Grade School Greats

The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, and Stowaway to the Mushroom Planet, by Eleanor Cameron.

Two boys build their own rocket, and with the help of the eccentric Mr. Bass – whose origins may not be entirely earthly – visit a small planet observable only through a special filter. There they save a strange race of little bulbous-headed people (oddly like the Greys of UFO lore) from extinction. In the sequel they return with Mr. Bass’s cousin (who remains on the planet) and a skeptical stowaway. I read the Mushroom books at the public library during the summer reading program and enjoyed them immensely. Kids with their own rocket? You bet! These reprints don’t have the illustrations, and there are three others in the series: “Mr. Bass’s Planetoid”, “A Mystery for Mr. Bass”, and “Time and Mr. Bass”. I have ‘Planetoid’ in an old hardback, with the illustrations.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Children’s Book. Soft cover.

The Mouse and the Motorcycle, by Beverly Cleary. Illustrated by Louis Darling.

More mice and their secret life. Ralph the mouse lives in a hotel, and when he finds a toy motorcycle, he finds he can make it go by mimicking the sound. Adventure ensues. Has a sequel, “Runaway Ralph”, which I don’t have. Made into a movie with stop-motion in 1986.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Children’s Book. Softcover.

The Pushcart War, by Jean Merrill. Illustrations by Ronni Solbert.

I used to have a paperback copy in the old days. I associate it mainly with middle school, when environmentalism, anti-big business, and protest were even hotter than it was in 1964, when the book was first written. I see in Wikipedia that the dates inside have been updated over the years so that it can still be set in the future. This is a new copy. I can see where this had an influence on my future Chestertonian positions.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Young Adult Book. Paperback.

The Jungle Book, by Rudyard Kipling. Illustrated by Earl Mayan.

A Companion Library of Classics Edition, which we had in grade school. I remember it being on the old metal bookshelf in the back-bedroom’s closet for a while. In the best condition of any of the old department store children’s books we ever got, even though it was very well read. Mended with transparent packing tape. “The Jungle Book” was one of our favorites, perhaps because of the Disney movie, which we’d seen in the theater.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Classic. Hardback.

Great American Folk Heroes, by Lewfy Olfson. Illustrated (poorly) by Richard D. Wolf.

Thought I was getting something like “Tall Tale America”, but no. Has my name and “Grade 4” on the cover. The fact that it still exists (ragged though it be) is a clue that it was not a favorite.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Children’s Book. Softcover.

The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame. Illustrated by Dick Cuffari.

An Illustrated Junior Library book. It was in a copy like this that I first read TWITW, but hardbacked, in middle school, with these illustrations. I was inclined to it, both by the old Rankin/Bass TV show and the Disney Golden book in 3^rd Grade. And now I really got into Grahame’s wonderful prose. Bought this copy in memorium, as it were, for these old pictures (see the picture of Mole End). The domesticity, the snugness, the joys of the countryside, sank deep into my soul.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Children’s Book. Classic. Softcover.

The Great Quillow, by James Thurber. Illustrated by Doris Lee.

Bought this at a library sale, in the hopes of finding a new “Thirteen Clocks”, but no such luck. Perhaps my least favorite Thurber. [Not my cover.]

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Children’s Book. Hardback.

Frog and Toad Are Friends, by Jared Lobel, Illustrated by the Author.

Frog and Toad were fairly new (1970) when we started reading them, and we had at least a few from Weekly Reader over the years. We loved the whimsical semi-anthropomorphic set up with little houses, teapots, beds, and buttons, and friendly Frog and tetchy Toad. This was a new hardback I got years later.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Children’s Book. Hardback.

Storyland Favorites, by Harold G. Shane and Kathleen B. Hester

An old grade school textbook. I don’t particularly remember if we used it, but there is an illustration to “How the Bear Lost His Tail” of a bear with a striped muffler, looking exactly like my own character, Bear. Coincidence or what?

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Textbook. Hardback.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl. Illustrations by Joseph Schindelman.

The movie came out in 1971 and was a big noise around the school. I remember Scott Bate got great points for bringing the record to show and tell. When I checked out the book (in 4^th grade?) I accidentally lost it by leaving it on the roof of the car when we were loading in and forgetting it. Mom was pissed when she had to pay for that! That was the old ‘chocolate’ Oompa-Loompas edition, replaced later by the rosy skinned blonde-haired Oompa-Loompas. That’s what this later secondhand edition has. Dahl’s attitude reminds me of Chesterton’s quote: “For children are innocent and love justice, while [adults] are wicked and naturally prefer mercy.” [without this jacket.]

Ranking: essential.

File Code: Children’s Book. Classic. Hardback.

James and the Giant Peach, by Roald Dahl. Illustrations by Nancy Ekholm Burkert.

