Pick a list of 15 books, call it “The Best Kids’ Books Ever,” and you’re spoiling for a fight. Especially when you publish your list in the New York Times and leave off beloved authors like Roald Dahl and Beverly Cleary in favor of Little Lord Fauntleroy. Timesman Nicholas Kristof’s frozen-in-time list includes Anne of Green Gables, The Prince and the Pauper and the Hardy Boys series. With the exception of the Harry Potter books, Kristof’s list is composed almost entirely of books by authors who now decompose. Times readers put down the crossword puzzle long enough to fire off angry emails–over 2,000 of them–defending Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Cleary’s Ramona books, The Secret Garden, the Narnia series, Little House on the Prairie and hundreds of others.
Since Kristof has already incited a near riot over the best kids’ books ever, let me propose a sequel: The most overpraised kids books ever.
I’ll start with one on Kristof’s “Best” list, and add a four more:
1. Anne of Green Gables (I tried so hard, so very very hard, to love the plucky little orphan. I failed.)
2. A Wrinkle in Time (ponderous, inscrutable, dull)
3. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (see A Wrinkle in Time, above. Add “pretentious”)
4. The Phantom Tollbooth (it makes kids laugh, but they laugh at SpongeBob, too.)
5. The Hobbit (First it’s Tolkien, then Dungeons and Dragons, next thing you know you’re Jeff Spicoli)
I will now proceed directly to my bunker in an undisclosed location.
