I've talked here - often - about how different seasons seem to bring particular books to mind. In my house, books are not mere acquaintances to be stored on a shelf after introduction. Here in my very own three-ring-circus, books are friends. We revisit them regularly, renewing our old acquaintance on a chill autumn afternoon, and then treasuring the visit as much as if we'd shaken the characters' hands.
Funny enough, some books just call out to be read on a drear November afternoon, casting a ray of light into a cloudy, drizzly day. So I thought I would list off some of our favorite autumn reads for you today. Dare I confess the thought came to me as I sighed into a favorite tale once again, relishing and remembering the sometimes familiar cadence of Louisa May Alcott? I am at once comforted by the familiarity of the story, and startled at the surprising things I have missed ere this reading - or perhaps forgotten.
Like a friend whose face and laughter are as familiar as your own, a book is never completely knowable. A great book, like a great friend, is multi-faceted and growing in meaning as you grow in experience to understand it! Here are some of our very favorite "Fall" books!
Funny enough, some books just call out to be read on a drear November afternoon, casting a ray of light into a cloudy, drizzly day. So I thought I would list off some of our favorite autumn reads for you today. Dare I confess the thought came to me as I sighed into a favorite tale once again, relishing and remembering the sometimes familiar cadence of Louisa May Alcott? I am at once comforted by the familiarity of the story, and startled at the surprising things I have missed ere this reading - or perhaps forgotten.
Like a friend whose face and laughter are as familiar as your own, a book is never completely knowable. A great book, like a great friend, is multi-faceted and growing in meaning as you grow in experience to understand it! Here are some of our very favorite "Fall" books!
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1. First of all, a family favorite for generations, the centenarian among my youngest children's books "Over the River and Through the Woods" by Lydia Marie Child. The woodcut illustrations on this particular book bring the timeless tale to life. Honestly, we don't "read" this book as much as we sing it together, but it was my little children's favorite bedtime story leading up to the Thanksgiving season - for years and years! Lydia Marie Child was quite a woman in her day - an abolistionist, a journalist, and much more. Today, she is remembered primarily for this book, capturing a child's glee in a holiday journey. In this edition (check to see before you buy, to make sure the link takes you to the right book!), the song and music are on the last page! Highly recommend as a family favorite.
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2. A "new" favorite for younger children, "The Fantastic Gifts of Fall" by Dandi Daley Mackall is a lovely, rhyming, hymn of thanks for autumn. Each page has a stanza of thanks, and at the bottom a Scripture verse is referenced that echoes the thought for the page. The illustrations, by Katherine Blackmore, are playful, colorful, and full of joy. This is the first in a seasonal series. The age focus is 4-8, but as with all great books, the younger ones love the colorful illustrations and rhyming bounce to the words, while the older ones will contentedly snuggle in as you read to the youngers. I would say if you are a reading family, 2-10 will sit for the reading...and over 10 years will love reading it to the youngers!
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3. Let me first state - I know this book will not be everyone's cup of tea. This book is from our rural past, when hunting was an accepted part of everyday survival. If you or your kids are particularly sensitive about hunting, I would not advise it. That said, our kids have loved it, and it has become a metaphor in our home for growing up, realizing how our actions affect others, and taking responsibility. "The Biggest Bear" by Lynd Ward is a Caldecot Award winner from 1952. The illustrations are in sepia tones, and are absolutely marvelous. The story centers on little Johnny Orchard, who is embarassed because his family is the only one that hasn't got a bearskin drying out on the barn during the fall hunting season. He is determined to get a bear. Well, he gets one alright! He finds a cub, raises it, and then that small bundle of trouble grows up, creating havoc up and down the valley. Little Johnny must come to a decision about that bear. The end is heart-warming, but there is certainly a tense build up the first time you read it! Originally ages 4-8 - I wouldn't go too far down on this one, but again, our olders did enjoy reading it to their younger siblings (and now the nieces and nephews!)
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4. Some would argue that this book isn't really an "autumn" book - but with its chill mornings and "clam chowder for lunch!" it has always seems like a fall book to me. If you love Robert McCloskey's favorites (Make Way for Ducklings, perhaps; or Blueberries for Sal), you still might have missed this jewel of a book - a treasure indeed! It is "One Morning in Maine," and we get to see Sal (of "Blueberries..." fame) grown into a young girl, with a toddler sister Jane. Sal's troubled by a loose - then a missing! - tooth, and this charming story will surely intrigue any child with a wiggly tooth in their head! Sal is one of those characters that appeals to every child - she digs clams, helps with her baby sister, sets out in a boat to cross the harbor to town with her father - in short, Sal has real adventures, real feelings, and real children will identify with her! Not a short picture book - it runs to 64 pages, though with just a few sentences on each page - the illustrations are charming, the book itself is charming and timeless!