This looks like it might be an original 1961 edition. By the time Mrs. Bratton was reading it to us in 4^th Grade (1973) it had already hit classic status and was appearing in textbooks. I loved the cast of giant bugs and their big personalities, who reminded me of Baum’s eccentrics. And we always said that Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker could have been played by our teachers Mrs. Harris and Mrs. Davenport. It had the classic form of a strange journey in an unusual mode of transportation with episodes of adventure along the way (like ‘Voyage of the Dawn Treader’, or an ‘Imram’). Full of Dahl’s Hilaire-Belloc-like poetry. [without this jacket.]

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Children’s Book. Classic. Hardback. 

Fantastic Mr. Fox, by Roald Dahl. Illustrations by Donald Chaffin.

An ex-library book. I preferred the illustrations in John’s copy, but these are all right. Read years beyond even high school, so it was a little late to actually have much of an effect on me. Still, with its underground house and animal families, it does have all the right elements that appeal to me.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Children’s Book. Classic. Hardback.

The Story of the Grail and the Passing of Arthur, Retold and Illustrated by Howard Pyle.

The last volume in his four Arthur books, this copy is from a San Antonio library sale. So I only need “The Story of Sir Launcelot and His Companions” to complete the set. The art is the main point of having them.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Legend. Art. Hardback. Classic.

Some Scholastic Books

The Moffats, by Eleanor Estes. Illustrations by Louis Slobodkin.

I have this because I have vague memories of it being in Mrs. Roberts first grade class, and because it is a Scholastic book. It seems a little advanced for first grade, but perhaps she read it for story time.

Ranking: Nostalgia. Keeper?

File Code: Children’s Book. Scholastic. Softcover.

Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson

A Scholastic Book, Illustrated by Dom Lupo. Bought at a garage sale, years later, as a remembrance of grade school ambiance, though I didn’t read it there. We did have a Classics Illustrated comic book though, and a Whitman Classic [from Gibson’s], I think.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Children’s Book. Scholastic. Softcover.

Paul Bunyan Swings His Axe, by Dell J. McCormick. Illustrated by Leo Summers.

A word about these Scholastic Books, many of which are upcoming. I read lots of these in McQueeney, and most by Fourth Grade. But we didn’t own a whole lot of them. Now I’m not entirely sure which ones we did. The sad truth is that in those early years we read many books to rags, and then they got thrown out, and memories grow fuzzy. Most of these copies are secondhand, garage sale books that I went collecting through the 80’s and 90’s. But I do know I read it.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Children’s Book. Scholastic. Softcover.

Stuart Little, by E. B. White. Pictures by Garth Williams.

A Dell Yearling Book. Read what I have to say about “Stuart Little” in a previous entry. This is a ‘reading’ copy in better shape.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Children’s Book. Classic. Softcover.

The Enormous Egg, by Oliver Butterworth. Illustrated by Louis Darling.

In 1956 Oliver Butterworth, an English and Latin teacher in New England, published a children's book called The Enormous Egg. It tells the story of a twelve-year-old boy named Nate Twitchell whose favorite hen lays an unusually large egg that hatches into a triceratops that the lad dubs Uncle Beazley. Nate raises the throwback, and most of the story tells the trials and joys of caring and feeding for the lumbering, genial behemoth. Eventually it becomes too much for the boy and Uncle Beazley ends up being well-cared-for prize exhibit in a government zoo.

In 1964 the Sinclair Oil Company made nine life-sized fiberglass replicas of different species of dinosaurs for the New York City's World Fair. When the Fair was over the dinosaurs were donated to several museums and institutions throughout the nation. One of them, the triceratops, ended up in the 1968 hour-long T.V. special made of The Enormous Egg, playing Uncle Beazley. I watched that show when I was but a wee lad, and although the figure was completely unarticulated, it was so realistic a figure and the way it was shot was so artful, I swear I remember it breathing and blinking its eyes.

In 1972 I was in fourth grade, and I read the book. It included illustrations by the ubiquitous children's illustrator Louis Darling. I dimly remembered the show from almost half my lifetime ago. When the time came to write to an author for a class project, I chose Oliver Butterworth. I wrote about how I enjoyed the book, and what I could recollect about the show. He sent me back a card (it had a rather abstract picture of a couple of owls on it) and a letter written inside. He said about how the model of Uncle Beazley was now at a national zoo. My mom put the letter inside the first volume of our set of Childcraft. It has since disappeared, but I was always rather proud of this contact with an author.

Oliver Butterworth published two other books, one a sequel adventure of Nate Twitchell (no dinosaurs this time). He passed away in 1990. As of 2007, Uncle Beazley was still on display in Washington D. C.'s National Zoo, where he was still a sentimental favorite with kids and nostalgic baby boomers everywhere.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Children’s Book. Classic. Softcover.

Pippi Longstocking, by Astrid Lindgren. Illustrated by Nancy Seligson.

