| January
2008
Dear Fellow Book
Lovers:
A
“NEW” AND “OLD” RESOLUTION
It’s that time of
year again. People sit around the dining room table on January
1 eating black-eyed peas (for luck) and greens (for prosperity)
and making New Year’s resolutions that will likely be broken
in the first week of the new year! I’ve been known to make
and break a number of resolutions over the years, myself.
One resolution that I made last year, and one that I’ve been
good at keeping, deals with books and reading. I vowed that
for every new book that I read, I would reread an old favorite.
Some of the children’s books from Random House that I have
reread include:
A book that I suggest
for everyone’s collection is The
20th Century Children's Book Treasury selected
by Janet Schulman (Ages 5-8). This one volume has 44 classic
picture books that include old favorites like Where
the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, The
Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf & illustrated
by Robert Lawson, and Madeline
by Ludwig Bemelmans.
Another anthology
of old favorites selected by Janet Schulman is You
Read to Me & I'll Read to You. This collection
includes stories like Flat Stanley
by Jeff Brown & illustrated by Tomi Ungerer, The
Magic Finger by Roald Dahl & illustrated
by Quentin Blake, and Ellen’s Lion
by Crockett Johnson.
Keeping these books
at your fingertips makes it possible to keep a resolution
like reading an old favorite for every new book read.
I
think children and young adult will welcome the suggestion
to adopt a similar “Old & New” resolution. I once had
a third grade student say to me, “I wish I could spend a whole
day in the library so that I could read all my favorite books
again before I go to fourth grade.” I asked her what would
keep her from reading these old favorites in the fourth grade.
She said, “Because I will be nine and they will make me read
harder books.” I think this young reader was worried that
fourth grade meant “grown up” and that she would never again
get to visit her old friends Ferdinand, Madeline, Sylvester,
and Stanley. Nothing should ever keep any reader from curling
up with an old favorite book, regardless of age. I’m certainly
glad that I’m to the age where no one judges my choice to
read “the Old and the New.”
During
this first month of the New Year, I want to encourage you
to give young readers the gift of an “old favorite.” Ask them
to name a book they would most like to reread. Encourage them
to share their choices with other readers. Who knows? Maybe
this type of sharing will guide young readers toward discovering
“new” old favorites.
You
may email me at pscales@bellsouth.net.
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