A couple of good reading lists

Lately I've been trying to read classic kids books that I've never before. I wanted to read them before Parker is ready for me to read them to him! So far, I've read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, all for the first time. I've been using three different lists as starting points to picking books to read. I thought I'd share it here and see if any faithful Roach Family Blog readers have any other suggestions.

The first list is the American Library Association's list of The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000. This is a list of books that someone in the country has attempted to remove from or restrict within public and school libraries. A successful challenge often results in a banning of the book from the library. The top three reasons listed for challenging a book is that it is “sexually explicit,” contains “offensive language,” and is not “unsuited to age group.” There are some great, edgy, fantasy filled works on this list, that someone, somewhere found offensive. Listed below are the top 15. I just finished #14, The Giver by Lois Lowry. It was phenomenal and was awarded the Newbery Medal in 1994, see below. Other books of interest include Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five at #69, Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time at #22 (Newbery Medal Winner, see below), Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird at #41, Shel Silverstein's A Light in the Attic at #51, Ronald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach at #56, Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer at #84 and five books by Judy Blume.

1. Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
2. Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
4. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
7. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
8. Forever by Judy Blume
9. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson (Newbery Medal winner, see below)
   
10. Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
11. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
12. My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
13. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
14. The Giver by Lois Lowry (Newbery Medal winner, see below)
15. It's Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris

The second is the list of "Books Every Boy Should Read" as published in Conn and Hal Iggelden's The Dangerous Book for Boys. If you haven't seen this book, be sure to check it out. It's a reference book of sorts for "boyhood." Amazon.com describes it as "a reminder of lore and technique that have not yet been completely lost to the digital age."

1. The Twits, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, George's Marvelous Medicine, The BFG and James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
2. The Winnie-the-Pooh books by A.A. Milne
3. The "Adventure" series by Willard Price
4. The "Famous Five" and "Secret Seven" series by Enid Blyton
5. Fungus and the Bogeyman by Raymond Briggs
6. Famous fairy tales, including Grimm's Fairy Tales, Hans Christian Anderson , and Greek and Roman legends
7. "The Belgraiad" series by David Eddings
8. Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household
9. The Lion , the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
10. Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
11. Kim, Just So Stories, and The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
12. Mr. Standfast and The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
13. The "James Bond" series by Ian Fleming
14. The "Harry Potter" series by J.K. Rowling
15. The Outsiders, Tex, and Rumble Fish by S.E. Hinton
16. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
17. The science fiction works of Isaac Asimov
    
18. The "Discword" series by Terry Pratchett
19. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
20. The "Seafort Saga" series by David Feintuch
21. The Hichhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams
22. The fantasy works of David Gremmell, especially Waylander and the "Drenai" Series
23. Magician by Raymond E. Fiest
24. The Lords of the Rings series by J.R.R. Tolkein
25. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
26. The "Flashman" series by Geoge MacDonald Fraser
27. Animal Farm and 1984 by George Orwell
28. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
29. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
30. The Time Machine, The Island of Dr. Moreau, and The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells
31. The "Sherlock Holmes" series by Aurthur Conan Doyle
32. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
33. Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome
34. The horror and fiction works of Stephen King, starting with The Bachman Books.
    

The third is the list of Newbery Medal Winners. According to the Association for Library Services to Children, "The Newbery Medal was named for eighteenth-century British bookseller John Newbery. It is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children." Here's a selected few that you might recognize from the past.

• 2007: The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron
• 2001: A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck
  
• 1999: Holes by Louis Sachar
• 1994: The Giver by Lois Lowry
• 1979: The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
• 1978: Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
• 1975: M. C. Higgins, the Great by Virginia Hamilton
• 1972: Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien
• 1963: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
• 1944: Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes
• 1923: The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting

Any other suggestions? I'd love to hear your comments!