking) has written several cute children's books that would be appropriate even for really early readers. I loved The Children of Noisy Village the most. I liked anything from Enid Blyton, I'm sure you can find all of them used from Amazon or ebay. Some of the others that are maybe more suitable for a school age child: Daniel Defoy Robinson Crusoe, Jonathan Swift Gulliver, Mark Twain Huckleberry Finn & Tom Sayer, Jules Verne, Narnia and The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Erich K�stner books like Emil and the detectives (kind of like Famous Five) and Lottie and Lisa (the book behind the Parent trap movies).

    For girls: LM Montgomery books like Anne of Green Gables, Louisa M Alcott little women etc, Mary Poppins for younger kids, Pollyanna is adorable too, Susan Coolidge Katy books, Johanna Spyri's Heidi, Jean Webster also has some.

    Then if you search famous inventors like Edison from Amazon Children's book sections you can find nice biographies for elementary school aged kids. We used to read ton's of those too as a kid some of them were actually my fathers when he was a little boy.

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    Has anyone read the books about the Melendy family? I read them over and over as a child and DD9 and I read them when she was around 7. They were a huge hit. When DS7 and I finish the On The Banks of Plum Creek, I'm thinking about grabbing that next.

    First book: The Saturdays
    Second book: The Four Story Mistake
    Third book: Then There Were Five


    My DS7 (then 6) loves the Edward Eager books (like Half Magic).

    For mystery buffs, some kids might like Chasing Vermeer (which has a pentomino thing running through it). It has two sequel books. My observation is that kids either connect to this...or they don't.

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