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5. I remember the first time I read this book as a child, perhaps in the 4th or 5th grade. I hated it. Thinking back, I didn't understand the language, the action seemed very slow, and the descriptions were incredibly long...in short, I just didn't get it. When I next picked it up, on the recommendation of a friend, I intended to use it as a read aloud book for our then 6 to 12 year old crew. I just wasn't sure any of them would listen, but buoyed by my darling (and insistent) friend's advice that I try again, I did. What had I been thinking all those years? These characters are warm and wooly, and rascally, and utterly lovable - they are just like real people: sometimes you love them, sometimes you want to scold them, sometimes they deserve a hug! Rat, Toad, and the rest of the Willows crew are such great friends! My children loved them, and the littlest one suddenly popped up one night with, "OH...this is Mr. Toad...of Mr. Toad's WILD RIDE AT DISNEYLAND!!" (He had been once!). Yes - this is THAT Mr. Toad. While the entire book isn't quite as wild a ride as Disney would suggest, there are parts that are laugh-out-loud funny, parts that are tender tales of gentle friendship, and parts that will live in your mind's eye forever. Why did my children like it so much, when originally I had not? I do think this is one of those books that benefits from a bit of adult narration in parts. Whether due to the very Britishness of it, or the year written, I am not certain, but with small helps from a mom or dad willing to answer the "what is THAT?" questions, "Wind in the WIllows" by Kenneth Grahame could be one of your family's fall favorites as well - I am sure of it! (We LOVE this illustrated edition.)
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6. For older kids, autumn has some wonderful finds as well. My daughter and I are Louisa May Alcott fans, and we think her best work is in the lesser-known books. Both of us simply love "Eight Cousins" and "Rose in Bloom" - perhaps even more than the "Little Women" and "Little Men" staples that everyone has read. Now, if you haven't read Alcott, be forewarned that there may be some serious culture shock! Rose is being readied to be a "lady" and her aunties want her to basically be a pretty trophy. Her shocking guardian-uncle wants her to be more independent and think for herself - and over the course of the two books, Rose does grow into a lovely, sweet, morally impeccable, modern young lady - of 1880! I have read the reviews on "Goodreads" - I know some folks find these books "preachy" - but I am telling you that we find them charming and lovely! I'm not sure I can explain why I find these comforting, sweet books the perfect "Fall" reads... but time and time again, I find myself next to a fire with an Alcott novel in hand! :)
(And, yes, I know there are actually two books here...but how to decide which to review? ) |
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7. Another fall favorite at the Red Couch Reading Room is this little-known marvel called "The Incident at Hawk's Hill" by naturalist Allan W. Eckert. The book is recommended for ages 10-14, as it has realistic interactions between humans and animals that - while based on a real incident from the 1870's in Canada - are still mind-boggling today. We first read it as a family read-aloud when my youngest was 6; he loved it. The book focuses on six-year-old Ben, who is "different," and his father is worried. When Ben wanders off and is lost for weeks, perhaps months, in the Canadian prarie, not many feel he could survive. And, but for a certain badger, perhaps he wouldn't have. This book wins the dubious award for "the book that had me sobbing the loudest in public." My boys have not admitted to crying, but I am pretty certain there was sniffing going on. Once you get into the story, you will not be able to put it down. No curse words, but I noted two incidents of God's name being taken in vain. We used this in our homeschool as a jumping off point to study both Canadian geography and badgers. In fact, this book is jam-packed with badger information!
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8. Does your family need a good laugh? Try this great fall family read aloud: "Cheaper by the Dozen" by Frank & Ernestine Gilbreath. A father who is a known efficiency expert, and a mother who is perhaps a tad zany, along with their twelve amazing children, combine to bring a rolicking houseful of fun to this at least semi-autobiographical tale. Set in the early 1900's, please - PLEASE - don't judge this good-hearted book by the movie starring Steve Martin. (I beg of you!) Read it together - because if any of you tries to read it alone, they will constantly be interrupting the rest of the family with, "Oh...Listen to THIS...." anyway! If you must, AFTER the book, you could watch the 1950's version movie with Clifton Webb. Still not anywhere as good as the book, but at least they are somewhat related! :D
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9. If your high schoolers haven't read Washington Irving's classic short stories "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van WInkle" yet - fall is the perfect time. There is a semi-creepy gothic component (did you know gothic stories were all the rage in the early 1800's? I give you Edgar Allan Poe as the perfect example! :O ), but it is all suggestion and drama...no 'real" ghosts or goblins to be found, except perhaps in old Ichabod Crane's overactive imagination! The language is a bit different, and will require some thoughtful reading. In addition, let your students know that in the time period in which Irving wrote, the reader was not expecting a highly dramatic plot with lots of action and adventure! The story was supposed to be character based - and it is Irving's characters that bring all the charm, life, and humor to his classic tales! Give them a try - and let your guys know that Washington Irving founded the "Knickerbocker" group of writers, so influential in New York that the NBA used the name for the home team there (the New York Knicks!)!
