Question by cul8r07: 12 questions about you and childrens books?
Hello,
I am supposed to create a Big Book for my Early Childhood class and I was wondering if you could take a good five minutes to answer the following questions. It’d help me out alot and the questions I am about to ask I’d like you to answer as honestly as possible. Thanks for your input in advance.
-cul807 (Early Childhood College Student)
The questions:
1. Who do you remember sharing books with when you were young?
2. What picture books do you remember really enjoying as a young child?
3. What are some of your favorite books that you were reading when you were in preschool-1st grade?
4. What is one book that you would willingly read to a child if they asked you to read it b/c you personally enjoyed it yourself?
5. Are you an avid reader today?
6. Do you remember ever having any cloth books as a child? If so, what were the titles of these books?
7. What was one pop-up book you really enjoyed as a kid?
8. If you were to create a really nice children’s book to give to yourself when you were in 1st grade:
a) What would the title be?
b) What kind of book would it be? (picture, story, pop up, mystery?)
c) What would the story be about?
d) Who would the characters in the book be?
e) would there be a moral to the story?
9. As a child, did you enjoy reading activites at school?
10. As a child, had you ever read a book that made you cry?
11. As a child, did your parents ever purchase books on tape for you?
12. What are your top ten favorite childrens books?
Thanks for completing these questions:) I would hate to pick one best answer because I am sure all your answers are going to be good and acceptable. But, I will pick the best answer according to the following criteria:
1) If what you’ve said sounds like you really took the time to answer my questions and you didn’t make stuff up
2) If your answers touches my heart with a story you may include such as a good memory of reading a childrens book
3. You took the time to complete each and every answer and you even added more to the answers than the normal person would…going above and beyond answering the questions
4. If you added personal experiences
I created this survey-sh thing b/c I have to create a big book for a college class and I wanted some input on the childrens books that a vareity of people have read…not by just asking my classmates in my class.
Thanks again for answering my questions:)
Best answer:
Answer by sabrina.
1. I have an older sister, and she could read when I couldn’t yet, so she would sit me down and read to me; so I guess we shared books.
2. I remember we had all of the Dr. Seuss books, I remember books about a family of rabbits also.
3. Books by Eric Carle. They are amazing, and I still love them.
4. Any of the Dr. Seuss books, I’m still really entertained by them.
5. Yes, I am
6. I don’t recall having a cloth book as a child, but we have a Christmas book that is cloth
7. They were these Disney pop up books
8. It would probably be a pop up book, since I really like those. Very colorful, with great pictures. Something about animals, since I’ve always loved them
9. I loved elementary, we always had really fun activities involving reading
10. No, not that I remember. Not as a child anyway, I have cried during a book now that I’m older though.
11. No, I had sisters who read to me and my parents read to me also.
12. Oh goodness, I honestly do not remember any titles. I haven’t read a children’s book in so long.
What do you think? Answer below!
1. Who do you remember sharing books with when you were young?
When I was really little, but after my sister was born, we used to share books. In elementary school and beyond I would share with some of my closest friends. We all loved the Babysitter’s Club series and would share them back and forth.
2. What picture books do you remember really enjoying as a young child?
It’s been an awfully long time since I’ve even looked at a picture book, but I know I used to enjoy most of the Dr. Seuss books, One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish being a favorite I recall. I also loved The Giving Tree, Where The Wild Things Are, Harold and the Purple Crayon, Curious George, Goodnight Moon, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Velveteen Rabbit, and many others. I wish I had a list at least of them saved somewhere, there are so many I can’t remember.
3. What are some of your favorite books that you were reading when you were in preschool-1st grade?
The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Velveteen Rabbit, The Silver Slippers, The Giving Tree, and Charlotte’s Web were long-time favorites of mine.
4. What is one book that you would willingly read to a child if they asked you to read it b/c you personally enjoyed it yourself?
Charlotte’s Web would be one, or The Giving Tree, I still love that one. Or depending on how old they are, The Harry Potter series would be fun to read with a child, or The Series of Unfortunate Events.
5. Are you an avid reader today?
Definitely. Sometimes I think I read a little too much, but I really enjoy it.
6. Do you remember ever having any cloth books as a child? If so, what were the titles of these books?
I know I did have cloth books, but what they were I have no clue.
7. What was one pop-up book you really enjoyed as a kid?
I wish I could remember what pop-up books I had, I know I had a bunch that I really enjoyed. I think I had a version of Snow White that was a pop-up book.
8. If you were to create a really nice children’s book to give to yourself when you were in 1st grade:
I always loved princess books as a child, or animal books with lots of really colorful pictures. I preferred books with fun stories rather than ones with morals.
9. As a child, did you enjoy reading activites at school?
Yes, I have always loved reading. I remember being excited every time we started reading something new.
10. As a child, had you ever read a book that made you cry?
Not that I recall as a child, but more recently I have read a few that made me cry.
11. As a child, did your parents ever purchase books on tape for you?
I don’t believe so, I think just actual books.
