Beth and Chrissi do Kid-Lit 2013 – The Round-Up

2013 is over, and so is our Kid-Lit challenge but I think I can speak for us both when I say we both really enjoyed it. Here are the twelve books we read with the links to my reviews! Please check out Chrissi’s blog HERE for her fabulous reviews.

JANUARY – Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

FEBRUARY – The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley

MARCH – The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

APRIL – Stig of the Dump by Clive King

MAY – Heidi by Johanna Spyri

JUNE – A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

JULY – Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White

AUGUST – The Children of the New Forest by Frederick Marryat

SEPTEMBER – A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

OCTOBER – Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

NOVEMBER – Northern Lights/The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

DECEMBER – The Railway Children by E. Nesbit

So, in the style of the “Talking About…” reviews we normally do, we thought we’d answer a quick few questions about our first year blogging in Kid-Lit.

1) What was your favourite Kid-Lit book of 2013 and why?

BETH: This is tough, there were quite a few that I really enjoyed. I think it would have to be A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett, simply because I had forgotten how beautiful the story was.

CHRISSI: This is a tough question. I’m torn between two that I thoroughly enjoyed. They are The Railway Children and A Little Princess. I think I’d have to go for A Little Princess, because it just gave me such a lovely warm feeling when I read it. The writing is beautiful.

2) What was your least favourite Kid-Lit book of 2013 and why?

BETH: There were a couple that also fitted this category! Probably The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley as I found it quite odd, and was bitterly disappointed by the story in general.

CHRISSI: We seem to have similar answers Beth! Mine would be Children Of The New Forest though. I was disappointed with it. I really thought I’d enjoy it! The Water Babies was an odd read.

3) What was the Kid-Lit book that surprised you the most?

BETH: This has to be Northern Lights/The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman. I loved the imagination behind this story, and some of his ideas (like having your own personal daemon) just blew me away. That reminds me, I must put the second book on my Coming Up list soon!

CHRISSI: I was surprised at how long Oliver Twist was. I think I’m so used to the film which condensed the book quite a bit.

4) Have you been inspired to read any other books from a Kid-Lit author of 2013?

BETH: I have! After The Little Princess, I decided to look into what else Frances Hodgson Burnett has written, as I know only of this book. I then went on a trip to Persephone Books in London, and found a copy of her novel The Making of A Marchioness, which I am looking forward to getting round to at some point!

CHRISSI: I want to read more of Frances Hodgson Burnett. Other than that I don’t think I’d read books from the same authors, besides Dickens, who I will hopefully read more of on the future. It has made me want to continue this challenge, and also think about other features around children’s literature!

Coming soon…. (Thursday to be exact) Beth and Chrissi do Kid-Lit – The Twelve Titles for 2014!

Beth and Chrissi do Kid-Lit – SEPTEMBER READ – A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L’Engle

What’s it all about?:

It was a dark and stormy night; Meg Murry, her small brother Charles Wallace, and her mother had come down to the kitchen for a midnight snack when they were upset by the arrival of a most disturbing stranger.

“Wild nights are my glory,” the unearthly stranger told them. “I just got caught in a downdraft and blown off course. Let me be on my way. Speaking of way, by the way, there is such a thing as a tesseract”.

Meg’s father had been experimenting with this fifth dimension of time travel when he mysteriously disappeared. Now the time has come for Meg, her friend Calvin, and Charles Wallace to rescue him. But can they outwit the forces of evil they will encounter on their heart-stopping journey through space?

What did I think?:

This book is the September read for my Kid-Lit challenge this year which I participate in with my sister ChrissiReads. I have to admit that I have never actually heard of this book before, and was shocked to see how popular it is. I’m not certain if it was more popular in the U.S, but wasn’t widely read in the U.K? Either way, I’m very pleased that I’ve finally read it and can see what all the fuss is about. The story centres around the Murry family, mainly the daughter Meg (who was an incredibly likeable character to me from the start) her youngest brother Charles Wallace, and their friend Calvin. It opens on a very windy evening where Meg is having trouble sleeping in her attic bedroom so ventures down to the kitchen where she joins Charles Wallace and her mother in a midnight snack. The reader is told that their father is absent, but everything seems to be slightly peculiar and mysterious, and there is no telling where he is and when he might return. A stranger blows into the kitchen whom Charles Wallace seems to know as Mrs Whatsit, who mentions the word “tesseract,” in connection with their father, kicking off an exciting adventure where Meg, Charles Wallace and their friend Calvin travel through space and different worlds in order to help and rescue their father, learning a few life lessons along the way.

This was such a lovely book to read, and I think I would have thoroughly enjoyed reading it as a child. It has  a bit of everything and I think that is part of its charm – magic, strange creatures, relatable characters that can serve as decent role models, humour, a couple of scary moments to get the heart pounding, oh and a giant, evil pulsating brain. (Shouldn’t every story have one of those?!) It has morals without coming across as preachy, teaches the value of our families and encourages children to grow and develop as individuals by addressing them as if they were adults, not idiots, which I found personally refreshing. There is the suggestion of faith through Christianity, but I don’t find this comes across in an obnoxious manner, and would not be offensive to any atheists. This is a beautiful piece of classic children’s literature and I would definitely be interested to read the other books in the series, while images from this story will remain with me for a while. Especially the pulsating brain.

Would I recommend it?:

But of course!

Star rating (out of 5):