NationStates Jolt Archive

...five books to purchase for your child/niece or nephew/grandchild, what would they be?



My List:

The Lord of the Rings -- JRR Tolkien (Yeah, the big red leatherette bound edition).
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass -- Lewis Carroll
The Stand - Stephen King
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn -- Mark Twain

what age is the kid in question?

I can only think of one at the moment, The Secret Garden

The Satanic Bible, Anton Sandor LaVey
The Necronomicon, Abdul Al Hazred
The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin
The Bible, Various authors
The Koran, Whoever took dictation from Muhammad

That should screw them up nicely!

yeah the secret garden is great!
also the entire 7-book chronicles of Narnia
eh, the Twits
ehm - James and the Giant peach
and...oh this is a tough one but i'm going with Danny the Champion of the World

-The Lord of the Rings (for it's excellent story value)
-The complete works of Plato (to begin the journey of philisophical thinking)
-The Hitchhiker's Guide (Comic aspect)
-The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (must know history)
-Mars and Venus in the Bedroom (Gotta tell them some time and Dr. John Gray is so easy to read)

The Satanic Bible, Anton Sandor LaVey
The Necronomicon, Abdul Al Hazred
The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin
The Bible, Various authors
The Koran, Whoever took dictation from Muhammad

That should screw them up nicely!

Nice one. Maybe you should make it six and throw the Communist Manifesto in there.

I can only think of one at the moment, The Secret Garden
really? I saw the movie once, have to say it was messed up in my opinion

really? I saw the movie once, have to say it was messed up in my opinion
I've never seen the film but it's my favourite book, has been since I first read it when I was about 7

im gonna take some from everyone
The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin
The Hitchhiker's Guide
The Lord of the Rings
2 others at random

The Satanic Bible, Anton Sandor LaVey
The Necronomicon, Abdul Al Hazred
The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin
The Bible, Various authors
The Koran, Whoever took dictation from Muhammad

That should screw them up nicely!

What about:
The Bible (King James version) and the Vulgate
The Qur'an (although, as far as I know, this cannot be 'purchased')
Buddhism and the Art of Motorcycle Repair
The Tao de Ching
The Kama Sutra

I've never seen the film but it's my favourite book, has been since I first read it when I was about 7
I probably wasnt in the right frame of mind when I watched it
it just made little sence to me. I might have to read the book instead

I probably wasnt in the right frame of mind when I watched it
it just made little sence to me. I might have to read the book instead
well books usually are better than the films (except LOTR)

What about:
The Bible (King James version) and the Vulgate
The Qur'an (although, as far as I know, this cannot be 'purchased')
Buddhism and the Art of Motorcycle Repair
The Tao de Ching
The Kama Sutra
That could work too. Just not evil enough for me.

well books usually are better than the films (except LOTR)
personally I would rather the LOTR books too

personally I would rather the LOTR books too

Ditto. The movies were excellent and far exceeded my wildest expectations, but you simply must read the books.

Wow. No poetry books.

Although my daughter read some of the heavier selections mentioned here (Bible, LOTR) when she was 8 years old, the books that seem to have had the greatest effect were poetry books.

Dickenson, Whitman, Frost. It turned her into a poet.

The Hobbit
The Lord of the Rings [with instruction to read it after The Hobbit]
His Dark Materials

And then for a litte light reading, State and Revolution and Das Kapital.

Ought to put things into perspective for the child. :p

Wow. No poetry books.

Although my daughter read some of the heavier selections mentioned here (Bible, LOTR) when she was 8 years old, the books that seem to have had the greatest effect were poetry books.

Dickenson, Whitman, Frost. It turned her into a poet.

You're right, I forgot Samuel Taylor Coleridge - The Complete Poems Shakespeare and Wordsworth are both excellent. Plath is interesting, but likely to turn your child/grandchild/niece/nephew insane. :p

personally I would rather the LOTR books too
i didn't tthink they were very well written

The Hobbit + LOTR
Narnia Chronicles
All the Harry Potter stuff
The complete works of ERB (that should screw them up completely)
The Wizard of Earthsea Trilogy by Ursula Le Guin

i didn't tthink they were very well written

Are you kidding!!! Those volumes are some of the last commonly read examples of something well written left in existance. :confused:

Just so they've got a bit of diversity throughout their years I'd give them the following:

Littlenose - John Grant
Thomas the Tank Engine - Reverend W. Awdry
Weirdstone of Brisingamen - Alan Garner
Danny the Champion of the World - Roald Dahl
Good Omens - Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman

Hitch Hikers
His Dark Material
The Diskworld serise
The Philosophy files
Lord of the Rings

And if that lot dosn't screw 'em nothing will.

