Fiction Friday #2 - More Kid Classics

As I mentioned last week, I have been reading some children's classics lately to make up for the fact that I never read them as a child. I must say, I wish I would have read them as a kid. I think I would have appreciated them more.One thing has become increasingly apparent as I've read these children's books: to be a successful children's author, one must throw out all rules of practicality and logic (because who really needs those anyway). It forced me to realize how much adults depend on cause and effect and the laws of science to understand the world around us. It also demonstrated my personal need to understand the why behind what I read. I guess you could say I am comfortable accepting something unusual, as long as I get the explanations behind things I don't understand. However, children's books often don't offer explanations. They just tell you that something fantastic, magical, and possibly bizarre just happened and expect you to be happy with that without explaining it.Black Beauty by Anna Sewell was the first book of this week. It's a little bit different than the other children's books I've read because A)the animal is telling the story but isn't able to talk to humans and B)it has a clear agenda. The point of this book is to tell the reader how to treat a horse well and show them how poorly people often treated their horses in nineteenth century England. Granted, the story is pretty fun to simply learn about horses and see things from their point of view. I liked it because it's always good to look at life from a different perspective. Black Beauty's story takes the point of an animal who is always forced to do what someone else wants him to do, yet he never takes a negative mindset about his life or the people in it. He continues to work hard and give his best work even when the circumstances are rough or even harmful to himself. I felt like that was a good attitude for someone (even a horse) to take and not a bad one for a kid to read.My second piece of fiction for the week was James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl, and it was one of those books I mentioned earlier that is hard for me to read because nothing really gets explained. A random stranger shows up with some sort of magical jewel-like stones to make into a concoction that will make James' miserable life more fun and adventurous. However, things go wrong and through a series of events, James ends up inside the giant peach with seven magically-enlarged bugs as company and travel companions. I think I had a hard time with this book because some aspects are so logical (why the sharks can't eat the peach) and some are not at all (living in the pit of a gigantic peach). I felt so torn between the parts that made sense and the parts that didn't. So while the book is enjoyable and has a happy ending, I didn't love it. One thing I did like about it though is that due to all the bizarre happenings, James has to creatively solve problems and save the day when the bugs aren't able to figure it out. I imagine that part is great for kids!A couple weeks ago at work, we received an invitation to a screening of Max Lucado's The Christmas Candle movie. I instantly signed up but being a book-lover I wanted to read the book first. I found it at the library and knocked it out in less than two hours. It's really more of a long short story or a novella in length, and it's a nice quick read. It's a simple story about a simple town in Victorian England where life is common and ordinary. Except for every 25 years when an angel visits the town candle-maker and blesses a single candle which brings a miracle to the person who lights it and prays for a miracle. The whole church, even the whole town, is anxious to see who gets the candle because everyone has a need and there is only one candle. Then a young, new minister who doesn't believe God still does miracles comes to the church and refuses to acknowledge the Christmas candle as a miraculous occurrence. It's a powerful story of people questioning their faith and God's power for miracles at the heart of Christmas. The Christmas Candle is a quick read that I would definitely recommend!I think I'm going to have to find myself some more Christmas books to read because reading The Christmas Candle got me so excited for Christmas that I'm not sure I'll enjoy any other kind of books right now.