Eleven Classic Kids Books from the '60s

BuzzFeed  "Eleven Classic Kids Books from the '60s" 

If you long for the books of your youth, and your youth happened to be in the 1960s, BuzzFeed  has a list for you.  The staff over at Buzzfeed decided to highlight books that you would have found on the shelves of your fifth grade classroom library. back in the day.  So calling all children of the 60s...take a peek at the Buzzfeed post "Eleven Classic Kids Books from the '60s" by BuzzFeed Staff Writer, Molly Horan.  Here are the top three on their list...just to whet your appetite.

Island of the Blue Dolphin by Scott O'Dell (1960)
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L.Konigsburg (1967)
A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engle (1962)

Just to put things in perspective here is a blurb from The American Cultural History about what was happening in the book world in the 1960s:

Image Credit: The American Cultural History

Literature also reflected what was happening in the political arenas and social issues of America in the sixties. A book which described some of the turmoil of race relations as they affected people in America, Harper Lee's Pulitzer prize winning novel ToKill a Mockingbird is a story about a small southern town and social distinctions between races. Writing about race and gender, women of color like Gwendolyn Brooks, Maya Angelou and Margaret Walker Alexander helped create new insights on feminism as it developed in America. Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar), and Mary McCarthy (The Group) spoke of women in roles outside those of the happy wife and mother of the fifties. Women like Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique , and Gloria Steinem , led the way for many women. Disillusionment with the system was the theme of books like Catch-22 and One Flew Over the Cuckoo'sNest.

Marshall McLuhan, author of books on communications and the scope of the "global village," popularized his belief that mass communications were a driving force in the development of modern society in works like The Gutenberg Galaxy and Understanding Media . The Peter Principle, by Laurence Peter, came to epitomize incompetence. In 1963, Maurice Sendak published Where the Wild Things Are, about a boy named Max who must face some of his childhood fears. This controversial book with its illustrations, also by Sendak, won the Caldecott Medal in 1964 and has become a classic in children's literature.

Checkout BuzzFeed for the rest of the books on their list.  Let us know, here at The Things You Can Read, what you think of the list.  Better yet, share with us the book you fondly remember on the shelf of your fifth grade classroom.

Happy Reading!
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