Pat Ryan
Top Five Books for Younger Children
Willy the Wizard by Anthony Brown
Billy the Punk by Jessica Carroll and Craig Smith
What Do You Say Dear? by Sesyle Joslin and Maurice Sendak
The Day the Crayons Quit by Oliver Jeffers
Millions of Cats by Wanda Gag
I love all of Anthony Brown’s books but Willy the Wizard is a favourite of many of the coaches and football players I trained on the Kick into Reading project.
Billy the Punk is an Australian picture book I picked up when working there in 1996 and I love it—I can’t imagine why UK publishers do not distribute it. It’s fun to do this book in story times in schools, and to let the children know that their teachers and parents (and these days grandparents) may have dressed like Punks and pogo danced (the teachers and parents who are good sports proudly admit it, and I think get pictures out to prove it—the children love it!).
What Do You Say Dear? was the first book I picked out from the library and read for myself when I was 5 or 6—or it might have been one of Sendak’s Little Bear books, but I’m pretty sure it was this one and it still makes me laugh.
Speaking of laughing, I love Oliver Jeffers’ books, The Incredible Book Eating Boy was very popular with Kick into Reading coaches and players, but his latest one is the funniest book he’s made yet, I think. He has a real Belfast sense of humour and way of looking at things, which I enjoy.
Millions of Cats is another book I remember from early childhood, which I loved and Wanda Gag led me into book-based folklore. She illustrated some very popular editions of Grimm’s’ Fairy Tales, which I found fascinating as they were so similar to traditional Irish stories I heard from my great-aunts, grandmother, and grandmother’s cousins. She definitely hooked me into the 398.2 section from a very early age, which led to decades now of reading folklore collections, folklore histories, and folklore theory which all contributes to my storytelling, writing and academic work.
Top Five Books for Older Children
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Keeper by Mal Peet
Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
Northern Lights by Philip Pullman
Two Thousand Leagues Under the Sea or pretty much any other books by Jules Verne
My year 7 teacher, Sister Lois, read aloud A Wrinkle in Time to us, reading a bit each day. It’s such a beautiful and strange story, and she read it so well, that I still go back and re-read it every year. It introduced science fiction, and teenage reality fiction to me when I was 12-13 years old. This book of L’Engle’s is science fiction, but prior to that she wrote realistic fiction so Sister Lois and Madeleine L’Engle made me interested in both genres. I don’t care much for adult science fiction now, but I read a lot in my teens, and what I do enjoy now is well-written fantasy and science fiction for children and young adults.
Walk Two Moons is a story by a teacher I used to work with, and her husband was my headteacher, and it was wonderful to know them and then read this wonderful book. I love all of Sharon’s work, she writes well for all ages. I never, ever liked any of J.R.R. Tolkien but I did like C S Lewis, and E Nesbit, and many other British writers of fantasy for children and young people when I was young.
And I’d met Philip Pullman a few times at book conferences and liked him and what he had to say about storytelling and books and reading. So I’d read some of his earlier books, but really was knocked out by his Dark Materials Trilogy and it’s a wonderful representation of the best of classic British fantasy writing for children. Like A Wrinkle in Time, it’s so full of ideas and emotions that I enjoy going back to reread it.
And thinking back, I also remember reading tons of Jules Verne, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea being the first of his I read—but I read it many times, as I did Journey to the Centre of the Earth and From the Earth to the Moon.
And Mal Peet is just about my favourite writer at the moment. When doing the Kick into Reading project, Leeds United FC people gave me an advance copy of Keeper that they’d been ask to read and review. I couldn’t put it down, and it’s led me to read every single book Mal Peet has written. They are all amazing non-stop reads!
Top Five Books for Storytelling
Hibernian Nights by Seumas MacManus
The Great Fairy Tale Tradition from Straparola and Basile to the Brothers Grimm, and The Gold Age of Folk and Fairy Tales, from the Brothers Grimm to Andrew Lang, both by Jack Zipes—really one collection in 2 volumes, so cheating a bit
The Ocean of Story by Caroline Ness
The Grammar of Fantasy by Gianni Rodari
English Fairy Tales and More English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs
The MacManus and Jacobs books are favourites from childhood. My great-aunts, who told me so many stories, which were among the first stories I ever re-told, were acquainted with Seumus MacManus. Some of my family came from Donegal, where he was from, and he kept contact when the family moved to Chicago. I often was confused to find my great-aunts stories in his books—or Macmanus’s stories in my great-aunts repertoire. I don’t know to this day if he got them from my family or my family got the stories from him, or both.
Joseph Jacob’s books I liked much better than Andrew Lang’s for some reason (and I still do), but his English Fairy Tales started my interest in England so in a way they brought me to the place I’ve called home for more than 30 years.
Jack Zipes is a very good friend, and a very good teacher, and his books have done much to influence my storytelling. His collections are a good basis in the classics for any one wishing to tell stories, or write stories, or critique literature.
Caroline Ness’s book introduced to me many of the connections between European and Asian traditions of storytelling, which I knew existed from the stories told by friends who had family connections to India, Pakistan, and the Middle East.
And Gianni Rodari’s book is a wonderful inspiration for any teacher who wants to tell stories, teach storytelling, and teach creative writing. Vivian Gussin Paley’s books on storytelling are fantastic too, and she was a teacher who worked at the same school where I trained and she taught me much…but she wrote her books after I’d started storytelling full time, so although they’re great, and although observing her teach when I was a student teacher influenced me in profound ways, I can’t say the books influenced me as much as these 5 have. And I must admit I was tempted to put up Bruno Bettelheim’s The Uses of Enchantment, as he was a teacher of mine, too, and it is a thought-provoking book, but one I don’t entirely agree with and never did.
