Osler's Razor

My childhood book shelf was stocked with "I Can Read" books. Does anyone out there know them? My most favorite was SAMMY THE SEAL ("It was feeding time at the zoo. All the animals were getting their food.") I also loved the one about Pickles the Fire Cat. Ooooo! I should write a play about that one!
 

As far as books that I remember reading that I would recommend, anything by Roald Dahl is great, as is a book called The Toothpaste Millionaire that I really enjoyed. As far as books that I would recommend avoiding, the Scary Stories series by Alvin Schwartz contains artwork by Stephen Gammell that will scare any child and most adults. It's so eerie and it's stayed with me (and most people in my generation that read them) through adulthood. Check out the google image search of his artwork and tell me this doesnt belong in a children's book: Stephen Gammell's Artwork.
 

"Roasted, fried, or fritoed..."
 

Where the Wild Things Are.
The BFG.
Anything with Curious George in it!
 

To Dada Drummer:
My sister who is one year older than me taught me to read while she was learning. The first books were Sammy the Seal and Danny the Dinosaur. And... Pickles the Fire Cat was an absolute favorite. Thank you for the memories.
 

Berenstein Bears books were the bomb when I was a little kid. I also liked picture books. I distinctly remember spending a lot of time with a book about Dinosaurs, which I found out in later years contained a lot of scientific stuff in the text of the book, but my mom let me have it because I liked the pictures. I also had a big history of baseball book, but again I just liked pictures of old baseball players.

For some reason, The Trumpet of the Swan is also a book I read as a very young child that has stuck with me. Something about a swan in a nightclub hooked me as a kid.

Maybe the things I remember most vividly as a kid are the old Peter & the Wolf and Tubby the Tuba cartoons. Pretty sure I watched the VHS of those two shows about once every two days.
 

The complete works of Friedrich Nietzsche. My parents didn't fool around.

No, seriously, I really liked the Hardy Boys and Boxcar Children. Then in 2nd grade my dad gave me a copy of "The Lord of the Rings" and old Robert Howard pulps.
 

RRL,
You do know the Bearenstein authors got really commie-like at the end, don't you?

Boxcar Children - they were self reliant and did not go for government handouts.
 

We had all of Dr Seuss, plenty of Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, lots of Babar . . .

But the Madeleine books always unsettled me because there was a lurking dark, unfathomable quality to them. I felt as though I never quite "got" them . . . and now I work with the French, so I understand.

I'm still trying to put words to it, but I think I get it . . .
 

Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel. I think I still know it by heart. Harold and the Purple Crayon still has a special place in my imagination. The Littlest Angel still moves my heart.
 

Chitty Chitty bang bang and the Wizard of OZ were the scariest ones for me as a kid. YIKES, and the Snow Queen.


LOVE MIKE MULLIGAN and also Make Way for Ducklings LOVED all Dr Seuss pretty much as a kid but then now today? Reading them??? I can recite Cat in the Hat. I can!!!! But reading ones like ONE FISH TWO FISH RED FISH BLUE FISH over and over is a PAIN. Spencer likes those Dr Seuss Science boos really like its the Cat in the Hat but he is like taking you thru the human body or all about birds and stuff like that.

One thing I HATE are a LOT of kids MOVIES!!! Like ESPECIALLY the DR SEUSS ones like with Mike Myers and stuff they are TERRIBLE and I hate a lot of others like all the SHREK ones and stuff. My kid likes these science shows like about fish and how things are made and stuff.

I'd love to hear more about the subversive Pinko Commie Berenstain Bears, actually..... I freaking HATE the BB cartoon show.
 

I agree, Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel was the best.

Also, I seem to recall a line in Madeline and the Bad Hat (I have no doubt that the author was writing it for the express purpose of scaring small children and chickens everywhere) where Pepito, the evil neighbor, says something about how he guillotines his chickens. I'm on the road at the moment, so could somebody please get an exact quote for me? That line has haunted me for thirteen years.
 

Can't give you an exact quote, Micah, but your comment reminded me of something I noticed this morning as I was about to go in the front door of my (French) school: a 2-page list, posted right beside the front door of the school, of all the 9th graders' names and their qualifying-exam results.

The 12th-graders' final exam results are posted on our website, names and all--who failed, who had to take it again, what level they reached . . .

The French are obviously not into self-esteem. Maybe it comes from a bloody history, from a ruthlessly tough education system . . . anyway. They do not treat anything with kid gloves!
 

SG,

I think the French ARE into self-esteem. They demand achievement. If you meet the standard, you'll feel a lot of self-esteem. What they do not do is coddle those who do not produce.

At least amongst the elite.
 

Since we have this book checked out of the library right now, I am able to give you a "direct" quote. Ready?

"Oh, but that boy was really mean! He built himself a GUILLOTINE! He was unmoved by the last look . The frightened chickens gave the cook, He ate them ROASTED, GRILLED and FRITO! Oh what a horror was PEPITO!

The pictures are more gruesome than the words. And I attribute the typos to the two children who are attacking me at the moment.
 

The two I remember best from my childhood are "Go Dog, Go!" and "Green Eggs and Ham." But the Madeline series are the ones I enjoyed most with my own kids...

Except for "Love You Forever," for which I wrote a melody that the girls and I still sing each night.
 

Yes, IPLG, I suppose "tough love" would have been the more accurate assessment of the French attitude. They certainly have standards and stick to them, which is admirable. Their society, though, is more stratified for it: it's harder, or sometimes impossible, to change course once you've decided not to take a certain path in school, for example, or don't do well enough.