Posted by Alan Hakim on July 25, 1999 at 18:42:17 from asn5-23.mcmail.com:
In Reply to: Re: What a scene!! posted by Peter Willis on July 24, 1999 at 23:53:35:
For reading aloud to young children (all right, it was a few years ago) I strongly recommend:
- E.Nisbet, especially "The Phoenix and the Carpet", but it's nearly all first class.
- Early Tolkien. We read "Farmer Giles of Ham" at bedtime, and it was a riot. Very funny indeed, unlike the later Hobbit books which are merely exciting.
I can vouch for the quality of Harry Potter. (The author is J.K.Rowling.) I bought "HP & The Philosopher's Stone" at the airport the other day, when they revealed the flight was two hours late, after I had checked in my books in the hold baggage. Very cleverly constructed story with delightful detail and excellent jokes; it passed the time in the airport very happily.
BTW, I hear that the American edition has changed the name to "HP & the Sorcerer's Stone" or something equally generic, thereby missing the whole point of THE Philosopher's Stone. Why do editors persistently underestimate children?