THE BIG BOOK OF HOME LEARNING
Mary Pride
Westchester, Illinois: Crossways Books, 1st ed., 1986
347 pp., $17.50, 2nd ed., 1988, 356 pp., $17.50
THE NEXT BOOK OF HOME LEARNING
Mary Pride
Westchester: Crossways Books, 1987
295 pp., $15.00
BOOKS CHILDREN LOVE: A GUIDE
TO THE BEST CHILDREN'S LITERATURE
Elizabeth Wilson
Westchester: Crossways Books, 1987
330 pp., $12.95
Talk about books flows quite naturally whenever book lovers gather together. For example, at a recent science fair (an unlikely forum for literary criticism), I overheard some teenagers discussing their favorite science fiction writers. Someone asked, "What book would you take with you if you were stranded on a desert island for twenty years?" The answer came quickly, "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea." So did second thoughts: "Or maybe Journey to the Moon." Later, an exhibit inspired me to say to a parent, "Have you read Sphereland by Dionys Burger? It's a sequel to Abbott's Flatland and improves on it." I described the book. Her son argued that Abbott's classic is better. I defended my judgment.
This is how a people defines its classics: A multitude of readers, all critics, makes a multitude of recommendations over time in a wide variety of contexts. The need for this exchange becomes more critical with each passing year. Bowker's Subject Guide to Children's Books in Print: 1986-1987 lists 47,540 titles. Add to this adult books suitable for older children and good books no longer in print but available in libraries, and one can quickly find oneself in a sea of perhaps 100,000 children's books. It seems unlikely that even the most voracious reader will devour more than a couple hundred books a year. While some of the shorter books for young children take only a few minutes, any parent knows that a young child likes to hear favorites over and over. Reading several new books each day would set a cruel pace. Thus, between the ages of 2 and 16, a very industrious and extraordinary child might become familiar with, say, 7,000 titles--not even a tenth of the offering.
Effective winnowing by parents can help children use their reading time to best advantage. The book list is a useful tool. Nonetheless, the recommendation process often loses its vitality when it is reduced to a book of lists: Those who can remember the protagonist's monologue on lists in A Thousand Clowns will understand. In general, I don't like the genre--books about books are too authoritarian, too presumptuous, too pedantic, and, most of all, too boring.
Even so, it is hard for a book lover to resist the appeal of a book about books when, as is the case with the lists reviewed here, the work is so clearly a labor of love.
Catalogs for home
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