Mother Goose I was highly critical of Stanley Fish last week for attacking those who are “instrumental” about the humanities. My claim that the classics can change your life attributes an instrumental dimension to literature. But when I look at how certain parents have tried to foist preachy moralistic tales on their children, I find […]
Last week I gave a list of my favorite children’s books when I was young. My father, who is a poet along with being a French professor, read us poetry as well as fiction (each night, one story or chapter and one poem for each of my three brothers and me), so I thought I’d […]
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged A. A. Milne, Alfred E. Noyes, Alice in Wonderland, Cat in the Hat, Cautionary Tales for Children, children's poetry, Dr. Seuss, Edward Lear, Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog, Goden Treasury of Poetry, Gunga Din, Highwayman, Hilaire Belloc, James Whitcomb Riley, Little Orphant Annie, Louis Untemeyer, Mother Goose, Nonsense Verse, Now that I'm Six, Oliver Goldsmith, Rudyard Kipling, Song of Sherwood, The Listeners Tales for Children, The Raggedy Man, Walter De La Mare, When We Were Very Young | “I am Peter Pan,” Michael Jackson reportedly once said, and of course he chose to name his ranch Neverland. In this second of my two posts marking Jackson’s death, I thought I would reflect upon why J. M. Barrie’s fictional creation meant so much to him. Peter Pan: The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up […]
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged A. A. Milne, Alice in Wonderland, Annabelle Lee, Edgar Allen Poe, Francis Hodgson Burnett, innocence, J. M. Barrie, Michael Jackson, Peter Pan, Secret Garden, Vladimir Nabokov, Winnie the Pooh | William Kristof, the much traveled Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the New York Times, wrote recently about the disturbing way that children’s IQ scores often drop over summer vacation. The cause is lack of intellectual stimulation. The problem is more severe with poor than it is with middle class kids. As an antidote, Kristof offered […]
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged A. A. Milne, Alexander Dumas, Alice in Wonderland, Around the World in 80 Days, Arthur Conan Doyle, Baroness Emmuska Orczy, C.S. Lewis, Cecil Day-Lewis, children's books, E. Nesbitt, Francis Hodgson Burnett, Freddy the Pig, George MacDonald, Hardy Boys, Homer, Iliad, J.R.R. Tolkien, Jules Verne, Jungle Books, Just So Stories, Knights of King Midas, Little Lord Fauntleroy, Lost World, Mistress Masham's Repose, Narnia Chronicles, Otterbury Incident, Paul Berna, Rudyard Kipling, Scarlet Pimpernel, summer reading, T.H. White, The Lord of the Rings, The Princess and Curdie, The Secret Garden, Three Musketeers, Treasure Seekers, William Kristof, Winnie the Pooh, Would Be Goods | 
