Perhaps I should have taken his birth as an opportunity to branch out and discover the classics of boyhood. I held my newborn son in my arms and gazed sadly at the bookshelves lining the living room, stuffed full of stories about girls so dear to my heart, stories I so wanted to share with this new little person who had come into my life, who happened to be a boy.
Then I became the mother of boys: Christopher, now about to turn 25, and Gregory, now about to turn 21. I looked forward to having daughters of my own with whom I could share the beloved texts from our childhood, chief among them the Betsy-Tacy books of Maud Hart Lovelace, the “Shoes” books of Noel Streatfeild, A Little Princess, The Secret Garden, Anne of Green Gables, and other classic girls’ stories. Fortunately for me, her husband became a bookstore owner, so every Christmas I open packages under the tree to find childhood favorites that nobody on earth but my sister would know that I wanted: teen romances from a bygone era like Double Date by Rosamond du Jardin and Jean and Johnny by Beverly Cleary. We spent most of our childhood doing nothing but reading, and we loved all the same books. I grew up reading with my one-year-younger sister, Cheryl. Mills shares a wonderful list of her family’s favorite books that feature girl protagonists-she encourages you to share them with both boys and girls, alike. Eleanor Estes is the author of Ginger Pye and the Moffat books.Published: SeptemClaudia Mills, PhilosophyclaudiaĬlaudia Mills is the author of many chapter and middle-grade books, including 7 x 9=Trouble! How Oliver Olson Changed the World Kelsey Green, Reading Queen and, most recently, Zero Tolerance. She also teaches philosophy at the University of Colorado at Boulder. A happy Halloween for any child about to be introduced to Amy and Clarissa and The Witch Family. Illustrated by Edward Ardizzone, this could well become a classic in the little girls' library, read and re-read for its piquant humor, its fluent imagination, and distinctive charm. There is also a buzzing spelling bee, and a mermaid, who despite her fondness for Little Witch, cannot manage to climb the glass hill to which the girls have consigned the witches. There is Wicked Witch, much too fond of devouring mermaids, Little Witch, who is lonely, and Baby Witch who must be looked after. The witches, in this case, present problems. But unlike other girls, they are conversant with a whole family of witches, whom they conjure up by means of an adroit crayon. They go to school, enjoy swinging and popsicles, and endure with bravery, unpleasant things like polio shots.
Almost seven, Amy and Clarissa, friends, live very much like other little girls in Washington, D.
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