@delenn13 As much as I love Lewis’ works, his space trilogy is far and away too dense for anyone not in their teens (and even then depending) in my opinion. It’s quite the hefty read and would be confusing for younger readers. Narnia is wonderful though, they’re some of my wife’s favorite works.
Since no one has mentioned it i have to plug the Redwall series by Brian Jacques.
I started reading this when I believe I was about 8 or 9, and really enjoyed the series throughout the entirety of my teens. They are fun and give a great sense of danger, happiness, character, and of course food. They were literally made to be read aloud, and I will be reading them to my kids as they get older. Part of their fun is that aside from maybe 4-5 (and even then), you can read them in any order, and they all will fit within the larger scale of the Redwall Abbey’s history.
Don’t forget James Fenimore Cooper, Jules Verne, Robert Louis Stevenson, H.G. Wells, J.M Barrie(Peter Pan), And I think someone has already mentioned Frank Baum. Find illustrated children’s books about Ivanhoe, King Arthur and the Round Table. Find books about mythology/lore of countries…not just Ancient Greek and Rome. But Ireland, Germany, France, Mexico, Asia, Japan…I remember reading them as a kid. I don’t remember the names of the books. Find books about Space, Planets, Unicorns, Fairies, Dragons. Then supplement it with movies…Old Disney is a start. Not the new stuff that is just milking a cash cow.
I was reading Shakespeare by 5th grade so trying to remember the real age requirements for books is hard for me. One of my best friends was the town librarian; I spent hours there because it was close to my home. Once she figured out what I liked she would have a lot of them picked out for me before I came in. She, also, gave me suggestions as to what I should read so I read stuff I probably would have never read if not for her. Make friends with yours…or a local book store etc. The library and bookstores now have events for kids, especially, during the summer. Take them and don’t just drop them off. Go in with him/her. Find out what the event is about and maybe find something to go or compliment what they will be exposed to and take it home and read/discuss it with them. Talk to your librarian…you can’t force them to like sci fi/fantasy but you can encourage reading. She will help, I am sure.
Reading is an adventure, lifestyle; not a babysitter.
Also find stuff on NASA or Space Exploration, Astronomy and Biology or Flora and Animal life.
Now for the stuff for you. I get a DAILY email from http://www.dailyfreebooks.com/ for Amazon Free eBooks. You can set it up to send you certain categories like “Children’s eBooks”, “Teens/Young Adults” plus you can add what you like too. Sorry to say I think this is ONLY US/CA…even sometimes it’s NOT CA. They only show you 5 books in each category but you can click through to get to the other books in the list. I know I have gotten a ton of books this way but I have NEVER used the Children’s section so YMMV.
From the site:
"Every day we bring you a comprehensive list of free ebooks for download for your Kindle. The list is compiled from ebooks which are promoted free of charge by the author or publisher for that day. The free Kindle ebooks cover a wide range of genres and tastes ranging from reference and educational material to fiction and poetry.
If you choose to subscribe by email, you can look forward to a daily emailer with the very best of the morning’s free ebook releases from genres you select yourself. The free books are updated regularly throughout the day with more and more books being added or removed from the free books listings so please do check regularly and also be vigilant that a free offer has not expired.
If you do not own a Kindle, you can still read the books on your computer, tablet or mobile phone using the free Kindle reader software which you can download from your app store or from the Amazon website.
Please note that the books listed were indicated as being free at the time this email was composed. On rare occasions a book may be withdrawn or the price changed by the author or distributor. Always check the final price shown on Amazon before you download a book."
I have had books not be free by the time I got to them so do pay attention. Not very often but it has happened.
Now to make some kind of order here…
“Calibre can sort the books in your library by title, author, date added, date published, size, rating, or series, along with extra metadata such as tags and personal comments.” Calibre has tags but tags annoy me.
I used to use All My Books which is a paid program.
But someone, recently, told me about Data Crow which is Open source, Free and it manages ALL your MEDIA including GAMES in ONE place. Plus it runs on LINUX!!!
“Data Crow is the ultimate media cataloger and media organiser.
Always wanted to manage all your collections in one product? You want a product you can customize to your needs? Your search ends here! Using Data Crow allows you to catalog all your collectables, no matter how large your collection is. Using the excellent online services, you can instantly retrieve information about your books, software, games and movies. This information, combined with the file import, which can parse information from your e-books, software, images, music and movie files, means you won’t be doing a lot of typing.”
It does it all. If you loan something out, you can monitor it, you can make your own categories…This is the Cat’s Pajamas.
You guys have listed loads of stuff I’ve read and authors I know and loves, esp. Lewis Carol stories with Alice as the hero. <3. Wonderland is an interesting a world as The Land of Oz. There are actually several Oz themed books as I found out recently thanks to a Wikipedia entry.
