100 Books Your Child Should Hear Before Starting School

I found this list by clicking through from Painted Rainbows and Chamomile Tea.

I think it’s just stoopid to put “should” in the title of the list. Possibly “might” would be a better word.

OR … wait for it … maybe the could produce a flyer that helps parents and children choose books all by themselves instead to fostering dependence.
Maybe the flyer could state:

  • See the shelves (or bins) in the E section? Look through them and pick out some books that look interesting. (After all, why couldn’t any one of those books be a good book?)
  • Parents should pick out some books that appeal to them personally because the parent may get to read it a few times if the child enjoys the book a lot.
  • Buy books for your child and give the child unlimited access even if it’s a really nice book. If the book gets rough around the edges or falls apart, buy another.
  • Not all children like to hear the same story over and over again.
  • If the child is not enjoying the book, find another.
  • Look for books that evoke happiness, peace, and wonder, ones with lovely illustrations and engaging characters. Reading should be enjoyable.
  • The goal is to raise a person who, as an adult, enjoys reading — novels, newspapers, travelogues, how-to books, reports, history books. So try to make all reading experiences with your child enjoyable. Give them happy memories of trips to the library or bookstore with their parents. Give them warm memories of you, the parent, reading books aloud to them on the couch, in bed right before lights out, or out on a summer day in the shady hammock. If they are happy while reading, it will be a feeling that they will want to duplicate as the years go by which will result in a person who ends up loving to read.

One thing that really bugs me about the book list is that some of these books will be enjoyed more (or again) after a child is school age. Just because a book is listed on List A to be read during grade 1 doesn’t mean a 3rd grader may not enjoy the book also. Putting limits on when a person should read a book is foolish.

I know that we didn’t do the Macaulay books (City, Castle, Pyramid, Mosque) when the homeschooling catalogs said we should at around 9 years old. My oldest read City around age 14. We had already studied Rome a few times by then and so the info in City was easily assimilated and had a deeper meaning. If he’d read that book at age 9, he’d never pick it up again later, which is sad since it’s a great book on city planning — great light reading for a high schooler who may be considering engineering. Timing. It’s really important, but getting it right is a matter of serendipity, really. The only reason that City didn’t get read earlier is because I didn’t see it at the library and couldn’t afford it in addition to all the other books we truly needed. I finally found it at a library sale. You see, it wasn’t about sticking to a reading list; it was just how things turned out.

Ack. I just realized that I’ve already written an entry like this. Create Your Own Classics aka Skip Twist. Repeating oneself, a sure sign of getting old. I should be doing crossword puzzles to stave off Alzheimer’s, but crossword puzzles just make me cross.

Anyway, my point, lest I get lost in old-age-induced digressions, is: We can’t let self-proclaimed experts tell us what books need to be read when as if we are too stupid to figure that out for ourselves. A list may be a good starting point, but it shouldn’t be allowed to dictate our reading choices. If we do give it that type of power over us, we are limiting ourselves and our children — and sometimes just wasting our time on drivel-filled books.

But, back to that list for just a second. I do not understand why some books are on that list. I never read my kids Where the Wild Things Are. Teachers and librarians read that book to me incessantly when I was very young. I hated that story. It was creepy and gave me nightmares and made me afraid to go to bed at night.

Here’s how Amazon.com describes the book comments in [] are mine:

Where the Wild Things Are is one of those truly rare books that can be enjoyed equally by a child and a grown-up. If you disagree, then it’s been too long since you’ve attended a wild rumpus. [That’s me! Wild rumpus free for years and proud of it.] Max dons his wolf suit in pursuit of some mischief and gets sent to bed without supper. [Hey, that would be awful. Why scare kids with denial of food?] Fortuitously [Oh, yeah, lucky me], a forest grows in his room, [um … scary] allowing his wild rampage to continue unimpaired. Sendak’s color illustrations (perhaps his finest) are beautiful, and each turn of the page brings the discovery of a new wonder.

The wild things — with their mismatched parts and giant eyes [teeth, claws, fangs] — manage somehow to be scary-looking without ever really being scary; [Um … they are too scary!] at times they’re downright hilarious. [No, they’re not hilarious; they’re creepy.] Sendak’s defiantly run-on sentences [Oh, yeah, let’s teach the children well by using bad grammar defiantly] — one of his trademarks — lend the perfect touch of stream of consciousness to the tale, which floats between the land of dreams [I’ll make my own dreams, please.] and a child’s imagination.

This Sendak [non] classic is more fun than you’ve ever had in a wolf suit [Only wolves and werewolves have fun in wolf suits.], and it manages to reaffirm the notion that there’s no place like home. [There’s no place like home? That’s what Dorothy said after her scary time with the flying monkeys and witch. At least she got to make her own dream.]

Don’t you just want to buy a copy of your own?