Find by Audience Age:
Find by Vintage
Find by Genre:
Category Archives: Classic
Quintessential Diana Wynne Jones: Archer’s Goon is about a boy, a family, a town and a threatening goon who takes up residence in the kitchen
Archer’s Goon is classic Diana Wynne Jones with various mysteries and characters gradually converging. The arrival of the Goon in Howard and Awful’s kitchen, demanding mysterious payment in the form of written words from their author-father, leads them to the … Continue reading
Posted in 10 years and up, 11 years and up, 13 years and up, 20th Century Children's, Adventure, British, Children's Classic, Comedy, Fantasy, Fiction, Novel, Speculative Fiction, YA Classic, Young Adult
Tagged a little dated, adversity, Diana Wynne Jones, engaging characters, humour, siblings, the town is a character, well paced, well written
Leave a comment
Comforting her father and organising the wellbeing of the town of Carlingford – whether they want it or not: Miss Marjoribanks by Margaret Oliphant is a gently ironic novel of the Victorian era
Miss Marjoribanks is probably the best known work by Margaret Oliphant. An enjoyable choice for anyone who enjoys slightly tongue-in-cheek Victorian novels of manners. Continue reading
Posted in 18th Century, British, Classic, Fiction, General adult audience, Novel, Novel of Manners, Victorian
Tagged Carlingford series, daughter, doctor, etiquette, fashion, renovations, satire, society, widowhood
Leave a comment
A children’s series that ages with its audience: Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill captures 10 year old life well
Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill is the third in Maud Hart Lovelace’s Betsy-Tacy series. The girls are now 10 years old and the largely standalone chapters of the first two books smoothly transition into larger story arcs … Continue reading
Posted in 10 years and up, 20th Century Children's, 7 years and up, American, Children's, Children's Classic, Children's Classics, Coming of Age/Rites of Passage, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Novel, Uncategorized
Tagged Betsy-Tacy books, childhood, children's classic, early 20th century, fiction, friendship, good out loud, growing up in America, historical, humour, illustrated, imagination, Maud Hart Lovelace, mid-western United States, play, school, semi-autobiographical, siblings, society, starting school
Leave a comment
Deadly lizards, delinquent boys, a sinister warden and a whole lot of HOLES feature in Louis Sachar’s acclaimed YA novel
When Stanley Yelnats gets caught holding a celebrity’s stolen sneakers which have just fallen on him out of the sky, he knows that it’s because of the family curse acquired by his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather. Stanley is sent to Camp Green Lake, … Continue reading
Posted in 10 years and up, 20th Century, 20th Century YA, Adventure, American, Coming of Age/Rites of Passage, Family Drama, Fiction, Light Fiction, Novel, YA Classic, Young Adult
Tagged boys, camping, friendship, good out loud, growing up, hardship, history, Louis Sachar, overcoming adversity, resourcefulness, summer camp, survival, Texas, well written
Leave a comment
A powerful book about growing up and making sense of the world that I first read while I was growing up: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
I first read Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird in year 10 and it was the first really decent book I got to read for high school english (the junior syllabus really wasn’t inspiring – in year 8 we had … Continue reading
Posted in 20th Century, 20th Century Literature, American, Classic, Coming of Age/Rites of Passage, Fiction, General adult audience, Novel, Uncategorized, YA Classic, Young Adult
Tagged American South, childhood, fear, growing up, growing up in America, injustice, power, race, racism
Leave a comment
Mansfield Park: A mature but, for us, challenging novel by Jane Austen
Of all Jane Austen’s heroines, Fanny Price of Mansfield Park is surely the least appealing, the most ‘foreign’ to our age. Unlike Emma’s assertiveness and Lizzy’s humour, Fanny’s combination of self-effacement and moral conviction are at odds with modern core … Continue reading
Posted in 18th Century, British, Classic, Fiction, General adult audience, Novel, Novel of Manners, Young Adult
Tagged adoption, adultery, better than the movie, character-driven, childhood, clergymen, divorce, family, fiction, integrity, Jane Austen, marriage, morality, navy, observant, self-control, upbringings
Leave a comment
A nuanced exploration of family dynamics, moral identity and cross-cultural perceptions: Where Angels Fear to Tread by E.M. Forster
The basic storyline of E.M. Forster’s Where Angels Fear to Tread revolves around the child of a mixed marriage and the various characters’ feelings, motives and actions regarding it. Yet this storyline is the vehicle for exploring the struggle between … Continue reading
Posted in 20th Century, 20th Century Literature, British, Classic, Family Drama, Fiction, General adult audience, Novel
Tagged character-driven, child-raising, classic, cross-cultural marriage, culture, drama, E.M. Forster, ethics, external viewpoint, family, observant, thought-provoking, well written
Leave a comment
Poverty and money, men and women, limited-options and Victorian-era spinsterhood: The Odd Women is a thought-provoking, character-driven novel that explores what happens when women lack opportunities for independence
The Odd Women by George Gissing is a late Victorian novel that explores the personal and social implications of a surplus of spinsters. It follows the struggles, fortunes and (limited) choices of the three Madden sisters, whose father’s sudden death … Continue reading
Posted in 18th Century, British, Classic, Fiction, General adult audience, Novel, Realism, Social Novel, Victorian
Tagged singleness, wealth
Leave a comment
The Dragon of Mith by Kate Walker
The Dragon of Mith is an Australian kids book by Kate Walker. It’s the story of a vegetarian dragon, a ridiculous number of dragon-slayers, a community of hermits and a blood-thirsty butcher (amongst others). I have vague memories of the … Continue reading