Saturday, December 30, 2023

Book Goals 2024

 My personal reading goal for 2024 is to revisit my favorite childhood classics, which I have not revisited since the kids were small. I am shooting for one a month, but I consider a series one book for this purpose. My rules for this list are: It has to be one I enjoyed as a child (this eliminates ones I only encountered as an adult, such as The Prydain Chronicles); it has to be one my children enjoyed (this eliminates some obscure midcentury fiction or many that were not available on audiobook); it has to be one I haven't reread in a decade. (This eliminates The Hobbit and Anne of Green Gables, for instance.)

The World of Pooh

Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass

The Chronicles of Narnia

Wind in the Willows

The Jungle Book

The Phantom Tollbooth

Little House series

Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle

The Great Brain 

Kim 

Misty of Chincoteague or Justin Morgan had a Horse or Brighty of the Grand Canyon, depends on which is easiest to find. 

Arabian Nights adaptation

Redwall (Not going to try the whole series here, one or two should do. Also not entirely sure I read this as a child, I might have been a teenager.)

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood

Tom Sawyer

OK this list is getting kind of long; it might be a two year challenge. Or I might get through them pretty quickly. As a pre-teen I typically polished off a book or two a day; I don't have that kind of time or focus any more but I don't think most of these will take me very long. 

3 comments:

Darren said...

That looks like a really fun list to go through!

I should re-read Kim. It's been a few years, and I always enjoy it.

Charlotte (MotherOwl) said...

Re-reading your childhood's favourite books sounds like a great idea. I have been buying many of them as the libraries sell out books. You're lucky to remember so many of the titles, I began reading as a very young child, many of the books I would like to re-read, I only vaguely remember, and most of the titles slipped long ago.
I'd love to hear of your progress in this endeavour.
Happy and joy-filled new year to you and yours.

Diary of an Autodidact said...

A lot of familiar ones there. It is always fascinating which ones have aged well and which haven't. I am kind of scared to revisit Kim, now that I am a lot more informed about British colonialism in India - the idea of the protagonist being a white kid is less appealing too. Although the Jungle Books still hold up. The Alice books seem to have aged well for me. Likewise for The Wind in the Willows and The Phantom Tollbooth, which is timeless. I would definitely vote for Brighty - the best of Henry's "horse" books, and it isn't close in my opinion.