Review "From the moment I picked up Wild Things, I couldn't put it down--I only wish the book were ten times longer. It was a joy to learn more about so many of my favorite masterpieces of children's literature." --Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project"A wonderfully entertaining tour of a dozen gems from Goodnight Moon to Charlotte's Web. Full of humor and insight, Wild Things in its evocation of our young reading lives is also as poignant as some of the masterpieces it celebrates. I loved it." --Ann Packer, author of The Dive from Clausen's Pier"A spirited, perceptive, and just outright funny account of reading childhood favorites through adult eyes . . . Handy's breezy, friendly style lends the book a bright feeling, as of old friends discussing old friends, and this book will surely leave its readers with a new appreciation for childhood favorites." --Publishers Weekly"Highly engaging . . . The author demonstrates a deep love of children's literature and a keen understanding of the ways in which reapproaching beloved texts can highlight the connections and differences between a child's perception and adult reality. As well-researched as it is seamlessly composed, this book entertains as it educates." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)"Brilliant, revelatory, and endlessly entertaining. I've read these books a thousand times, but only now do I finally understand them." --Lev Grossman, author of the Magicians trilogy"A terrific rumpus of a journey into the world of illustrated and young reader classics . . . Wild Things makes a convincing case for reading children's books as an adult." --The A.V. Club"A charming, discursive encounter with classic children's literature from the perspective of a parent . . . Mr. Handy writes with zip, sincerity, and good humor. . . For parents who are embarking on this phase of rediscovery, for those in the thick of it, and for those for whom it is a warm and recent memory, Wild Things will be a delightful excursion. . . . It is also engaging and full of genuine feeling, and I liked it very much." --Meghan Cox Gurdon, The Wall Street Journal"Consistently intelligent and funny . . . The book succeeds wonderfully. . . . The Handy children's appearances are brief but disproportionately memorable. Just as almost all kids' books, with their frequent appearances by talking animals, are part emotional masquerade, Wild Things, too, is in disguise. It reads as a companionable romp through all the stories you sometimes tire of reading to your own children. But like The Runaway Bunny, it's really a gently obsessive tale, a man gathering up so many words and ideas as if to create a magical stay against his own children growing up." --Rivka Galchen, The New York Times Book Review"Nothing less than a Golden Ticket into the Whipple-Scrumptious world of children's classics, where mystical and marvelous surprises await . . . Literary criticism through the prism of memoir, Wild Things is a read--a ride!--of pure pleasure." --Vanity Fair"Wild Things is relaxed, discursive, and personal. . . . The result is very pleasing to read. . . . Handy quotes liberally from each book he admires, and he curates those passages beautifully, allowing readers both literary pleasure and a kind of time travel. His analyses are affectionate and often eccentric. He's got a magpie's eye for odd and shiny details. . . . His foray into children's literature allowed him more than a simple chance to re-encounter the favorite books of his youth. It allowed him the chance to hold close his children's younger selves. 'By one measure, I suppose, ' he writes, 'you are holding in your hands a work of sublimated grief.' How beautiful, and how painful, and how incontrovertibly true." --The New York Times About the Author Bruce Handy is currently a contributing editor of Vanity Fair. A former writer and editor at Spy and Time, his articles, essays, reviews, and humor pieces have appeared in such publications as The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, New York magazine, Rolling Stone, Vogue, The Village Voice, and The New Yorker. Handy was nominated for an Emmy in 1993 as a member of Saturday Night Live's writing staff. He won a GLAAD Award in 1998 for his "Yep I'm Gay" Time cover profile of Ellen DeGeneres. At Vanity Fair, he has written on topics and personalities as diverse as Mad Men, Amy Schumer, film composer John Barry, PeeWee Herman, Miley Cyrus, the J.T. Leroy hoax, Cinerama, and the history of flight attendants. A native of California and a graduate of Stanford University, Handy lives in Manhattan with his wife, novelist Helen Schulman, and their two children. Wild Things is his first book.
T**A
I am simply amazed that anyone thinks this book reads like a PhD ...
