Product Description
By selecting only 100 “best books” Anita Silvey distinguishes her guide from all the others and makes it possible to give young readers their literary heritage in the childhood years.
The books we hear or read when we are children stay with us all our lives. If we miss them when we are young, we”ll miss them forever: no Hungry Caterpillar, no Winn-Dixie, no Roll of Thunder. As adults we remember a few familiar favorites, but no one but an expert like Anita Silve… More >>
#1 by Reginald Williams on January 31, 2010 - 10:09 pm
Silvey’s book gives lots of wonderful books, lots and lots of books, but little concept of why (on an objective standard) she chose these books. For example why choose Roald Dahl’s BFG rather than his more renowned CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY? Why did she exclude WHOSE MOUSE AM I, the MISS PICKERELL books, ENCYCLOPEDIA BROWN? Where are the Scott Corbett, Bruce Coville, and Jay Williams classics? How can one compile a “Best” list of children’s books without HOW TO EAT FRIED WORMS or any Judy Blume book? Very few books on her list come from African-American (bell hooks, Irene Smalls), Asian American (Taro Yashima), or Latino American (Harriet Rohmer) authors.
Hopefully when she updates this book she will make it more multi-cultural, historically respectful, and more objectively evaluated. Should you buy it? Absolutely! It possesses some EXCELLENT books, but you should not make it your only book of this type.
Rating: 2 / 5
#2 by Melvyn J. Michaelian on January 31, 2010 - 11:21 pm
Book arrived on time, and was in very good condition.
Rating: 5 / 5
#3 by sunshinemama on February 1, 2010 - 12:32 am
This list is pretty standard, I think a trip to the chinaberry catalog or website would provide much better suggestions. Many of the stories included are classic. The author included a good amount of text describing each of the stories suggested. But in the last few years some amazing children’s stories have been written that I think are much better, especially for the younger crowd in the board book and picture book category. We have an amazing collection of children’s literature, but as I am always looking for more, I took this book out of the library and I was very disappointed. In our collection of thousands of books for my children, we have 15 of the suggested titles. My suggestion, go to chinaberry on the web and go from there.
Rating: 2 / 5
#4 by DC Holm on February 1, 2010 - 1:39 am
Anita Silvey has done a good job dedicating her efforts to cataloguing some of the best available fiction for children and young adults. With the words “classic” and “great” being meaninglessly slung around with little quality to back them other than a healthy ambition for profit and fame, it’s important to appreciate those qualified to review fiction and give it the benefit of cultural value. This is a labor of love put together with generations of the future in mind to honor the age-old concept of legacy and offer great reading from authentic authors.
Rating: 5 / 5
#5 by Christopher H. Hodgkin on February 1, 2010 - 2:39 am
Obviously any book that claims to tbe the hundred best of any genre of books is an automatic target for potshots from committed readers. But this book is a fatter target than most.
Any children’s librarian at any public library, and any bookseller at an independent bookstore, will give a parent far more help than this, and for free. Some of the choices are so obvious that it’s sad to waste space on them — what parent really needs to be told about Pat the Bunny?
As to the overall selection of books, let’s just say it’s banal and uninteresting and leave it at that. Some of the choices are obvious sops to political correctness — viz. Johnny Tremain. And any book claiming to list the 100 best children’s books that doesn’t include a single title by Arthur Ransome does a major disservice to parents trying to buy good books for their children.
Save the price of the book and just spend a few minutes with a preschool or elementary school teacher, a librarian, or a good bookseller.
Rating: 1 / 5