Lately I've been getting Poppy into older, longer* books by starting to read them to her. After several chapters of me reading, she'll get interested enough in the story that she'll start reading them herself.
We did this with The Secret Garden and Heidi, and then we started Little Women.
She took over reading herself in Little Women after maybe five chapters and was happily zipping right along.
Then she came home from school and said her friend told her Beth dies in Little Women. "She doesn't die, does she, Mom?"
Uh. Well. Dang it.
Beth does indeed die. I had forgotten that.
There was no way out of answering this question. So I asked her one of my own first. I asked her if she really wanted to know.
She did. I told her. She cried just thinking about it and then declared that she was not going to read the book anymore.
Fair enough. She can try again when she's a little older maybe. She's only eight years old. She has plenty of time to read the rest of it.
The next book I was going to read with her was Anne of Green Gables. I looked up if anyone dies in that book, because obviously my memory for these things is not to be trusted. Matthew does towards the end of the book. So now I have to determine if that death is going to be as upsetting to Poppy as Beth dying. I don't think so, since Matthew is an old man, not a little girl, but still. Maybe we should wait on that one for a little bit.
Anyone have any suggestions for classic children's books where main characters don't die? You'd think that wouldn't be so hard, but I guess not.
*This works well for older books because they tend to have longer and more complicated sentence structures. When I read them aloud, I can pause to break up the sentence with my voice. I also often have to define words, because the vocabulary in older books tends to be much more advanced, which is one reason I like them. When Poppy reads them on her own, she frequently calls out to me for definitions.
Has she read the Laura Ingalls Wilder "Little House" series? I remember one of my first books was about a family named Pepper...The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew. I loved that book. Remember this was in the middle 1960s so it might have disappeared. The Bobsey Twins and Trixie Belden books also come to mind. They might be available at thrift stores. Good Luck!
ReplyDeleteShe has read the Little House books. And she just finished Five Little Peppers. There are more of those that I will get her, so that's another few books I think are safe. :-)
DeleteIf you have access to the series “The Happy Hollisters” I would highly recommend it. It’s fun, and light for kids but still very good.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteEleanor Estes books (Pinky Pye, Jane Moffat, etc) and the Melendy Family series! Also Edward Eager if you don't mind fantasy/magical elements.
ReplyDeleteThe Melendy Family books are so good. Even I really enjoyed those.
DeleteI feel your pain. I thought my 6yo would like reading the American Girl books. I still had some from my childhood. We read Meet Molly, and then I realized I had to explain war. She handled it ok I think because it isn't directly part of the story, and wanted to read the rest. But I didn't have any more about Molly. So I put them on hold, and we started Meet Kirsten. She asked me to look if there were any scary parts.... Which is when I realized that her friend dies. I told her and she still wanted to read it. We only read the first chapter, and then at bedtime she was upset because she kept thinking about how the friend was going to die. I don't know if I made the right call or not to start that one.
ReplyDeleteAs far as recommendations...
ReplyDeleteThe Penderwicks series
The Enchanted Forest series (Dealing with Dragons is #1)
Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott (father dies before the start of the story, but warning there is a death in the sequel)
An Old Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott (Grandma dies during a time jump)
A Little Princess (father dies off screen, so might not work, but if she can handle Matthew's death in Anne, then she would probably be ok)
Betsy-Tacy series (there is a death of a child in the first book, but not in the rest)
Daddy Long Legs
I'm excited to check back for recommendations from others!
To be honest, I'm turning 53 this year and I cry every time I reread Anne of Green Gables and get to Matthew's death! Matthew was wonderful.
ReplyDeleteThe One of a Kind Family is a cute series, about a family with all girls living in early 1900s New York, if memory serves.
Seconding An Old Fashioned Girl and Eight Cousins.
Also, if you would like something a little Anglophile and funny, try the Arabel and Mortimer series by Joan Aiken. About a precocious little girl and her naughty pet raven, set in England, so very much tea-and-crumpet lingo, and lots of silly hijinks. I personally adored them so much that as an adult I've collected them all. Start with Arabel's Raven, a collection of four stories, I think. That's where she meets Mortimer. No deaths, I promise.
