For Mother Goose, we have loved the Rosemary Wells one: [link]
Saffron: You just had a better hand of cards this time. Mal: It ain't a hand of cards. It's called a life.
'Trash'
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
flea - May 16, 2012 1:43:08 pm PDT #18781 of 28333
information libertarian
Kate P. - May 16, 2012 1:46:42 pm PDT #18782 of 28333
That's the pain / That cuts a straight line down through the heart / We call it love
That's a great one, Scrappy! I had that as a kid and LOVED it, and recently bought another copy of that one and their book of Norse myths too. I definitely credit that book with instilling in me a love of mythology.
Kate P. - May 16, 2012 1:48:19 pm PDT #18783 of 28333
That's the pain / That cuts a straight line down through the heart / We call it love
flea, thank you! That's exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for. I love Rosemary Wells, and it looks like a great collection. Perfect!
megan walker - May 16, 2012 1:48:46 pm PDT #18784 of 28333
"What kind of magical sunshine and lollipop world do you live in? Because you need to be medicated."-SFist
I loved this book, as have my various nieces and nephews: [link]
My nephew loved those as well.
Ginger - May 16, 2012 2:29:02 pm PDT #18785 of 28333
"It didn't taste good. It tasted soooo horrible. It tasted like....a vodka martini." - Matilda
I never know what to recommend, because most of the myths and fairy tales in my head come from Vol. 2 of Childcraft. The first two volumes of the pre-1960s Childcraft series are so wonderful, and full of great illustrators. My mother sent our set to my half-sister when her kids were young, and we learned later that most of the beloved things we sent were sold in a yard sale. My sister and I will probably never forgive either of them. The other things we volunteered to give to the kids, but we both screamed bloody murder when we found out Mom had sent off the books.
Jessica - May 16, 2012 4:11:24 pm PDT #18786 of 28333
And then Ortus came and said "It's Ortin' time" and they all Orted off into the sunset
This one has fantastic art, but doesn't shy away from the violence - [link]
We also have this pop-up book, which is gorgeous [link]
The best book in the WORLD to read to toddlers/preschoolers is Press Here. You press various dots on the pages and then on the next page they've moved. Then you have to blow the background color away, and then you have to clap to see what happens, and it is SO MUCH FUN.
DavidS - May 16, 2012 8:27:44 pm PDT #18787 of 28333
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."
For the record, here is Emmett's Depressing Reading List for 10th Grade:
Black Boy
A Stone for Danny Fisher (his choice. He enjoyed it but it still was sad. [they could choose from a short list of three books for this selection])
1984
Romeo and Juliet
Lord of the Flies
Like Water for Chocolate (he ranted about how stupid this one was. "And then she eats candles so she'll feel warm inside and wraps herself in a blanket and dies. It doesn't even make any sense?!!")
Things Fall Apart
Seriously, that's pretty bleak.
Tom Scola - May 16, 2012 8:30:24 pm PDT #18788 of 28333
Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward.
I had Existentialism as a high school elective that included Notes from Underground and The Plague.
DavidS - May 16, 2012 8:38:02 pm PDT #18789 of 28333
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."
I had Existentialism as a high school elective that included Notes from Underground and The Plague.
They should have been paying into a Fund for Tom's Therapy.
1. I've got a problem with an incessant Social Realist curriculum as if there are no other genres in high literature.
2. I've got a problem with the middlebrow glomming onto said Social Realism, when there are so many teachable aspects in genre literature. Fuck, you'll learn more about the world reading Hammett's Red Harvest than you will about reading Water for Chocolate.
3. Did you know there's a long tradition in English of something called the Comic Novel? Yes, even in the high literary canon.
Matt the Bruins fan - May 16, 2012 9:22:56 pm PDT #18790 of 28333
"I remember when they eventually introduced that drug kingpin who murdered people and smuggled drugs inside snakes and I was like 'Finally. A normal person.'” —RahvinDragand
I'm now remembering my junior year which included reading The Scarlet Letter, The Great Gatsby, The Crucible, Ethan Frome, and The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. I'm surprised our teacher didn't hand out the number to a suicide prevention hotline with our syllabus.
Senior year was kind of fun, as our teacher was going through a bitter divorce and apparently subconsciously planned out the Men Are Scum curriculum: A Doll's House, A Streetcar Named Desire, Hamlet, The Catcher in the Rye, A Separate Peace, and "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall." We had to concede the point on most of those, but rose up as one to argue against Lady Macbeth being a poor victim of her husband's growing callousness.