Recently, I realized I am mostly blogging on girl books. In my defense, I am doing this from my point of view. I'd like to think I've read "boy books" as well. The trouble is when I try to think of books boys would like I'm coming up blank.
So I decided to think back to the books my dad enjoyed that he passed onto me. The first one I thought of was the classical Pinocchio. My father had an old copy of that book in Italian but since I never read that, being unable to read Italian, I can't say if the book was decent or not. Disney movies don't count, because they tend to change things around. Look at the Little Mermaid. In the original Hans Christian Anderson story, the little mermaid sacrifices herself to save her lover, and gains a soul in the end, but we don't see that in Disney! They leave out souls altogether and concentrate on octopuses with a smoker's voice!
I think one of my dad's favorite books was Tom Sawyer. I remember him giving it to me to read when I was 9 or so,and I loved it.
For those of you not forced to read it in high school, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was a book written by Mark Twain, about an orphan boy who lived with is aunt, half brother and cousin in rural Missouri during the 1840s.
Tom's aunt tried to look after the boy, but Tom was a free spirit with an active imagination. In this day and age they would have probably stuck him on Ritalin, and put him in special ed classes but in those days they either whipped him or chalked it up to him being a boy.
Some of the adventures Tom got into were sneaking out of the house late at night, running away from home, smoking, conning friends, and breaking the windows of his "enemies" houses. Not only Ritalin but juvenile delinquency charges too!
And yet, when you read the book, you don't see a menace to society. You see a boy with a heart as big as the world, who thinks outside the box, and who isn't afraid of anything except soap and water.
Tom Sawyer was the prototype of Bart Simpson. Like Bart, the adults around Tom are interested in helping him to be a model citizen. Bart never found enough money to set him up for life, but he's probably still looking.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention that in recent years Mark Twain's books come under controversy for some of the language used.
In my opinion, censoring a story that was written 170 years ago over a single word that was commonly used as part of a local dialect is unnecessary. I realize some might feel strongly about it, so for them there are edited versions.
Read Tom Sawyer again. Then read it out loud to the kids. You'll be surprised at how much everyone will enjoy it!