Children's Books I have Known

This post is inspired by Nicole & Maggie's post on The Great Brain, a series which my younger brother Mike read when we were both around ten, and which I read also because I would read anything that was around the house (including my older brother's Sports Illustrated magazines). 

I remember liking the Great Brain books, while at the same time disliking the dynamics between the two brothers (the Brain was an intellectual bully, and his younger brother was a helpless victim, while the parents obliviously allowed all this to happen). I may be remembering this wrong, since I haven't read the books since I was maybe ten.

What other books did I spent my childhood on, which were maybe problematic, as we say today? Or not! This is just some of the books that shaped my childhood.

Ramona, by Beverly Cleary. I loved these books. All about Ramona and her family and their lives in a neighborhood in Portland, Oregon. Quotidian, realistic books. Ramona starts kindergarten. Ramona's father loses his job. Ramona's mother has another baby. Things like that. The first one was written in the 1950s, and most of the series is from around that time, though Clearly wrote one in 1999, long after I was an adult, which I admit I read. These are charming books of a middle-to-working class family doing their best while very much loving one another. By the way, in these books the family owns a house and a car and is supported entirely by the father's job at a grocery store. Later, after he loses his job, they're supported by the mother working in a doctor's office while dad goes back to school. In other words, a job as a receptionist at a doctor's office can support three kids and put dad through school at the same time. 

Little House books, Laura Ingalls Wilder. I read these over and over and over, all through my childhood, and even taught a Major Authors class on Wilder about ten years ago, here at the university. On the surface, and as I read them as a child, these are the story of a pioneer family making their way from homestead to homestead, trying to scratch out a living, before finally settling on the Dakota prairies in 1880. Beautifully written, with some mildly scary events from time to time, including the winter everyone almost starves to death because the trains can't get through. As an adult, reading them with the aid of critical studies, I can see that Wilder (with the help of her Ayn Rand acolyte daughter) deliberately crafted the stories as propaganda against FDR and the New Deal, but all that sailed over my head as a kid. Wilder and her daughter, for instance, eliminated details such as everyone in the town during the Long Winter pooling their resources and sharing out food as needed: from each according to their ability, to each according to their need. The books also make it seem as if Pa sends Mary off to college by just saving up enough money through the family's hard, hard work, when in fact the state sent Mary to college, through one of those horrible government programs Wilder and her daughter so despised.

 The series *did* instill in me the belief that if anyone ever needed help from anyone, they were terrible moral failures, so good job there, I guess. Also erases almost entirely what colonization did to the Native Americans. Still, I absolutely loved this books. They're VERY different from the TV series, which was propaganda for Ronald Regan's America, so don't get them confused.

From The Long Winter

Little Men, by Louisa May Alcott. I didn't read Little Women until I was an adult, but I loved Little Men to pieces. This is the school Jo starts at Plumfield for boys, though there are a couple of girls there as well. Lots of the class issues sailed right over my head. I just loved the school and the kids and their small adventures. Also Dan, the very bad boy who smoked and played cards and swore, fascinated me to no end.

Five Little Peppers and How They Grew: About a poor family rescued by a rich man, and their daily lives. These kids are so poor that their mother has to take a job! Things get better once the rich man hires their mother to be his housekeeper. I only read the first one of these, though apparently there are more of them. Nothing much happens, but I enjoyed reading about a happy-but-poor family.  

Madeline L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time + related novels and series. These are famous novels, and I loved them to pieces, though as with the Little House books I can now see that they have problematic subtext. A the time, I just loved the story of the families -- Meg and Charles, at first, and their scientist parents -- as well as the science-fictional elements. There's also a series about the Austen family, starting with Meet the Austens, which I loved just as much. The Austen have Christmas, go on a camping trip, adopt the orphaned child of one of their friends, that kind of thing. A clear theme throughout the books is that men are brilliant and women (even if they too might be brilliant) must be beautiful. Like, all the main characters who are girls despair because they're so "ugly," and are constantly reassured that they will be beautiful when they grow up. Also, brilliant, beautiful women, instead of using their mathematical genius, for instance, marry and keep house. This isn't always true in L'Engle's adult books, where at the (still beautiful) women have careers -- a doctor, a world-class pianist, that kind of thing. Anyway, I loved these books too.

