Old stories

Old books have value beyond measure--whether you read them online or you get real copies for some favorite children. Try Legends and Stories of Italy by Amy Steedman, it's online to read here, with its great, old-fashioned illustrations by Scottish Katherine Cameron [1874-1965]. The image above is of Dianora de Bardi, from the story "A Tale of Old Florence", a happy type of Romeo and Juliet story. Here's a little excerpt:

From early morning the bells had rung out. Coloured cloths and gay carpets hung out from every window. In the great square the city banners were floating in the breeze, and throngs of country-people came hurrying through the gates, all dressed in holiday attire. The churches were hung with crimson silk and velvet hangings, and a blaze of candles lit up each altar in honour of the festa of the patron saint of Florence.

Myth

For many areas of the world, this is a great time to get out into nature without intense heat or sun making the trip harder. Even a five minute rush around the block can be worth the feeling! I often get this feeling from art and from reading. The picture above is by illustrator Margaret Evans Price [1888-1973] from Jack and the Giant Beanstalk; it can be found in the 1930 Once upon a time book [here] of fairy tales, edited by Katharine Lee Bates. It's important to be sure that children are exposed to beauty at a young age. The white deer above is actually the beautiful Duke's daughter under a spell--who he saves and who wears a crown wreath of pink hawthorn blossoms.

For kids or people wanting to have a nice, simple time, reading Walter Crane's book with illustrations The Frog Prince and other stories here is well worth it for the illustrations alone; there's even Aladdin.

Many illustrators are the equal of great artists like the famous Erte, Beardsley, Barbier, Bakst and the later Edward Gorey in drawing especially. While artists often did children's books in the past, they used to do much more. Art used to be on the cover of most magazines and in other literary arenas.

People to check out are the Russian Ivan Bilibin (Ива́н Били́бин) [1876-1942] - I love his eerie Vasilisa and his take on Russian myth's sphinx-like alkonost monster; be sure to see Vasnetsov's gorgeous painting of them here.

Try looking at Katherine Cameron's [1874-1965] work, or even William Robert Symonds [1851-1934],

One neat American Impressionist to try who lived his life mostly in France is Frederick Carl Frieseke [1874-1939], for anyone who prefers or enjoys that style.

Tv Rewatch

One great show to show your kids or put on in the background for fun is the 90's Clarissa Explains it All. It was just great, in every sense of the word. It shows you what a different world the 1990's were. I urge all parents to ensure their children are exposed to classics--because while everyone is a product of their time period and zeitgeist, be sure to include some awesome stuff.

I will recommend a few things:
It's worth it to get an old Mac or PC computer and get the bookish, page-like Mercer Meyer and Arthur games. Also have kids play ReaderRabbit [for early reading] and NumberMunchers [for math]. Also be sure to get MuseumMadness and TombRaider is also good to spark interest in archeology and history, despite the graphics.

Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey - a beautiful picture book about blueberry picking and Maine; by the way the state is also a great place for vacations for kids; Acadia National Park is truly beautiful, with ocean, tide pools and forests--and lots of ice cream parlors!

For pure fun and mystery, be sure to page through the confounding book Maze by Christopher Manson. It's like the Choose your Adventure books but even wilder. You can also look through it online here and the old page was here, but it's not the same--go through the 'doors' to specific pages and enjoy it, write notes along the sides.

While I don't love all the sequels, the YA book Sabriel by Garth Nix is great for girls especially. It presents true mystery, magic and gives you a sense of the vast open wildness of the world. It is truly an adult book, and it's important that children get a sense of how beautiful and moving books are, how truthful about the hugeness of the world. The sense of eerieness is important.

Children's books

I loved a wide variety of things, some usual, some strange. If you give a mouse a cookie was great. I had a coloring book of ancient world architectural styles, which sounds weird but it was captivating; I also had an Egyptian hieroglyph stamp set, which blew my mind.

I loved books that were way too confusing for me too. Trying to read adult size books was something that sped up my reading way before the other kids. I looked through my dad’s Einstein biography and his Tolkien books. I loved the old world style of Winnie the Pooh’s original illustrations and Alice in Wonderland, and Through the Looking glass. Nancy Drew, The Egypt Game, The Angel and the Soldier Boy, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Jillian Jiggs, The Hungry Caterpillar, Frederick the poet, The Golden Eggand Redwall; Little Black Sambo, who outsmarts tigers and has pancakes with his mom and dad [he's from India in my copy].

And The Maze, which you can ‘read’ online. It’s an actual maze, each page is a door. The pictures are really incredible, and it just draws you in. It's a great early book to get you ready to look at art in museums and notice details, so that you can enjoy the work even more. And most of all, it's crazy fun! Masquerade was another puzzle type book that sucked me in. It’s very difficult to solve.

This illustrated Wizard of Oz with the best illustrations ever done by Charles Santore; fairy tales with medieval-like illustrations like Beauty and the Beast & Sleeping Beauty & St. George and the Dragon. Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are was amazing, as was The Secret of the Andes, a book that still makes me nervous. 

It's truly a book with a big impact. A favorite of mine was From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. What an introduction to the Renaissance, museums, the ancient world, sculpting, art and life, I loved it once I realized where it was going--and even then it always surprised me. 

Animalia by Gaeme Base, has such gorgeous images that it should still be bought simply as a coffee table book. It's really amazing and detailed, like Bosch level thought was involved.

Mercer Mayer’s little critter books,  My Cousin Katie on a farm, Arthur,  The Busy World of Richard Scarry and Maine’s Blueberries for Sal.

I also loved The Water Babies book, where a young boy goes to a magical land of sea creatures; the illustrations are amazing. Halloween themed books were great too, like Nightmares: Poems to Trouble Your Sleep. Little Witch’s Big Night by Deborah Hautzig was great–the illustrations were so adorable.

My favorite of all was a book of interesting scary stories called Now you see them now you don’t–it has fascinating, subtle stories that are more strange and ghostly than horror.

As a kid my only cookbook was a cookie one, the Alpha-Bakery Gold Medal Children’s Cookbook. Each letter has a recipe and it has very cute illustrations. I still love it.