Sweets from a Stranger and Other Stories is a wee collection of Sci-Fi stories I found deep in my local library as a kid. It’s by Nicolas Fisk, but sadly it was too long ago for me to accurately give you an age recommendation. He’s wrote quite a few things (found in a search on Abebooks.com). I hope to pick up a copy myself from there one day.
Any one mention Rudy Kipling and the Jungle Book yet?
Last idea is Lloyd Chudley Alexander author of children’s / YA fantasy. Remember vaguely borrowing and reading one book about a young prince. Perhaps someone here can give more detail, recall isn’t that great with me lately. Hope that’s a bit more inspiration at least. Cheers.
I highly recommend The Little Prince as a good sci fi / fantasy story for younger kids. It has great illustrations and some really deep morals, and is just a beautiful read overall. Since it was written in French, I highly recommend the original english translation by Katherine Woods.
A little late due to a sick kiddo. I’ll go through the new posts a bit more thoroughly tomorrow but thank you all! Curious about that media cataloger/media organizer and that dailyfreebooks.com for the Kindle… dun dun dun, hehe. Ahh, so awesome that you guys have recommended several Several knew authors/titles and ideas. Ecstatic to check things out and get to it. Tytytyty
My 7 year old got started with Pete the Cat and The Book With No Pictures. My 3 year old seems to really enjoy those, too and The Big Blue Book of Beginner Books is another popular bedtime book at my house. The older guy seems to be intimidated by novels but he loves Pokemon and has read 8 or 9 of those Pokemon books this month (some multiple times) so I’m thinking we’ll keep shovelling those at him to grow his confidence. I think they are less intimidating because they are adapted from the TV show and there are a few pictures.
Thanks @Nyctus! And to those who contributed more; more the merrier was finally able to sit down and spend some time going through things. Plethora of awesome recommendations! Now time to play with some software @delenn13 and see what it is all about
My son is 7mo’s old as of today - woo! He’s loving story time with the occasional snatch-n-grab “I want it in my mouth, Daddy!” lol, I’ve always loved kids but never dreamed of having any of my own. Now I cannot believe we waited this long, haha!
…and I have to say it again… and again and again… thank you ALL for everything. Overwhelmed with joy by all things posted here. Not only bless You all… but I am blessed to be part of this community. Keep rockin’ everyone!
I think most of us were thinking of books and stories for when the kid turned 4-5ish or even early teens, at least I did. Although you did mention the kid’s age earlier the snatch-n-grab thing reminded me of a video Dodger made this Christmas where she speaks specifically about books and story time with her daughter, similar age to your son I believe. Maybe you can glean some interesting tidbits out of it.
Ha, awesome. I skipped ahead to around the 9-11min mark where she presented her child’s favorite three books. Monster ABC was one of them (primer book). Sort of reminded me of the ABC’s/123’s of DD. But this lady is soooo right about sticking to primer books at this stage. I learned that the hard way, lol. Unless you hold a regular book at arms length to keep it out of his reach, he will snatch-n-grab, lol, like this lady mentioned her daughter does. Comical. So yes, primer books are the way to go so the kiddo can touch, slobber, yank and pull, hehe. The video mentioned a few other books, as well. Thanks @Fraggles!
I initially had in mind SF/F books for the near future but everyone contributed a vast amount for All ages. It created a project - a fun one - to compile and categorize it all so I will not forget it all as the years go by, ha. But yeah, my interest has grown from anything to read presently to teenage years. Primarily focused on things from now until 2-3years old so I can start acquiring those first. Time to start carrying around the complete list, though, so if I do see any of the future reads available “snatch-n-grab” for later
Perhaps one of the several reasons I am so appreciated for all the recommendations and ideas… it grew the rather basic idea into something much larger and grand. Yup, blessed
I got things to do…but here’s another author that i loved growing up…Hugh Lofting. His most famous was Dr Dolittle but he wrote others listed in the Wikipedia below.
Some more…I am not sure were mentioned and i don’t have time to check…Robert Lewis stevenson…I can’t remember the authors…Mary poppins, Peter pan, Winnie the Pooh, Robinson Crusoe, Swiss Family Robinson, Heidi, Curious George(My brother loved those) Lassie, Lad: a Dog Black Beauty, Prince and the pauper.
I know I have posted this site before but i love Gizmo’s(Ian Richards’ site): He lists Children’s book and Teens(all free)
it’s a book for kids but I loved it even though I was older than the fanbase.
Hope that’s a bit more inspiration at least. Cheers.
. Oh well, the more times said the better!