Trixie Belden. I see there are 33 of these now. When I was reading them, in my early teens, there were only ten or twelve. A poor(er) girl Trixie and her rich friend Honey, along with Honey's adopted brother Jim and Trixie's older brothers (who are away at camp in the first book, which makes the books claim that the Belden's are poor a little unconvincing) solve unlikely mysteries. This was probably my start at liking mystery novels. I don't think these are especially good books, but I read them all several times.

The Bobbsey Twins. I see they are still being published. Two sets of twins, both fraternal, an older pair and a younger pair. The older pair, Nan and Bert, have dark hair, and the younger pair, Fred and Flossie, have blonde hair. This is an important detail, though I don't remember why. They have middle-class adventures, like going to the seashore and attending public schools. I have absolutely no memory beyond that. Did they solve mysteries? Maybe!

Harriet the Spy, Louis Fitzhugh. God, I loved this book. There are two sequels, but I didn't like them as much. Harriet is a rich kid in New York who wants to be a spy, and is being raised by her nanny, Ole Golly, who about halfway through the book leaves to get married, absolutely breaking Harriet's heart. She has no real relationship with her parents, so the loss of Ole Golly is like being orphaned, only worse, since she knows Ole Golly left her of her own free will. Also, Harriet keeps notebooks, writing down every single thing she sees as she spies on people, and every thought about her classmates, and one day those classmates find one of the notebooks. More trauma ensues! A semi-happy ending, but mainly I loved Harriet and this look at a world entirely alien to me (rich people, New York, private schools, subways).

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIHM, Robert O'Brien. Mice uplifted by a scientific experiment go to live with some rats similarly uplifted. Science fiction! I always remembered my first science fiction novel as being Have Space Suit, Will Travel, by Heinlein, but looking back, this was probably the first one. I also read a lot of John Christopher, though, so apparently I've been reading SF all along.

Taran Wanderer series, Lloyd Alexander. I only read two of these, though Wikipedia tells me more exist. Those two must have been the ones in my library. Taran is an assistant pig-keeper who goes off and has adventures, along with a creature named Gurgi, who as a kid I visualized as a kind of pig, probably because Taran was a pig-keeper. Wikipedia tells me he was actually a "man-beast." Gurgi's dialect probably started my love with dialects. Wikipedia also tells me these books are based on Welsh mythology, which also went over my head as a kid. I did notice the strangeness of the names, mind you, but that went well with the weirdness of the books, so.

The Black Stallion books, by Walter Farley. I have almost no memory of what happens in these books, except that (I think?) they started with a shipwreck -- a boy and a horse are shipwrecked on the same island, and come to love each other. I assume they get rescued, but I don't remember. (Check Wikipedia.) Yes, they did. I think I read all the books in this series, and I think I read them more than once, but I honestly remember nothing about them. Wikipedia tells me that the boy, Alec, was returning from India, where I guess his parents were colonizers for the British Empire, and he and the horse bonded on their island. I do remember wanting to live on that island, with or without a horse.

The Swiss Family Robinson, Johann Wyss. Another shipwreck story, on a preposterously unlikely island. Lots of religion, five kids, a sweet devoted mother, a stern patriarch. You can fill in the blanks. Much of this, especially the moralizing, went right over my head, but again, I very much wanted to live on a deserted island and have adventures. Also to live in a tree house.

Tarzan and sequels, Edgar Rice Burroughs. As with Oliver Twist, which I didn't read until I was an adult, the message of this book is that blood will tell. A nobleman's son is lost in the jungle as an infant and raised by "great apes." Because he is of noble blood, he conquers all adversity to become king of the jungle. Jane, his true love, gets lost in the jungle when she's 18 and he rescues her and then follows her out to civilization, which disgusts him, so he returns to the jungle, with Jane and their son. The point of the book is that white rich people are superior and will conquer all, whereas poor white people and Black people are little more than animals. Again, the subtext here escaped me as a child. My younger brother and I read these together too. (My older brother was not much of a reader, though he liked books about sports, as I recall, and later collected Star Trek novels.)

The Jungle Book and Just So Stories, Rudyard Kipling. Another feral child, this one, Mowgli, raised by wolves. Since I always felt like I'd been raised by wolves, this one resonated with me. And of course I loved the Just So Stories, which purported to explain a world that confused me endlessly. I read these over and over as well. Interestingly, considering how conservative Kipling was, there's no "blood will tell" in these novels. Mowgli is an Indian child, very much like Kim in that other book of his, and nevertheless prevails, though only with the help of his (animal) community.