From Jen Robinson’s Book Page.
3 Children’s Books that I Would Like to Live in:
*Middle Earth, of course, after Sauron’s defeat. But I couldn’t live through the whole story. I’m too chicken.
*Narnia during the long reign of High King Peter, Queen Susan, King Edmund, and Queen Lucy. I had friends in junior high who actually had a date set upon which they were expecting to be translated or transported or something to Narnia. I wonder what ever happened to Chris and Lisa? 🙂
*In New York during the Pushcart War (by Jean Merrill). I could learn to use a peashooter and meet Frank the Flower.
3 Schools from Children’s Books that would have been Cool to Attend:
*The school in Carolyn Haywood’s Betsy and Eddie books.
*Avonlea School with Anne and Gilbert and Diana
*Laura Ingalls Wilder’s homeschool where she and Mary and Carrie and Baby Grace learned with Ma and Pa. The Ingalls girls did eventually attend formal schools, but it seems to me they learned more and had more fun at home with Ma and Pa Ingalls.
3 Books that I Like, but would NOT Want to Live in:
*Joan Aiken’s The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, as close to horror as I get.
*A Wrinkle in Time, also too scary to live in.
*Little Women. When Beth dies, I have to be able to tell myself that it’s just a story. If I lived there, I couldn’t.
3 Schools from Children’s Books that would NOT have been Cool to Attend
* The progressive school that Eustace Scrubb and Jill Pole attend in The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis
*Any school in any of Dickens’ novels. (Hey, I read Dickens to my children. Don’t you?) I think I read that Dickens himself had a bad school experience, and his characters don’t fare well at school either. In Nicholas Nickleby’s school children are beaten and taught by incompetent teachers; David Copperfield also attends a poorly run school; and Oliver Twist goes from the orphanage to Fagin’s School of Pickpocketry, not much of an improvement, I’m afraid.
*To show that I know that not all homeschools are equally wonderful, I must say that I would have run screaming from the house if I had to live and learn with Mrs. Bennett of Pride and Prejudice. As I have said before, it’s a wonder that Elizabeth and Jane turned out so well, and no wonder that Lydia didn’t. (Yes, my (young adult) children read Pride and Prejudice, too. No, they’re not prodigies; I force feed them) 🙂
Oh, I just thought of another book that I’d love to live in: I wish I could live on Aunt Hill with Rose and all her cousins in Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott.
How about you, what fictional worlds would you like to inhabit? Don’t cheat like I did; stick to children’s books.
I was always a Trixie Belden fan myself…although it’s not really good “literature”, but at 10, I didn’t know the difference.
I always wanted to live in the Pink Motel by Carol Ryrie Brink.
I wanted to live in Helen Clare’s doll house with Five Dolls in a House; in Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain chronicles; in Arthur Ransome’s lake, canal, and sea adventures contained in the 12 Swallows & Amazons books; in Narnia; with the Moffats; in the spaceship and the planets visited by Eet and Murdock in Andre Norton’s The Zero Stone (but I’d stick close to them – I’d want to survive!); and in a weirdly fascinating way, in the Gormenghast world by Mervyn Peake (though I guess those aren’t technically children’s books, but I read them when I was 13 so I remember them through the lens of childhood).
I think it’d be nice to go to the school in “Undertood Betsy”.
I want to live in Jan Karon’s Mitford.
(I cheated.)
I agree with you 100% on all your choices. Glad you mentioned the Haywood books, I don’t think they get enough publicity.
I have GOT to read The Wolves of Willoughby Chase.
I would love to have been in Miss Binnie’s kindergarten classroom from the Ramona books! I don’t think the Ramona books have been appreciated fully enough in the canon of children’s lit. My children love Dickens (read aloud), Twain, Nesbit, Lewis, Austen, etc., but we also have scenes and passages from the Ramona books memorized because we have read them so often!
I would love to live with The Railway Children in E. Nesbit’s book of that title, or been part of the Bastable family. They had such wonderful adventures, never seemed to study, but were always so literary.
Hi Sherry,
Thanks for taking up my “books you’d like to live in” questions. I enjoyed your responses, and those of your friends. I had forgotten about “the progressive school that Eustace Scrubb and Jill Pole attend” – ugh! And I’m with Deborah – I just finished re-reading The Railway Children, and they are remarkably literary for kids who don’t go to school. Cheers!