I love books.  I love books about books.  I love children’s books.  When Grace and Whit began reading I described it as feeling like the lights were going on.  I have a whole separate essay in my mind about what it felt like when they loved some and rejected others of my favorite books from childhood.  In this arena – reading – as in so many others, parenting was an exercise is recognizing that my children were not me, and that they had their own opinions.  Not always simple, but always educational!

Lately, I’ve found myself thinking about children’s literature.  I’m not sure precisely why: maybe it’s just that some of these pieces below have found their way into my mind.  Maybe it’s because my father’s death has made me think of all the times he read to me as a child and that we spoke about literature until the very end (the last conversation I had with him was about books).  I do know I’m asked a lot for book recommendations, for adults and for children.  The former is easier for me: I’m comfortable recommending my favorites as well as recent reads.  The latter is more complicated: books I loved, then and now, or books Grace and Whit loved and are loving?  Two separate categories that, of course, have a lot of overlap.

What are your favorite books for children?  I’m very curious.

Finally, these are the three things that have recently put children’s books squarely at the front of my mind.

17 Authors on the Children’s Books that Still Make the Weepy this piece on Brightly made me nod and hum in appreciation as many of my favorite titles were mentioned (and a few I have not heard of).  Mostly I was thrilled to see A Wrinkle in Time here, because L’Engle’s book is not just my favorite childrens’ book but quite possibly my favorite book of all.  I’ve written about this before, but at my 20th college reunion I was on a panel of alumni speaking about the Books That Changed My Life.  I was enormously humbled to be on this panel, and I sat at the edge of the table, both literally and figuratively.  My fellow panelists – each more impressive than the last – trotted out examples that intimidated me with their seriousness and intellectual content.  My Book the Changed My Life was A Wrinkle in Time.  And it did.  I’ve read it three times (one of a very short list of books I’ve read three times; others include all the Harry Potter books, Crossing to Safety, and Gilead – no surprise, my most treasured volumes).

Kate DiCamillo’s piece in Time, Why Kids Books Should Be a Little Sad made me cry, of course.  That last line?  Took my breath away. I love what she says about how the purpose of books – for children, she says, though I’d posit this is true of books for all ages – is to show the reader that he or she can survive something that is sad and still be okay.  That notion is incredibly germane for me right now. I’m thinking I need to re-read Charlotte’s Web.

I recently read and loved Wild Things: The Joy of Reading Children’s Literature as an Adult by Bruce Handy in one swift gulp.  This is a quintessential book about books, and it’s full of detailed background and thoughtful analysis.  I loved this entire book, though my favorite chapters were about Sendak, Charlotte’s Web, and Narnia. Handy quotes Sendak about what the aim of writing is for him: “All this, mixed and beaten and smoothed into picture-book form that has something resembling the lush, immediate beauty of music and all its deep, unanalyzable mystery. Most of all, the mystery – that is the cherished goal.” (I shared these lines on Instagram).  Evoking the mystery.  No matter who you are, no matter your medium (writing, visual art, your life in general), isn’t that what we are all seeking to do?