12. What are your top ten favorite childrens books?
Charlotte’s Web
The Giving Tree
The Velveteen Rabbit
One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish
And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street
A Wrinkle In Time
The Little Princess
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
Green Eggs and Ham
Ella Enchanted
1 My father bought books for me when I was small. I still have some of them.
2. I remember an old story book from my childhood with beautiful pictures. There was a story in the book about a magic clay horse that came to life. I would love to find the book, although that undoubtedly isn’t possible.
3. Cinderella
4. Where the Wild Things Are and The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig
5. Yes
6. No
7. I don’t remember. I was just fascinated by the pop up.
8. It would be a fantasy with colorful pictures. I am not fond of the books with ugly animal caricatures.
9. Yes
10. Not as a small child, but later on I read Green Mansions, a very old book by W H Hudson.
11. No
12. The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig
Where the Wild Things Are
Anything by Maurice Sendak
Heidi
The Secret Garden
Dr. Seuss books
Alexander and the Terrible…
The Mitten by Jan Brett, because of the pictures, of course
C S Lewis books
The True Story of the Three Little Pigs
Fractured Fairy Tales
1. The main person I shared books with was my granny (my dad’s mom). I have such good memories of sitting with her on her couch and having her read to me from this huge book of children’s Bible stories (which she’d bought esp. for me). She also used to buy me Little Golden Books and kept them at her house for me, which I loved.
But one significant memory of sharing books with someone concerns my dad. We didn’t have much money when I was a kid. One day, my dad took me with him to this drugstore to buy his cigarettes. I was in first grade and had been learning about dinosaurs–and in the aisle with the coloring books I found this hardback picture book about dinosaurs with T-Rex on the cover. My dad could see how badly I wanted it–and he bought it for me, even though it meant he didn’t have enough money left to buy an entire box of cigarettes. Even at that age I knew he wouldn’t have done that if I’d been pining for some “cool” toy or something; my dad and my granny were always stressing to me the importance of education, and his buying that book for me really showed me it wasn’t just “words” on their part–that they must really take education seriously.
2. The picture books I enjoyed most as a child were the Richard Scarry books. I loved the DETAILS of a page filled with so many small pictures, and each one labeled. It was like every time you went back to one of the pages, you’d find a picture you’d overlooked or not paid much attention to before. (I could see why, years later, my own sons would love the “Where’s Waldo?” books.) It’s like Scarry created small worlds on the pages of his books–worlds I wished I could step into.
3. Little Golden Books!
P.D. Eastman and Dr. Seuss books.
Also, I remember loving the Dick and Jane readers in class–not because of the stories per se, but because the books were numbered in terms of how advanced you were as a reader, and I was always put at the top level for my class. (NOT a reason to love a book, I know now, but…
4. Little Witch by Anna Elizabeth Bennett. (I remember vividly the scene where Minx takes a bath in her new home–all that dirt coming off her. It’s a book that really says to a child that you are not “stuck” because of your background, that you CAN move beyond your background.)
5. Yes–although I read much more non-fiction than fiction nowadays.
6. No, I don’t recall ever having owned or read a cloth book. (Should have said this earlier: I was in first grade in 1972/1973.)
7. I don’t remember the name of the pop-up book; I just remember that (1) it was Halloween themed and had a pop-up haunted house in the middle that I loved to study (I wanted to live in that house!) and (2) it was a book that got left at my house accidentally by a kid my mom was babysitting and we kind of just didn’t “return” it, which made me feel kind of guilty. But I loved that book.
8. (a) The title would be something that let me know I’d be entering some type of “alternate” world–at title with an odd character name or odd place (like Miss Pickerell on the Moon–I loved that Ellen MacGregor series!)
(b) By first grade, I would have wanted a story vs. a purely picture book. Not necessarily a mystery, but definitely something not “realistic” (like the Dick and Jane readers). A story that would take me “somewhere else.”
(c) I guess the story would be about a person/family/group of people/a city or village or kingdom that I could imagine myself wanting to belong to/be a part of. (I always wanted to step into those Scarry worlds and the Miss Pickerell landscapes.)
(d) The characters would be outside-the-mainstream type people, not people you could meet at the supermarket. (Characters like Raggedy Ann, Miss Pickerell, talking animals, etc.)
(e) If the story had a moral, it would not be STATED as a moral, if you know what I mean. It would be something subtle that stuck with me or struck me viscerally. (I was never a big fan of Aesop.)
9. Yes, I loved the reading activities because it was the area where I excelled. BUT: all the books I remember enjoying in my elementary years were the books I read OUTSIDE of school–not the stuff I read for or at school.
10. I don’t know if this counts, but I remember one time around kindergarten going to a park with my granny after we’d read a Little Golden Book about Little Red Riding Hood. This park had a dirt hiking trail that lead into a wooded area. I was sitting on the swings and suddenly just started bawling; I was imagining that trail as the trail Little Red Riding Hood took to see her grandmother, and I was really worried that the wolf might come down it and eat MY granny. She kept asking me what was wrong, but I couldn’t tell her–because I knew I was being stupid, but still…
11. No–but I don’t think books on tape were as much of an option back in the early 70s as they are now.
12. The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes
Little Witch by Anna Elizabeth Bennett
Are You My Mother? by P.D.