In 1973, a Pippi Longstocking movie was released in America, so it was in the air. She was also familiar from school readers. I remember reading it in 4^th grade, a rather daring act, because the protagonist was a - gasp – girl! But she was liberated beyond the girly-girls of the time, being the strongest girl of the world, living on her own, having a chest of gold to pay her way through the world, and most appealing of all, not giving a hoot about grown-ups and social conventions. I recall feeling a sort of admiring friendship for her. It is possible – just possible – that a little bit of her snuck into my portrait of Daisy Bellamy without me being aware of it. Those pigtails!

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Children’s Book. Classic. Softcover.

The Seven Voyages of Sinbad and Other Tales from the Arabian Night, Retold by Gladys Davidson. Illustrated by Irma Wilde.

A Scholastic Book, the same text as that paperback earlier, which I didn’t realize until now. Saw this version in 4^th Grade, which is why I have this copy.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Children’s Book. Classic. Softcover.

Rudyard Kipling’s First Jungle Book. Illustrated by Charles Beck.

A Scholastic Book, which I saw in 4^th Grade. We already had a “Companion Library of Classics” edition, but I read this one in class. I remember being impressed with the illustration of the White Cobra. Got this copy in memory.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Children’s Book. Classic. Softcover.

Mr. Popper’s Penguins, by Richard and Florence Atwater. Illustrated by Robert Lawson.

Very popular; not only in various classrooms, but even Captain Kangaroo read from it. I liked it okay, but it wasn’t ever a favorite of mine. Scholastic Book, often in the Weekly Reader book orders, as I recall.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Children’s Book. Classic. Softcover.

Miss Pickerell Goes to Mars, by Ellen MacGregor. Illustrations by Paul Galdone.

The first in the series by McGregor, Scholastic also published “Miss Pickerell and the Geiger Counter”, “Miss Pickerell Goes Undersea”, and “Miss Pickerell Goes to the Arctic”. The series is famous for its cunning insertion of actual scientific fact as the elderly spinster goes on one after another unlikely adventure. Read it in grade school and got this copy later. The series was continued after MacGregor’s death (1954) until 1983. “The first heroes of children’s literature were little old women.”

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code:  Children’s Book. Classic. Softcover.

While Mrs. Coverlet Was Away and Mrs. Coverlet’s Magicians, by Mary Nash. Illustrated by Garrett Price.

More kids trying to get along without grown-ups, their father being off on a job and their housekeeper being called away. The superior older brother Malcolm, the practical worrywart sister Molly, and the headstrong youngest boy Toad (real name Theobald) who always mishears names and titles that gives him strange ideas. The second book has them in the same position, except that Toad is using magic he learned from sending away from an ad in a comic book on their temporary unpleasant guardian. I read these in grade school and liked them alright and got these in memory of that experience. There is a third volume, “Mr. Coverlet’s Detectives”, which I do not have. These books might have influenced my affection for cats.

Ranking: Keepers.

File Code: Scholastic. Children’s Book. Classic. Softcover.

Lost Race of Mars, by Robert Silverberg. Illustrated by Leonard Kessler.

A Scholastic book, read in 4^th Grade. Learned much later that Silverberg was a fairly famous science fiction writer.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Children’s Book. Softcover.

Detectives in Togas, by Henry Winterfeld, Illustrated by Charlotte Kleinert.

Read this book in 4^th Grade, and it’s probably the first novel of historical times in Rome that I’d ever read, possibly because of its connection to the myths and legends. “Set in ancient Rome, the story follows a group of schoolboys who try to solve several crimes: the attack on their teacher and the desecration of a temple wall.” – Wikipedia. Originally written in German, and sneaks in a great deal of history. There is a sequel, “Mystery of the Roman Ransom”, that I’ve never seen or read. Bought this copy in memory. It’s sort of a groundbreaker for ‘Claudius’ for me.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Children’s Book. Mystery. Soft Cover.

Henry and the Paper Route, by Beverly Cleary. Illustrated by Louis Darling.

The only book by Beverly Cleary I ever owned. Henry Huggins has plans to run a paper route (though he is a little young). Hard to judge at this distance why I wanted this book; it seemed interesting at the time, and the author was popular. Did I want to have a paper route? Did I connect it with the Homer Price books? This copy bought in memory of my old Scholastic book.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Children’s Book. Softcover.

Tales from Silver Lands, by Charles J. Finger. Woodcuts by Paul Honore.

A Scholastic book, bought at Yesterday’s Warehouse. “The book is a collection of nineteen folktales of the native populations of Central and South America. Collected during Finger's travels, it was one of the first volumes of South American indigenous folktales available to children.” – Wikipedia. I bought it when I realized that it contained “The Hungry Old Witch”, that I had read and shuddered at in “Witches, Witches, Witches”.

Ranking: Keeper.

File Code: Newberry winner. Folktales. Softcover.