The Reading Life: What Makes a Children’s Classic

By Dwight Garner

Maurice Sendak's HarperCollins Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are.”

The Spike Jonze/Dave Eggers version of Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are” opens Friday and my kids, ages 10 and 12, are clamoring to go, so yeah, my wife and I will take them.

“Where the Wild Things Are” isn’t a book that my kids have ever really embraced, however. They’re more partial to Mr. Sendak’s surreal food fantasy “In the Night Kitchen.” But the trailer for the new movie floors them: they stop whatever they’re doing and stare.

Thinking about Mr. Sendak’s picture books reminds me of something that Eden Ross Lipson, the longtime children’s book editor of The New York Times Book Review who died in May, used to say about what makes a children’s classic. It isn’t the critics’ reviews. It’s whether your kids choose to read the book to their kids, and so on, an organic and generational process of elimination. Read more in ArtsBeat…

Comments are no longer being accepted.

Kathryn October 21, 2009 · 5:21 am

It’s sad to think of how many kids in developing and poor countries don’t get to have the experience of learning what makes a children’s classic. Books for Asia has a fun activity going on that allows those of us who do know the pleasure and excitement of a great book to share that gift with others….

bookvote.asiafoundation.org

Users vote for their favorite book to give to kids at an elementary school in Northern Thailand. The book with the most votes is distributed to every student at the school.

A simple way to help a child, and help support literacy and the importance of exposing children to books early!

Lisa January 11, 2010 · 9:47 am

Growing up one of my favorite children’s stories of all times was “Where The Wild Things Are,” I recently saw the movie and was pleased that the movie gave me all the sensations I experienced as a young child when I was reading the book. For me as a child, the way my parents or grandparents read the story made it more interesting or scary, but my love for books also played a part. “Where The Wild Things Are” is a classic childrens story, it’s sad that it is falling yes popular to more recent children’s stories.