A Novel Idea
2012
What one novel would you want your child to read above all others?
According to a Telegraph story out this week, that was the question poised by a recent University of Worcester survey. The answer? 1 in 5 parents said A Christmas Carol.
Other authors who made the list included JK Rowling, Jane Austen, George Orwell and JRR Tolkien. I’m guessing this was a British audience given Harper Lee’s was the only name from this side of the pond.
I can’t find the actual survey anywhere, but that’s beside the point. As a dad, I’ve been tossing around another, less hypothetical question related to novels.
I haven’t yet read my daughters a novel. My smallest is turning 2 tomorrow (unbelievable). She loves books with a lot of drawings that she can describe. I will never tire of her — at the sight of any monkey — wiggling her little finger and singing “no more monkeys jumping on the bed!” She’ll do this repeatedly. At every point a monkey shows up. Curious George is quite a lyrical experience. If I tried a novel with her, it would either be thrown on the floor or involved a lot of mumbling of the ABC’s.
But her sister is just about 4 and I’m pretty sure she’s ready to embark on the Chapter Book experience. So, while the Worcester survey is intriguing, it’s a bit too limitless (what age?) and limiting (just one?!). I want to know what our first novel will be.
She loves animals, bugs, fairies, running and swimming. She would be equally fascinated by a Big Friendly Giant and a pig who can spell. By a friendship between a rat and a mole or a talking lion and an evil witch. By a journey to Neverland or the Land of Oz.
For now, I’m leaning toward the pig who can spell. But what about you? Do you remember the first novel you read to your child? Or that you were read as a child?
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The first story I remember my mother reading to me was Little House on the Prairie. Sadly, I never read a novel to my daughter – she learned to read, and never sat for me to read for her again. I love that you want to do this for your daughters.
I think my first novel that was read to me might have been “The Jungle Book.” But since you have girls, I would suggest Frances Hodgson Burnett’s “A Little Princess.”
My husband and I read White Fang for her first novel. She is crazy about wolves.
The Boxcar Children was the first read to me and was read by my grandmother Mid. At our house we read the spelling pig and then fairly soon after The Secret Garden which was a big, big hit with my daughter.