New solo? Need suggestions!
I finished cataloging the second half of Our Island Story, which Jim and I read as a duet, each of us taking every other chapter. Here it is!
And now I need a new solo project to work on and I’m open to suggestions. Here are my criteria:
- The book must be in the public domain (published before 1923 in the US)
- The book must be children’s literature
- No Oz (I’m tired of Oz)
- No collections of fairy tales
- Nothing really “cute” (no Raggedy Ann, for instance). No Happy Rabbit’s Adventures in Candyland.
I’ve done a lot of girl books (Heidi, etc.) and I’d love to do a boy book. Something adventuresome? Please post if you have a book meeting these critera that you’d like to hear!
Any opinions about Kim, by Rudyard Kipling? I’ve never read it but I love the Just So Stories (which are also tempting).
Category: Audiobooks, Blog 11 comments »
September 13th, 2006 at 10:14 am
kippling would be great. perusing gutenberg, i found this:
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/19246
i have never read this one, but “shane” was just so great to me as a kid, I imagine this one will be worth it. don’t know what you think about a baseball book tho!!
September 13th, 2006 at 10:47 am
Thanks, Hugh! The Young Pitcher is a “boy” book for sure! What is this “Shane” of which you speak?
September 13th, 2006 at 4:58 pm
Maybe the first and second Jungle books, or Little Men, by Louisa May Alcott. Little Women would be good as well, though that’s girly. Those are my suggestions. *smiles*
September 13th, 2006 at 8:32 pm
Moonfleet by J. Meade Falkner?
http://www.bibliomania.com/0/0/37/frameset.html for some information.
The kids and I loved this book. (We “studied” it in my own 9th grade class, and then I read it to C & J when they were old enough.)
September 14th, 2006 at 9:45 am
Ooooo, Kathy, that looks great!
And Gina, The Jungle Books are a good idea too. Keep the suggestions coming — what I don’t read next, I’ll put into my mental queue for next time :)
September 15th, 2006 at 8:26 am
Swiss Family Robinson?
September 15th, 2006 at 8:44 am
I adore the Swiss Family! I looked for a good public-domain translation a few months ago and couldn’t find one I liked, but I will keep looking!
Edit: Ooooo this one feels right. http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext03/sfrbn10.txt How did I miss it before? Someone else just finished reading Swiss Family for librivox, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do it too :)
September 22nd, 2006 at 3:38 am
shane is THE great cowboy book. about a good-hearted family (mom, dad, son) of homesteadders on the frontier. one day, a lone cowboy comes thru looking for work, starts helping out on the farm. turns out he’s a sharp-shooter on the run from his past.
son is awed. bad guys turn up. father & shane become great friends. mother & shane start to fall in love. bad guys get really bad. shane beats them.
and then leaves because he and the mother are in love, and he doesn’t want to break up the wonderful good-hearted family.
And actually, it was one of the first audiobooks I ever heard.
Just did a search: Shane isn’t by zane grey, but rather: Jack Schaefer. Ooops! (1949)
October 20th, 2006 at 7:38 am
Maybe The Wonderful Electric Elephant by Frances Trego Montgomery…IF you can find a copy. It was published in 1903 so it should be in the public domain. However, it is also fairly difficult to find a copy of it. I read it from my great-Aunt Zink’s library when I was a child.
Also, perhaps some of the Bobbsey Twins series…or the various Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins (like the Scotch Twins, The Belgian Twins, etc.)?
Then there’s a whole series of Boy Scout/Pony Riders/young military type stories that you can find over at http://www.gutenberg.org that you might want to consider .
Cathy
October 26th, 2006 at 12:41 pm
How about the Tom Swift series or Oliver Optic?
October 26th, 2006 at 12:57 pm
So many cool suggestions! I will keep these all in mind. :) Thanks everyone!