The Brentford Trilogy by Robert Rankin
His Dark Materials
Discworld series (preferably the earlier stuff)
I, robot (and possibly the Foundation trilogy too, though I haven't read that yet)
LOTR and The Hobbit. Probably not The Silmarillion, that was heavy going even compared to the other two.

Definitely the Earthsea series by Ursala K Leguin, also;
- The Dispossessed (same author)
- Roald Dahl, any of his titles will entice exploration of the rest. They are subtly and deliciously subversive.
- Susan Cooper was enjoyed by my crew, starting with Over sea, Under Stone.
- The Green Knowe series ( Children of Green Knowe etc) are incredibly moody and evocative
- the Swallows and Amazons is a good read, and sets a great example of cooperation and adventures/activities separate from adult supervision

in general, always include some science fiction. Sci-fi is a window (and door) into a universe of possibilites, underlining that another world IS possible!

The Course of Honour by Lindsay Davis
The Hobbit
The Lord of the Rings
The entire series of The daughter of the Empire
Servant of the Empire
Mistress of the Empire
The Da Vinci code

The Course of Honour by Lindsay Davis
The Hobbit
The Lord of the Rings
The entire series of The daughter of the Empire
Servant of the Empire
Mistress of the Empire
The Da Vinci code
5 books, and how come HDM arn't in there. (Okay so I'm biased)

5 books, and how come HDM arn't in there. (Okay so I'm biased)
the empire trilogy being counted as 1?
PS mekonia, i'm so proud!!!!!

the empire trilogy being counted as 1?
PS mekonia, i'm so proud!!!!!

Anything by Pratchett. Apart from those gnome ones.
The Hitchikers series. The whole trilogy of 5.

That's about it. There are others but none stick in my memory so much as those.

1 The Robert Jordan Wheel of Time series.
2 The Hobbit and LOTR
3 The Bible
4 The Satanic Bible
5 Any apropriate book on Wicca or Paganism

That should make for a well rounded person. Worked for me!

Uncle Johns Unstopable bathroom Reader(A size 7 lol)
The Three Halo Books(If its anything like game it should be fun)
And an Almanac

the Narnia stories by CS Lewis. genius

yeah the secret garden is great!
also the entire 7-book chronicles of Narnia
eh, the Twits
ehm - James and the Giant peach
and...oh this is a tough one but i'm going with Danny the Champion of the World


Dahl is great, but I literally gagged reading about all the crap in Mr. Twit's beard. I had to put it down or puke.

...five books to purchase for your child/niece or nephew/grandchild, what would they be?

if i ever had a kid (god forbid) there are five books that would be on his/her shelf from the minute he/she came home from the hospital:

The Battle Of Zormla
The Great Gumdrop Robbery
The Flight of Bembel Rudzuk
How Tom Beat Captain Najork and His Hired Sportsman
Bartholamew and the Oobleck

once he/she was old enough for slightly more advanced material, i would start with:

A Spell for Chameleon
Demian
Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse
Ender's Game
Lizard Music

from there, the kid's on their own.

The Avatar series (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=books/fr/avatarseries).

Assuming they are just of the age at which they can read young adult books:

A wizard of earthsea by Ursula K Leguin
and for them to grow up on:
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
The collected works of Friedrich Nietzsche (fits in one book) (esp. Zarathustra and Antichrist)
Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
The First Circle by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn

y'all have OLD neices and nephews

assuming a child of about 10.....

harry potter
the black stallion
little house on the prairie series (starts out too easy for a 10 year old but uses more vocab later on)
bridge to tarabithea (or anything by katherine patterson)
hatchett by gary paulsen

Brave New World
1984
Animal Farm
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Other than Narnia, most of it will be over their head. Doesn't mean I can't keep reccomending them until my neice/nephew/child gets old enough to read them.

Besides, it isn't all THAT young. I was eleven when I first read Animal Farm, though any relation to real events went over my head at that stage.

The Catcher in the Rye - JD Saliner
The Chrysalids - John Wyndham
Spartan - Valerio Massimo Manfredi
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
The Te of Piglet - Benjamin Hoff

Hmmm... ok...

Gotta be strict about this, so that means no series that hasn't been published in a whole book form.

Lord Of The Rings (The large bound edition, all three books in one).
Hitchhikers's Series (Again, all bound in one book).
Sherlock Holmes Collection (Once more, all bound in one book).
Where The Sidewalk Ends
The Martian Chronicles

All the books above have at least been bound as a single book at some time, so it really CAN be 5 books. :-)

What can I say? I'm strict.

Wow, the most popular ones are:
Lord of the Rings
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Bible

Wow... people really think alike sometimes.

Everyone should read the bible once. At most when they're at their most lucid, at leat when they're at their lowest. Anyone who doesn't read Tolkien by the time they're 16 may as well never bother reading anything other than "Rolling Stone". Just forget it. The attention span ain't for you. Now, what's on Bravo?

