I have two nieces who I love spending time with, but it’s limited as I live faraway and only see them for short periods- holidays, etc. In any case, the last time I was home I glanced at their books and was elated to see many of my old favorites- a couple of which I am very happy that I will not have to read aloud to them (since I’m never around long enough to cover books this long)- for no other reason than that I would be a blubbering fool at the end struggling to enunciate my words. It’d be embarassing.
A few that caught my eye:
The Little Prince by Saint-Exupery- I would not stand a CHANCE at the end. It’s so cosmically wistful, tragic and joyous all at once.
Charlotte’s Web by EB White- sheesh, need I say ANYTHING about this brutally sad book? I loved it, don’t get me wrong…It’s brutal, though.
Sounder by William Armstrong- Dying dog stories kill me.
The Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell- I LOVE this book, but her dog dies. See above. Oh yeah- she’s a young girl accidentally left behind (well she has a brother…for a while) alone on her native island after her entire tribe migrates, and she must fend for herself and battle loneliness. But that’s all peanuts- her dog dies!
So- just wondering- do you Dopers out there have children’s books that would reduce you to a blubbering teary mess? Do you avoid reading these aloud to kids because of it? What are the titles and what about them is sad to you?
Some book I read to my daughter over Xmas The Dog who saved Christmas has a different warm, sappy true story about pets.
[spoiler]
One story was a family cat that in the uproar of a country house being worked on during a contruction job, got out of the house and had gone missing. After weeks of looking, they gave up.
Three years later, the parents went into the local town (15 miles away or so) and did some shopping. Went into a store and stopped dead at hearing a very familiar miaow. A cat that looked exactly like their long lost cat greeted them from the top shelving unit and climbed down into the mom’s arms. The store owner said they must be really special people because this cat never came down when people were in the store. The couple told them about their old cat…and maybe it was her…and she did have a surgical scar on her stomach…and this cat did. Somehow this cat had made it all the way into town without being attacked or run over.
The lady at the store couldn’t keep the cat, as it wasn’t hers to keep. The couple took their cat home and gave their teenage daughter’s the biggest surprise of their lives.
I cried like a freakin’ baby when I read that story to my daughter. My daughter couldn’t complete grasp why mama was boo hooing into her hands at this wonderful ending, but was sympathetic and gave me a stuffed animal to help me over this traumatic bit. When I read it too my husband, he cried manly tears, too. [/spoiler]
Thanks for the responses! They’re a little…terse, though- I was hoping for not just a laundry list of sad books, but also why you found them sad, what about them moved you- particular moments, whatever.
Aw man. I worked at a library as a teen and spent a lot of time in the stacks re-reading that one, but then I’d be sad for the rest of the night.
Just the way the mom is so dedicated to her son and as he grows up, it seems like he isn’t listening to the lullaby anymore, but then at the end…waaaaah! I don’t want my mom to ever get old…
The Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein. Saddest goddamned book ever. The tree will do anything for him, until finally she has nothing left to give him except a place to rest.
2nd place goes to The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss. I always cry at the end, when I read the the part about the Lorax and his friends MAYBE coming back, if the boy cares enough to change the world just a little bit. Subversive as all hell, too, which is why I like it!
Dogsbody by Diana Wynne Jones. The mind of a star is planted into an Earthly dog, to figure out who killed another star, and to find a missing tool. As a dog, the starmind learns what it’s like to live as a small mortal creature, and learns to love the little girl who adopts him as a small, unweaned puppy. When he completes his mission, he is able to regain his status as a star, but he must leave the little girl behind, and can’t even communicate with her.
The reason why the Velveteen Rabbit makes me cry? Wow, several parts of this book.
The boy forgets the rabbit. He once loved the rabbit
The rabbit realizes he isn’t “real”
The rabbit has to go away. The boy is sick and can’t have the rabbit.
The rabbit realizes he’s “real”
I always avoided any tear-jerking book. Not just because I’d reveal my sensitive side, but also because I believe FAR too much kiddy lit depends on a sad ending because the hack that wrote it saw that parents, schools, and libraries select for it. I’d rather not read stuff written for bitter or depressed adults, since no kid would ask for a depressing book. Happy books encourage happy readers, and getting kids to just start reading on their own is the goal. If the Junior Goths among them start to gravitate to Dead Pony stories that’s their choice., but don’t force them on everyone because everybody else will equate reading with being sad.
My daughter won’t read any sad books, and it rules out a lot that are great in other ways, Island of the Blue Dolphin, Charlotte’s Web, Seven Little Australians. It made me notice just how many kids books there are, where someone dies. Sometimes, like Bridge to Terabithia, it almost seems like it was written that way just to be a tear-jerker.
I’ll mention Julie of the Wolves as well, just to see if anyone else has read it. As a kid, it took me ages to understand what was going on in that book, and why Julie chose the way she did at the end, but I loved it anyway.
There is a book I want to read, but I’m not sure how I will react to it myself: Sadako and the thousand paper cranes. It was read to me as a child and it made me really think of death for the first time. I still think about it every now and then.
Y’know, once, when I was nine or ten, my great aunt sent me a Christmas (birthday?) package with a couple of books in it—Where the Red Fern Grows was one of them; the other one was The Great Brain at the Academy.
I read the latter, first—then went on to read the whole series, and others like it, leaving me with a lot of happy memories, a further love of the written word—which surely helped a growing inkling to become a writer—and very possibly adding to a properly devious outlook on life in general. I never did actually get around to reading Red Fern.
“There but for the grace of god”…thanks, aunt Kay.
I don’t want my mom to ever get old…
No reason, I just think the story between the two bunnies is very sweet.