The Saturdays - the Melendy family series
ReplyDeleteMy side of the mountain
The Borrowers
The Cricket in Times Square
The mixed up files of Mrs Basil E frankweiler
The View from Saturday
More recent novels - Andrew Clements:Frindle,Report Card
Gordon Kormen : No more dead dogs
I think Poppy would enjoy the veddy British Enid Blyton books if you can find them. Good adventures! Maybe it's also time for a gentle history lesson on tuberculosis and what life was like prior to modern medicine
ReplyDeleteMy son is 8 and we have done these series as audiobooks or read aloud books. He is not quite ready to read these on his own, but has loved listening to all of them.
ReplyDeleteThe Penderwicks
The Vanderbeeekers
Wizard of Oz series
The Wild Robot series
All of EB White’s books
James and the Giant Peach and Matilda (BFG was too scary so we put that down)
We are going to read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory this summer and also try The Chronicles of Narnia.
Has she read John Erickson's Hank the Cowdog series? (I don't know if those qualify as "classics" ... but surely the first ones are by this time.)
ReplyDeleteI know I've suggested these before, and I think you've said your boys had read them, but the first books in Ralph Moody's Little Britches series are great fun.
Other ideas:
The Boxcar Children series by Gertrude Chandler Warner
The Encyclopedia Brown series by Donald Sobol
"A Little Princess" by Frances Hodgson Burnett, author of "The Secret Garden."
"Charlotte's Web" by E.B. White
The Bobbsey Twins, Hardy Boys, Trixie Belden, Nancy Drew (the older ones), Magic Tree House and Danny Dunn series, if Poppy enjoys mysteries
A second vote for the Happy Hollisters series!
The Soup series by Robert Newton Peck
"Summer of the Monkeys" by Wilson Rawls -- and also "Where the Red Fern Grows," but there is a dog death in there so ... maybe not that one.
The Black Stallion series by Walter Farley (also has some older themes that might not suit her yet)
I'll stop there. Many of these series have a bazillion books, enough to keep an avid reader going alllllll summer long.
--Karen.'s sister
Not Charlotte's Web if you want to avoid plot point of main character death ;-)
DeleteWhat my sister says. (I think that your kids are probably well-acquainted enough with animal denouement that Charlotte's Web is probably OK, but Carla's point is valid because of the personification.)
DeleteThe Boxcar Children start being not written by GCW after a while; the original/older ones are better.
More series —
The Littles (original series) by John Peterson
Great Brain by John Fitzgerald
Ribsy/Henry by Beverly Cleary
Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary
Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks
— Karen.
And, honestly, Anne of Green Gables is maybe a little beyond her but I also don't like Anne as much as I like some of the other LMM characters. I adore Emily (New Moon trilogy). I really love Jane of Lantern Hill, which is a standalone. Also, Story Girl and its sequels are perfect for a storyteller kid. — Karen.
DeleteAh, yes, Carla ^^ is right; there's the main character's death in "Charlotte's Web," so that's probably one to avoid. Also, in one of the first books of the Little Britches series, Ralph's father dies. He certainly is a character, though more secondary than main. If I'm remembering right, there will also be some secondary character deaths in the Black Stallion series.
DeleteAaaand since I'm back anyway, has she read the Marguerite Henry books -- "Misty of Chincoteague," "Brighty of the Grand Canyon," "Sea Star," "Justin Morgan Had a Horse" and so on? If she is horse crazy, they may be just the thing.
Just remembered Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and Pollyanna
ReplyDeleteCheck out Jim Trelease's Read-aloud Handbook. It was a great resource to find new authors. Reading was a mainstay at our house!
ReplyDeleteMany of the books I enjoyed have been mentioned, but I will add the Sue Barton nurse series. And if you can find a copy of Vinny Applegay, it was delightful.
ReplyDeleteJust yesterday I finished Little Women as our read aloud book (kids age 10-18). Did I cry at Beth's death? Yes. My kids handled it, but the younger two had a very hard time handling the romance. Ewwww. But I think there would have been no problem handling the romance if they were reading it on their own.
ReplyDeleteDeath. It's a hard thing for kids. But it's necessary to get used to sooner or later. I think you're wise not to push it now when she's not ready. As pastor's kids, mine have seen many, many funerals. We live next to a cemetery. They are not callous, but it's been part of their lives. We know of somebody who avoids telling their kids about death--- making up elaborate stories about the process. This is, obviously, unhealthy. But waiting for a child to be ready for a hard book, especially if it is a sensitive child, is a good thing.
Ooh! What about All of a Kind Family? I LOVED those books when I was a kid.
ReplyDelete