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10. While we are discussing books with a "gothic" element, I think fall is the perfect time for high school students to read "Frankenstein." Don't let the title of this book put you off. Don't let any of the pop culture stuff that surrounds it put you off. DON'T let the travesties known as the "movie edition" put you off. This is a truly classic novel of love, choices, personal responsibilty, and a lesson on worldview along the way. I actually love to teach it opposite Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde for a contrast in worldview (Dr. J & Mr. H. features a traditional Judeo-Christian worldview of man having a sin nature he must struggle to overcome; Frankenstein's monster believes it was society's negative pressure on him that made him who he becomes...). Frankenstein has a unique structure - a story, within a story, within a story. TWO complete frameworks surround the "creature's tale." Certainly a 9th grade and up book, but if you can make it a family read aloud with the olders, there is MUCH to talk about. I intend to include this novel in my science fiction class, which I hope to record next year and have ready by 2019. I recommend the Norton version, if you intend to teach from it at all. It will give you many helpful footnotes and appendices.
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11. This "fall" favorite is a late find for me. Can I confess a literary secret? I have never really enjoyed John Steinbeck novels. There, I've said it. I know, I know, so many of his works are considered classics of the 1900's, but honestly, I've never "enjoyed" them in the way you really should enjoy a classic work. I''ve never felt uplifted, encouraged, enlightened, convicted - nothing. So when my book club decided to read "Travels with Charley in Search of America" - a semi-autobiographical, perhaps almost as non-fictional as fictional, account of Steinbeck's journey across America - well, I was less than enthused. All I can say is, I was wrong! Steinbeck as Steinbeck is like everybody's grumpy grandpa (if grandpa were able to distill his thoughts into piercing sentences) - witty, clever, no-nonsense, and sometimes in a little over his head. I kept reading huge chunks of this book out loud, until my family gave up and ASKED for it to be our most recent read aloud. Steinbeck, in the end, got me. He had so much to say in this book about humanity, about life and how to really live it. His poodle, Charley, will by turns make you laugh and cry. Somehow this work of semi-fiction did for me what none of Steinbeck's other works have managed to do - it touched me, it gave me a new view of America and her people, and it reminded me that we never stop learning, or teaching.
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12. Let's end with a final, wonderful autumn classic: "Watership Down" by Richard Adams. Not quite sure why I consider this an autumn class, except that the rabbits comfort themselves by telling and retelling stories - that element of comfort, their search for "home" - all seem very autumnal to me! I realize I am supposed to "insert here" a one-sentence summary of this book, but if I tell you that this novel is the story of a bunch of rabbits who have to move from their home to another hole in the ground just a few miles away, you won't possibly understand how epic this journey of theirs really is. In fact, from the view of ten-inch tall rabbits, the natural prey of just about every living creature, this is an heroic quest. Furthermore, Richard Adams makes the reader see that it really is a quest story rivaling that of Odysseus or Homer. For a story that began as entertainment for his two young daughters on long car-rides, Adams wove a tale full of Tolkein-worthy anthropormorphic characters, a love of English countryside, a tale of adventure second to none, and a fantasy epic told entirely about...bunnies! If you have a Tolkien-lover, or any sci-fi/fantasy fan in your home, I suspect they will - to their own utter astonishment - fall hopelessly head over heels for this warren-full of brothers, of heroes...of rabbits. We love this edition, as it has gorgeous illustrations, and one VERY helpful map!
(P.S. My introduction to this novel was in a college business management class, in a section on leadership. If you are looking for a way to discuss what makes a good leader, and what makes a great manager with your high school students, this novel provides all the opportunity you could ever want!) |
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I hope that among these books you find a few new friends, and that in their pages you find a little challenge, a lot of wisdom, and a never-ending source of joy. May your autumn be warm & cozy, may your school year bring you ever closer to your goals - academic, spiritual, and emotional - and may your family be blessed as you seek to grow together in all the best ways.
Let me know what YOUR family's fall favorites are! I love to meet new "friends" too!
Not all rigor is mortis!
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