Children's Books

28 years old here, and male, and I'm a big enough nerd that I read kids' books. I'm not an RPG nerd, D&D nerd, fantasy or sci-fi nerd; I'm a kids' book nerd. I just never stopped liking them. I briefly tried out teen novels as a teen, such as a few Christopher Pike books, but just didn't find them fun in the way that books for upper elementary school kids are.

I've added numerous kid book articles, like Grey Griffins (a Guilty Pleasure of mine, though upcoming changes planned for the series might remove the "pleasure" from that equation), Maxie Rosie And Earl Partners In Grime (currently editing, recently read), Starbright And The Dream Eater (currently editing and rereading), and quite a few others.

So, who else reads kids' books - whether it's once in a while or frequently - and isn't afraid to admit it?

• EDIT: By kids' books, I mean books intended for any age from 13 and under. Elementary or middle school, but not high school (due to the frequent overlap between older teen and adult tastes).

edited 12th May '10 10:45:09 AM by BonsaiForest

Um... how does one define "kids' book"? I mean, damn, The Bartimaeus Trilogy gets shelved in the kids' section, so it runs the gamut from "Amelia Bedelia" to that?

//edit: Are we confining this to books marketed to 'upper elementary school'-age kids?

edited 12th May '10 10:36:51 AM by Aoede

Uh, define how you will. If it's mainly meant for "kids" (or younger teens), then I'd call it a kids' book. I have a close non-blood relative who reads teen books, and she's in her 30s, and that may be related, but it's not quite the same.

I recently read Percy Jackson And The Olympians, and I'm 33. I also like Diana Wynne Jones. But both those may be for older teens. I dunno.

edited 12th May '10 10:55:08 AM by ccoa

I still like many children's books, like Roald Dahl's and Kipling's Just so Stories which was supposed to be for kids. Actually, there are children's books I like more now than I did when I was child. Alice in Wonderland, for example. I couldn't make sense of it, and, being too young to realise that that was the point, I just thought "that's a stupid book! Everyone in it is crazy! You can't make a rational conversation with any of them! And will that stupid cat just stop disappearing!"

Unicorns Of Balinor. I got them when I was a kid, completed the series when I was in high school, and can't seem to bring it in me to throw them out.

Oh hells yes. The Edge Chronicles, The Larklight books, and anything that Frances Hardinge does deign to breath upon. ...just to name a few of my wonderful finds in the kiddie section.

26, grad student, read science and history books for fun. And there is nothing wrong with getting books from the kids section. You have a better chance of finding a wonderful plot that doesn't have that pesky thing I'm weird for disliking called romance shoehorned into it because, of course, no one going through or past puberty can read a book that doesn't have sex in it. /rant XD

I've at least read Chronicles Of Narnia, some Harry Potter, and up until recently Goosebumps.

Mostly I just fondly remember their heyday though.

I still have all my old books from childhood

and of course, I'm a Harry Potter addict

Ah, Goosebumps. Liked it back in the day, but after rereading it, I don't like it now! I used to like how R L Stine captured kid dialog surprisingly accurately. What he didn't capture, was how kids actually act and think, only how they talk. And the plots... it really is all about scare after scare with little in the way of interesting surprises, at least when you're older.

There are a few genuinely interesting books in the series, mainly because they're different from the others and don't follow their formula. I liked Help! We Have Strange Powers in the Goosebumps Horrorland series, as it was more about how the kids learn about, and then use, their special powers, than it was about cheap scares. At least it was until about the final 1/3, when it degenerated into the usual "be scared and helpless while stuff happens" nonsense of the series. I hate passive main characters in stories, except for when what happens in their head is interesting and we can relate to it. But in Goosebumps, when the characters are passive, for the most part, their thoughts are nothing more than "I'm so scared", or we dont see their thoughts at all, just what happens. Blah.

Bruce Coville.

Edit: Why on earth is that a red link?

edited 12th May '10 1:23:03 PM by CDRW

Bruce Coville. He's quite distinctive. You read his books now? I liked My Teacher is an Alien and My Teacher Fried My Brains, but the sequels got too weird for my tastes. His other books are also too far out there for me. I tried reading one of the I Was a Sixth Grade Alien books, the one with them trapped on another planet, but just found the story too random for my tastes.

Oh yeah. I still enjoy Mac Donald Hall, The Rescuers, The Great Brain, Alice In Wonderland, and especially (drumroll please!)...The Phantom Tollbooth!

^^ Not too often, but yeah. Jeremy Thatcher Dragon Hatcher is still one of my all-time favorite books.

I've found that while I can read books that are child-friendly, I generally dislike books that are primarily for children, because they tend to require a simplified mindset that I just can't get into (Black-and-White Morality, characters with one exaggerated trait rather than a full personality, characters who talk at each other rather than to each other . . . even Coraline has it, to a certain degree.) That said, there are a few child-oriented series that don't require that mindset, like A Series Of Unfortunate Events and the Johnny Maxwell Trilogy. The one I really want to see continue is The Unicorn Chronicles by the aforementioned Bruce Coville, though I don't have high hopes—there was an eight-year gap between books 1 and 2, and eight years after book 2 book 3 still hadn't come out.

P.S. Just checked Amazon, on a lark—The Unicorn Chronicles 3 actually came out, and 4 is being published in June! Yahoo!

Wait, there's a book 3? Holy crap, I need to go back and re-read that series!

I'm going to be taking a class on Children's Literature in the fall adn I'm happy as a clam about it. I love good children's and YA literature.

In terms of straight children's lit, well, to go really young I have a fondness for books of fairy tales and simple stories that are beautifully illustrated and told, like Little O and The Seven Wise Princesses, &etc.

I also have a semi-goal to read all the books that have been given the Newbery Medal, if I can find them. It should be interesting to start from when the Medal first came into existence and see what books merited it back then. My favorites in that category include A Long Way From Chicago (and A Year Down Yonder, neither of which feature Death by Newbery Medal), The Graveyard Book, A Single Shard, and Good Masters, Sweet Ladies!

I also love Tamora Pierce's Circle Of Magic (which go from middle-school age to YA), Harry Potter, and His Dark Materials (which is really more YA than anything else).

Also, for some reason books for children tend to have much more aesthetically pleasing to the eye covers than books for adults.

I do.

I've read Narnia, Percy Jackson, Larklight, Skulduggery Pleasant (I'm pretty sure that's for kids), a lot of Roald Dahl's work, and The Amazing Maurice And His Educated Rodents (which in my opinion is one of the best Discworld books).

Yes.

Well, I read the Alice books a few years back and liked them. I wish I could locate my copy of The Phantom Tollbooth, because I haven't read that since I was a kid and would like to do so again.

Nothing wrong with reading kid's books, they can be a lot of fun.

Oh yeah. I still enjoy Mac Donald Hall, The Rescuers, The Great Brain, Alice In Wonderland, and especially (drumroll please!)...The Phantom Tollbooth!

Hmm...Mac Donald Hall. I remember those. Liked them, too. Should check those out again one day.

Anyways, I occasionally read children's books. Narnia, The Phantom Tollbooth, mostly.

Do the Tiffany Aching books count as "children's" books, seeing as they are technically classed as YA fiction?

Where does Artemis Fowl lie?

Young Adult, maybe.

Guess so, given the Artemis/Holly Ship Tease in Time Paradox.