By Noel Perrin

These Little-Known Books Are Sure to Enchant Your Students

Unlike adults, children have no easy access to literary guides. What they read is usually random. If lucky, they'll be given a few of the classics of children's literature as birthday and Christmas presents. They may bump up against a few others in school. A handful they may see transformed into videos.

But there are many wonderful minor classics and even some major ones they are apt to miss altogether—unless a teacher or a parent or an uncle or a godmother steps in. This article is designed to assist steppers—in with three short essays, each about a wonderful but little-known book for children. Little-known to children, I mean, and also to most parents, godparents, etc. Some are very well known to children's book editors and librarians, and to people who work in the children's sections of good bookstores.

Having had first two children of my own and later four stepchildren to read to, and having read aloud for two or three thousand nights so far; having had a mother who wrote books for children, and later a wife who wrote even better books for children; having taught American literature at Dartmouth College; and having, of course, once been a child myself, and one addicted to reading, I have had virtually a whole lifetime in which to learn about marvelous books written for the young. So, many years ago, when the Washington Post invited me to write a column, "Rediscoveries for Children" on little-known classics, I felt ready. This article—and my book, which is titled A Child's Delight—are based on that column.

Looking at the whole range of children's literature, I have obviously chosen books that I admire and that my children and stepchildren loved. I have also followed a simple rule. I checked each group of books with a group of students, often my own American literature students at Dartmouth. If more than 10 or 20 percent had read it, it did not get in. The Narnia books, for example, didn't have a prayer, nor did Little Women, the Little House books, Kipling's Jungle Book, or Winnie-the-Pooh.

There is just one more thing to be said. In no sense have I systematically covered children's literature. My selections tilt toward the 20th century, partly because it really was the golden age of children's literature, but partly because I feel uneasy with the insistent moralizing of many of the earlier classics, like Charles Kingsley's Water Babies and John Ruskin's The King of the Golden River. (I don't like the quite different moralizing tone of some modern stuff, either, and you will find none of that in here.)

But now it's time to turn to the actual books. (Please use the links at right to review each book's essay.)

Noel Perrin (1927-2004) was professor of English, emeritus and adjunct professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth College. This article is excerpted from A Child's Delight, by Noel Perrin and reprinted with permission of both the Trustees of Dartmouth College and the University Press of New England, Hanover, N.H. © 1997.