The Antiques

[Judy Freeman]

What about the longtime classics that students study in middle and high school? These are worthy, weighty books that form the backbone of our knowledge of literature. The language is often
complex and even archaic, and the plot may seem convoluted for today’s more linear readers. Students are known to groan when they are assigned to read them, but they are often surprised at how rich and memorable the books are. True, some classics will not thrill them. (Swiss Family Robinson comes to mind. I still shudder at my own memories of reading Silas Marner and The Deerslayer in high school.) Others will change their lives. (I treasured reading, more than once, titles including The Call of the Wild, How Green Was My Valley, Lassie Come Home, and Rebecca.) Sometimes a book jumps back into fashion, like Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, which is
getting new attention because the 2009 Newbery Medal was awarded to Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, which was inspired by Kipling’s classic stories.

Here is a list of some of those standards, all of them published more than 60 years ago, and many far older. The oldest are Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719), Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels
(1726), Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice (1813), and, of course, The Iliad and The Odyssey, dating back somewhere between the ninth and sixth century B.C. Now that’s staying power!

My hearty thanks to Lois Farrah and Bonnie Kunzel, two savvy and well-read librarian pals, who generously shared their time and their classics lists with me. If you have comments or additions to the list, we welcome your ideas below.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Twain, Mark. (1884)
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Twain, Mark. (1876)
Around the World in Eighty Days. Verne, Jules. (1873)
Black Beauty. Sewall, Anna. (1877)
Brave New World. Huxley, Aldous. (1932)
The Call of the Wild. London, Jack. (1903)
A Christmas Carol. Dickens, Charles. (1843)
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Twain, Mark.
(1889)
The Count of Monte Cristo. Dumas, Alexandre. (1844)
Crime and Punishment. Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. (1866)
Cry the Beloved Country. Paton, Alan. (1948)
David Copperfield. Dickens, Charles. (1850)
The Deerslayer. Cooper, James Fenimore. (1841)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Stevenson, Robert Louis. (1886)
Dracula. Stoker, Brian. (1897)
Fahrenheit 451. Bradbury, Ray. (1953)
Frankenstein or; The Modern Prometheus. Shelley, Mary. (1818)
The Good Earth. Buck, Pearl. (1931)
The Grapes of Wrath. Steinbeck, John. (1939)
Great Expectations. Dickens, Charles. (1861)
Green Mansions. Hudson, W. H. (1904)
Gulliver’s Travels. Swift, Jonathan. (1726)
Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates. Dodge, Mary Mapes. (1865)
Heidi. Spyri, Johanna. (1880)
The House of Seven Gables. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. (1851)
How Green Was My Valley. Llewellyn, Richard. (1939)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Hugo, Victor. (1831)
The Iliad. Homer. (9th to 6th century B.C.)
Ivanhoe. Scott, Sir Walter. (1819)
Jane Eyre. Bronte, Charlotte. (1847)
Johnny Tremain. Forbes, Esther. (1942)
The Jungle Book. Kipling, Rudyard. (1894)
Kidnapped. Stevenson, Robert Louis. (1886)
Lassie, Come Home. Knight, Eric. (1940)
Little Women. Alcott, Louisa May. (1868)
The Last of the Mohicans. Cooper, James Fenimore. (1826)
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Irving, Washington. (1820)
Les Miserables. Hugo, Victor. (1862)
Lord Jim. Conrad, Joseph. (1900)
The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien, J. R. R. (1954)
Lost Horizon. Hilton, James. (1933)
The Man in the Iron Mask. Dumas, Alexandre. (1850)
The Mayor of Casterbridge. Hardy, Thomas. (1886)
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood. Pyle, Howard. (1883)
Moby Dick. Melville, Herman. (1851)
National Velvet. Bagnold, Enid. (1935)
Native Son. Wright, Richard. (1940)
1984. Orwell, George. (1949)
The Odyssey. Homer. (9th to 6th century B.C.)
Of Mice and Men. Steinbeck, John. (1937)
The Old Man and the Sea. Hemingway, Ernest. (1952)
Oliver Twist. Dickens, Charles. (1838)
Peter Pan. Barrie, J. M. (1911)
Pollyanna. Porter, Eleanor. (1913)
Pride and Prejudice. Austin, Jane. (1813)v The Prince and the
Pauper. Twain, Mark. (1882)
Rebecca. Du Maurier, Daphne. (1938)
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. Wiggan, Kate Douglas. (1903)
The Red Badge of Courage. Crane, Stephen. (1895)
The Red Pony. Steinbeck, John. (1945)
Robinson Crusoe. Defoe, Daniel. (1719)
The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. (1850)
The Scarlet Pimpernel. Orczy, Baroness. (1905)
Silas Marner. Eliot, George. (1861)
A Tale of Two Cities. Dickens, Charles. (1859)
Tess of the D’Ubervilles. Hardy, Thomas. (1891)
The Three Musketeers. Dumas, Alexandre. (1844)
The Time Machine. Wells, H. G. (1895)
Treasure Island. Stevenson, Robert Louis. (1883)
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Verne, Jules. (1869)
Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Stowe, Harriet Beecher. (1852)
The War of the Worlds. Wells, H. G. (1898)
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Baum, L. Frank. (1900)
Wuthering Heights. Bronte, Emily. (1847)
The Yearling. Rawlings, Marjorie Kinnan. (1938)

