Satori Smiles Children's Book List

aulsmith: Get the 1939 ed. not the one with the ants and the anti-war lectures that White added to The Once and Future King.

aulsmith: I suspect many children miss a lot of the romantic mysticism of this book. I certainly did. But it's never too early to fall in love with Mole and Rat.

aulsmith: This is rather preachy. I'm not sure if current children would like it, but I'm a sucker for boarding school stories.

ahef1963 : I simply can't bear the amount of ill-treatment of animals that is in this book. It's brutal.

aulsmith : I don't think this is a good book for children. Twain's satire is too cynical for most children to get, not to mention the difficulties this book presents when put in historical context.

merrystar : Just never liked this much.

merrystar: Just don't try to re-read it as an adult....

merrystar: Mixed feelings about this one -- the original is, I suspect, not at all for kids. But we had an abridged audiobook that was my daughter's favorite for about a year before she could read.

aulsmith : I found this heavy going as an adult and don't think I would have liked it any better as a child. It's pretty didactic.

aulsmith : This was a good adventure story, but the geology is rather lame.

aulsmith : I think this is a difficult book for a child. Maybe late teens if the kid has already developed a taste for Dickens.

merrystar: Possibly an abridged version would be fine, but I think the original is a stretch for a kids' book list, hence the low rating.

merrystar: Not really a children's book; more young adult.

aulsmith : I think there is much in Pollyanna's philosophy of life that is beneficial. It's always good to look at the possibilities of your life circumstances, but I'm not sure this book is nuanced enough for children of the modern world.

aulsmith : I struggled through this as a kid and wish I had waited until I knew enough to have the satire make sense.