KidLit List

[callmemadam]

There's a very interesting list of 101 Children's Books over on Geranium Cat’s Bookshelf. These lists are very hard to draw up. If you were making one, would you feel (I would) that you had to include some books you didn't like because they were significant landmarks in publishing? Or would your list consist entirely of personal favourites?

Comments

[mimmimmim.livejournal.com]

I would have to include the Conjurer's Box on any list of books I like, because more than anything it made a massive impression on me. Giant rats in a hot air balloon, a rocking horse that comes to life and a malevolent statue of a Chinese lady. Ditto Bogwoppit (the first book I ever bought, I liked it so much on Jackanory).

I've been wondering lately why few adult books have affected me as much as the children's ones I read years ago, and why adult fantasy is frequently unimaginative compared to the amazing things being put out for children. There's so much more freedom in children's novels.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

See, that's what makes posting these lists interesting. I've never heard of The Conjurer's Box!

I don't really like fantasy, with a few exceptions, but I know what you mean. Children escape into books and perhaps we spend our whole adult reading lives trying to recapture that experience.

[mimmimmim.livejournal.com]

It's from 1974. I don't know why it had such an impact on me. The Enchanted Castle also grabbed me, although I think it was the television programme that really caught my attention. I adored Diana Wynne Jones.

It's probably my age, but I do like 1970s children's books. I didn't read The Borribles when it came out, I got it a couple of years ago, and it's brilliant. You could call the Borribles a late 20th century version of the lost boys; they're children who live on the streets, having fallen into bad ways. Borribles never age, and live on what they can steal, and they all have pointy ears which they cover with woolly hats. If the police or social services catch a Borrible, they trim his or her ears and then the Borrible grows up. In the first book the Borribles go to take on the Rumbles - hairy creatures with vicious teeth and mad red eyes who live on Wimbledon Common.