[Judy Freeman]

Hi Wendy--

Glad you got a walk on memory lane. Here's one you might want to try this year: Kate DiCamillo's new book,The Magician's Elephant (Candlewick, 2009). It's a lovely read, filled with coincidence, hope, and imagery. I'll be adding my full review soon, I hope, but, along with The Tale of Despereaux and The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, it will be on classics lists a few decades hence. I'm betting your third graders will thank you.

Judy Freeman
ReadKiddoRead Reviewer

[Wendy Loucks]

I think about all the books I have read over the years. Looking at your list was really fun and nostalgic. I teach third grade and I love to read aloud to my children. We are currently reading Summer of the Monkeys and they hate when our time is up. They have laughed out loud and I know that they will (at least a couple of them) cry when Jay Berry gives up his dream to help his sister. What a great book.

I plan on reading either The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe next or A Secret Garden. I haven't decided yet. When we finish with a book, we watch the movie of it and compare the two. I almost always have more students who like the book better. I like to think that I am giving them a love for imagining what the author means on their own.

[Sarah Hydorn]

I am brand-new to this blog, and I'm loving it!---I'm a public library children's librarian, and it's wonderful to see so many of the book-issues I think about described so well!---(I'm going to have to keep looking through the back-discussions and see what I've missed!)--thanks for mentioning the connection between Neil Gaiman's Graveyard Book and Kipling's Jungle Books----as i read the Graveyard Book, I kept saying to myself--"this storyline is soooo familiar.....oh!---it's the Jungle Book!!"----I admit I was feeling a little put out on Kipling's behalf until I got to the end and saw that Gaiman had credited his work!!! I'm glad to hear you say that the Jungle Books are getting some new and deserved attention because of it----one of my FAVORITE books as a kid----

[Lourdes]

Local public libraries and kind librarians saved my life as the young child of immigrants whose parents worked long hours and were not around at home much. 50 years later, I have a huge collection of picture books that I acquired as my children grew. They pique interest in art, math, science, history, ecology etc. while having such fun. i'm thinking about Jon Scieszka, Chris Van Allsburg, David M. Schwartz, David McCaulay, Patricia Polacco, Don and Audrey Wood - the list is endless - and that is after the fun stuff ilike Robert Munsch, Dr. Suess, Kevin Henkes, the Eloise Books, Madaleine.....Growing up as an immigrant in a big city a book that helped me, soothed me and taught me about America was Centerburg Tales (about Homer Price) by Robert McCloskey....but kids don't read that anymore. thanks for this work you are doing promoting great books.

[Judy Freeman]

Hi Mary Ann--

Well, you got me there. While I already have Pink and Say and Show Way on my upcoming list of books to review on ReadKiddoRead, I had somehow never heard of Erika's Story. I've read Rose Blanche, also illustrated by the wonderful Roberto Innocenti (whose version of Collodi's The Adventures of Pinocchio is on my Classics Fantasy list), but somehow I completely missed Erika's Story, published by Creative Editions in 2003. Many thanks to you for bringing it to my attention. I'll certainly search it out.