This is a delightful, insightful book! I am simply amazed that anyone thinks this book reads like a PhD thesis. On the contrary, it is stylistically fresh, interesting, and frequently witty. (You don't find much wit in PhD theses.) And the audience is obvious: it's anyone who has made a habit of reading to their children or grandchildren night after night and/or who were childhood readers themselves. I enjoyed this trip down memory lane so much I actually ordered a couple of my remembered favorites so that I could read them again. I should say that I had not read all of the books that come in for analysis, but that did not diminish my interest in what Handy had to say about them! Seems to me you have to be a real sourpuss not to like this book if you are at all familiar with or have an interest in children's literature. And presumably if not, you would not be inclined to consider reading this book in the first place. The book is a real joy. I recommend it without reservation.
J**D
Beloved Childhood Memories Revisited
Among the happiest memories from my childhood are of my mother and father reading stories to me, followed closely by those from my early schooldays when I realized that I could piece together the letters on a page and make them magically come to life as words. I quickly became a book collector, and I'm proud to say that I still have in my possession most of the books which gave me so much happiness in my early reading days. I revisit those old friends from time to time and still experience joy when I open their pages and reread them. Wild Things by Bruce Handy gave me much of that same joy. As I read Handy's observations on some childhood books I often found myself saying "Yes, that's right!" or sometimes "I don't agree," but, regardless of whether I felt he got something wrong or something right, I enjoyed every page of this book.This is not a comprehensive history of children's literature by any means, but it does cast as far back as the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in places to touch on some early examples of writing aimed at children. These were mostly religious in theme, with heavy emphases on proper behavior and godliness and a preoccupation with death. Starting in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as better nutrition and health care meant fewer child deaths, literature aimed at the young became more focused on the present world. Writers like Alcott, Twain, Barrie, and Baum wrote books that are still widely read today.But Handy's primary focus is on books from the mid to late twentieth century. He and I are approximately the same age, so I really enjoyed and felt a chord of recognition reading his appreciations of the works of Margaret Wise Brown, Dr. Seuss, Maurice Sendak, C.S. Lewis, Beverly Cleary, and many others. I don't always agree with some of his conclusions: as a young boy I thoroughly enjoyed reading Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books and Little Women and Little Men by Louisa May Alcott because I loved their historical backgrounds and appealing characters, regardless of whether they were predominantly male or female. It was also fun to read about Beverly Cleary's later books on Ramona, since my early reading days coincided more with her Henry Huggins, Ellen Tebbits, Otis Spofford and The Mouse and the Motorcycle series.Handy's book concludes with an Appendix and Bibliography listing the books he covers in Wild Things as well as suggestions for similar reading. If after reading Wild Things you want more information on children's books and their authors some suggestions I can make are Secret Gardens by Humphrey Carpenter, Don't Tell the Grownups by Alison Lurie,, A Sense of Wonder by Katherine Paterson, How the Heather Looks by Joan Bodger, and A Child's Delight by Noel Perrin.
B**M
An Insightful Look at Children's Literature from an Adult's Perspective
As one who reads a great deal of children's literature, everything from board books to YA novels, reading Bruce Handy's latest book Wild Things was not only an escape into the books of my formative years, it was a thoughtful analysis (complete with footnotes, appendix, and accompanying bibliography at the back of the book) of children's literature as both a genre and process of human development. From the outset this book might seemingly appeal only to teachers and librarians. However, I think parents, caregivers, and educators of young children could benefit from the anecdotes and every day details outlining not only why we read to children, but what a metamorphosis children's literature has had in the past half a century. Admittedly I must forgive Handy on account of his extensive space dedicated to Seuss and his hearty dismissal of Anne of Green Gables, but otherwise this compelling nonfiction begs for future editions of similar substance.
D**O
Loved this book and the audience is every adult
Loved this book and the audience is every adult. If you've ever read any children's literature you will enjoy the author's fresh look at some of the best loved books. I kept it by my bed and read a chapter a night and didn't want it to end. Each chapter reads like an essay and I found it insightful and humorous--along with informative. Buy it for anyone--they will thank you.
M**K
Mind storage ideas
i enjoyed it immensely. It was funny yet often but filled with mind storage ideas. I did not kindle it for I will make reference to a lot.Well worth buying. Bruce Handy is writing of captured remembered things. I constantly remembering my childhood and my mother reading to me.Over seventy years ago.
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3 weeks ago
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