The Satanic Bible, Anton Sandor LaVey
The Necronomicon, Abdul Al Hazred
The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin
The Bible, Various authors
The Koran, Whoever took dictation from Muhammad

That should screw them up nicely!
Oh yeah.
You need some Ayn Rand too though, to get them nice and confused.
:p

I am going to put these in two categories, children's books (except the Lord of the Rings), and adult books that i think it would benefit children to read when they are old enough to.

1.The Lord of the Rings-J.R.R Tolkien. It is one of the most beautifully written books i have ever read. Tolkien actually makes you believe that world and those creatures were real. He gives you hope and shows that even the smallest, most unlikely person can be a hero.

2.A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson-This was one of my favorite books as a kid. I love poetry, and i think that it is a great introduction to it for children. The poems are lyrical, musical, and about things kids can relate to and understand.

3.All the books by Beatrix Potter. My other favorite books as a kid. I think they're sweet, and they teach good lessons, about friendship, cooperation, kindness, etc.

4.Peter Pan-J.M. Barrie. It reminds us all to be young at heart, and to believe. It's about the power of imagination and the human heart.

5.Alice in Wonderland-Lewis Carroll. It is full of color, magic, and wonderful worlds and characters. It allows children to really use their imagination.

Adult books:
1.The Prophet-Kahlil Gibran. It's beautiful and it teaches wonderful lessons about love, life, death, etc. It's very poetic and it makes you think and feel.

2.The Republic-Plato. Learning is important, and this allows us to contemplate life, existence, love, etc. I think's it's a good way to introduce kids to philosophy.

3.Any collection by William Blake, especially Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. His poems are sweet and at the same time, very deep. It gives you multiple ways of viewing the world.

4.The Complete Works of Shakespeare. He is, imo, the greatest writer in the English language, and even 500 years later, his words still resonate.

5.Love in the Time of Cholera-Gabriel Garcia Marquez. His language is so colorful and descriptive. He makes you fee like you are in the place he's describing. The beauty of his words takes you away.

I know you said five, but i was thinking of the various ages when you might buy books for kids, some of these i wouldn't buy if they were only an infant.

LOTR (all-in-one)
Hitchikers trilogy (:D)
The Twits (preferably a large amount of Dahl stories rolled into one)
Fox in Socks (Dr Seuss)
Moving Pictures (Pratchett)

This is assuming that they don't read often. These books, I'd hope, would encourage them to read more. The other ones wouldn't be touched, and so would be useless.

I read Tolkien myself for the first time last year, at the age of 26, though our teacher read us the Hobbit when i was in the sixth grade. I read LOTR after i saw the movies and then read it again six months later. I read The Silmarillion a week after that. I have always had a great attention span, and i learned how to read when i was three, i was just never into fantasy stuff. I didn't think i'd like the LOTR movies either, i went to the first one because my step-dad and brother were going, and my step-dad was paying. They instantly became some of my favorite movies and as soon as i read the book, it became my favorite. I usually read long, more complicated books. My mom laughs at me for it...lol.

The Girl who Loved Wild Horses
Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King
The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe (Depending on the child)
Where the Wild Things Are
and lastly
The Tao of Pooh.

Fox in Socks (Dr Seuss)
Moving Pictures (Pratchett)
Yes. YES!. YES!!

You beautiful person! If I had given it sufficient thouth then yes... these two are a fixture. Leaving out the inimitable Dr Seuss is a crime, and MP is perhaps the ideal introduction to Pratchett, if only for "Mr Snappy", which is a classic comedy moment I'd die to see televised.

Top two. I'm swayed. Forever!

Any four of the Discworld books and the Hitchhikers Guide.

Preferably from the Death series, but the Watch is good as well. Rincewind might be a good influence as well. Teach your kid how to think proper like.

The Dark Material books by Philip Pullman. I dont suggest it if your trying to get the king into god. these books say god is evil and the devil is good.
Here is one quick quote from the books:
"The Authority, God, the Creator, the Lord, Yahweh, El, Adonia, the King, the Father, the Almighty, those where all names he gave himself. He was the Creator. He was an angel like ourselves, true, the most powerful, but he was formed of dust as we are, and dust is only a name for what happens when matter begins to understand itself. Matter loves matter. It seeks to know more about itself, and dust is formed. The first angels condensed out of dust, the Authority was the first of all. He told those who came after him that he had created them but it was a lie. One of those who came later was wiser than he was, and she found out the truth and banished her. We serve her still." :gundge:

i would say: whatever she says she has an intrest in. music, poetry, history, fantasy.. just ask her what she likes and then go from there.

Little Black Sambo
Cat in the HAt
Green Eggs and HAm
LOTR (all-in-one)
The Story of The Maori Battalion