Judy Freeman
ReadKiddoReadReviewer

[Mary Ann Miller]

We have a picture book section in our library at Provo High School. I have been tryiing to build it for the four years I have been here. I have not met with a lot of encouragement from the teachers or head librarian. I have gotten several teachers hooked though and it is great fun to watch them get excited about the books. Don't forgtet to add books that will introduce a subject that you want to teach. A couple of examples would be: (1) Pink and Say by Patricia Pollaco -- great picture book about the Civil War, or even to introduce Andersonville Prison (human rights). (2) Show Way by Jacquline Woodson -- It is her family history from slavery days up to the current. The art work is great! It is also a great way to draw a timeline through history. (3) Erika's Story by Ruth Vander Zee is a powerful story about the Holocaust. The artwork is great, the words are powerful. I introduced it to our modern dance teacher and she read it to her students. I was very moved when they invited me down to their studio to show me the dance they choreograaphed using the picture book. I LOVE PICTURE BOOKS!!

[Jen]

I am so very thankful for the middle and high school teachers who had me read the classics in their classes. My mind was given something to wrap itself around and get absorbed in- I loved it. My teenage angst was given food for thought and I really believe I became a better person because of my exposure to great literature.

[Judy Freeman]

Hi again Christine--

Note to self: when writing notes at 2 a.m., one can forget things. Ender's Game IS on the Fantasy classics list. Whew. I feel better now. The 6 other classics lists (go to the top of this page and click on the CLASSICS button) include books that are anywhere from 10 to 50 years old. (And you are free to debate whether 10 years is enough to declare a book a classic. I made an executive decision that since 10 years, to a child, is a whole lifetime, it would be OK to declare some newer treasures to be classics. (In 50 years, we'll see if I'm right. In the meantime, there are some unforgettable books on those lists, so don't forget to check them out when putting together your 8th grade classics book club.)

Final thought--when doing classics with your big kids, don't forget to include a session on classic picture books. Some of those 8th graders have never read Where the Wild Things Are and The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Caps for Sale and Millions of Cats and, well, you get the idea. Wouldn't it be a blast to take them on a trip down memory lane and let them relive their childhoods through classic picture books? You're never too old for George and Martha, Madeline, and Frog and Toad.

I think every high school school library should have a meaty collection of great picture books to read, study, use for art ideas, and to read to younger siblings and other little kids. High schoolers babysit. They could check books out of the library to read to those kids at bedtime. And they'll love the books every bit as much as their charges. How about it, HS librarians? Do you have a picture book section?

We adults have great nostalgia for the children's books we read in our youths. They're iconic, like old movies and Beatles (fill in your favorite group here) songs. We need to pass the best of the best on to our kids, don't you think?

Judy Freeman
ReadKiddoReadReviewer

[Judy Freeman]

Hi Kristine--

I remember reading and loving Robinson Crusoe in high school. Bravo to your eighth grader for persevering with it.

Most of the books on the Antiques list above are for grades 8 and up. Good fifth grade readers and up can handle some of the easier titles, including:

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Black Beauty
Hans Brinker
Heidi
How Green Was My Valley
Johnny Tremain
The Jungle Books
Lassie, Come Home
Little Women
National Velvet
Peter Pan
Pollyanna
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The Yearling

As for Ender's Game, it's not old enough for the Antiques list (all 60+ years old), but a good suggestion for the Fantasy list. Thanks for the suggestion.

Your Classics Book Club idea is a wonderful one. Especially with a special group like yours. Enjoy them this year. Check in when you get it underway and let us know how the kids are reacting. Other teachers and librarians out there will be eager to hear the particulars.

Judy Freeman
ReadKiddoRead Reviewer

[Kristine Wildner]

My 8th grade son read Robinson Crusoe as part of a classic reading assignment this year at school. I think he chose because of the desert island theme (he's a big Gilligan's Island fan) it from a list similar to this one. It took him a couple of days to get into it - but much to my surprise - he left himself a note on the kitchen counter one evening - FINISH ROBINSON CRUSOE TODAY! He loved it!

I'd love to see your grade level recommendations for this list. In the back of my mind I'd like to start a classics book club at my school for 8th grade - and this year's incoming 8th graders are just the group who would be interested (I will cry when they graduate).

P.S. I would add Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card to the list of classics.