Never read that one, never read that one either.
Yeah, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, a true classic.
I have read this like a hundred times.
Well yeah, I've read this like a hundred times.
What do you think, Aslan?
>> [ROAR] >> [LAUGH] You're right, Aslan, yeah,
yeah, you're right.
This is a good one.
You can never go wrong with a classic, and
I have a lot of classics that I'd love to share with you in this next video.
So, stay tuned for all these amazing classics, right, Aslan?
>> [ROAR] >> That's what I thought!
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Hello everyone, welcome to another Book Talk with Talia, and
today we're going to be talking all about classic books.
So that's kind of a broad term, but what I mean is books you may have heard
about before from your librarian, friends, parents, teachers, whomever.
All of these books have really stood the test of time.
And if you're reading it for the first time or you're reading it for
the 100th time, there's always something new to discover with these ones.
I'm going to describe them all for you,
I'll let you know when they were first published.
And without further ado, let's get into the books.
[DING] One classic that was originally published
in 1945, wow, is Stuart Little by E.B. White.
You may know this book because of its movie, or you may just know about it
because E.B. White is also the author of Charlotte's Web.
Or you might know about it because the pictures inside are by Garth Williams,
who illustrated the Little House books.
Either way, with an author that famous and an illustrator that famous,
this book was basically destined to be a classic from the beginning.
Stuart Little follows the adventures of, who else, Stuart Little, a two-inch
character who was born to humans, but kinda looks a little bit like a mouse.
Stuart lives in New York City with his mom, his dad, his older brother, and
the cat, Snowball.
Stuart always tries to live his life as normally as he can,
but that can be a little hard when you're only two inches tall.
He can't even turn on the faucet to brush his teeth.
Each chapters like its own mini-story, you get to see Stuart riding a sail boat,
getting stuck in a lampshade, becoming a substitute teacher, and a lot more.
When it comes to a book that this old because this was published in 1945, it's
kind of a guarantee that not everything will still hit the way it once did.
There were some references that, like, I didn't even understand, but
it still holds the test of time.
And I think that you can read this book in 2018 and on, and still laugh,
still enjoy it, and no matter what,
the idea of a mouse that was born to humans that can ride in an invisible car
is a story that holds up just as well today as it did back in 1945.
And that is Stuart Little by E.B. White.
[DING] One book that you may have already heard about, probably from your
librarians and teachers, is Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson.
Bridge to Terabithia was originally published in 1977.
This book is all about the friendship between a fifth-grade boy named Jesse and
a fifth-grade girl named Leslie.
Jess has been training all summer to be the fastest runner in his grade.
They have daily foot races at recess, so every week you can pretty much figure
out who's the fastest in the grade, and this year, Jess is going to be that kid.
But when everyone lines up for the race, new girl Leslie lines up with the boys and
somehow ends up beating them all.
At first Jess does not like Leslie, he is mad that she beat him but as the first day
of school goes on, Jesse starts to realize that Leslie might not be so bad after all.
She kind of marches to her own beat,
she doesn't have any cares about what other people think about her.
And she actually lives right down the road from Jess, so
it might not be that bad if he and Leslie become friends.
Although their lives seem pretty different at first—Leslie's
parents have a lot more money than Jess's do, and things between them are different.
Thery're a boy and a girl, and they're just not the same.
They actually end up becoming really close friends, and this is where it gets good.
One day, Jess and Leslie use a swing to jump over this ravine in their
backyard area, and they have this whole area
laid out that they imagine to be this magical kingdom named Terabithia.
Jess becomes the king of Terabithia, and Leslie becomes the queen.
Jess and Leslie go to Terabithia everyday after school, and
it's kind of like their escape from everything else in their lives.
I don't want to spoil anything, but basically something horrible happens, and
Jess has to use everything that he's learned through Leslie to overcome and
just deal with the situation.
There was one scene in particular that I knew would have been written
differently in this day and age.
But if you can look beyond that, the story itself holds up so well, and
I highly recommend this book if you haven't already.
It's a Newbery Medal-winning award book, so
that's basically a guarantee that it's pretty top notch, but
if you didn't hear it from your librarian or teacher, you're hearing it from me.
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson.
[DING] One classic that you've probably either seen the movie of or just heard
about, because there are so many books in the series, is The Chronicles of Narnia.
So I'm going to be talking about the first, kinda second, book in the series,
Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe, and it's all by C.S. Lewis.
So The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was originally published in 1950, and
even though in modern day it's considered the second book in the series,
you can read it as the first or the second, because it was published first.
He just published a prequel later on that, like, kind of became number one.
The Chronicles of Narnia follows the Pevensie siblings, Peter, Susan, Edmund,
and Lucy.
Narnia is a magical place that can only be accessed by going through a certain
portal in a particular wardrobe.
FYI, a wardrobe is kind of like a closet, except it's not a closet,
it's actually a piece of furniture.
So it's like a big standing thing that you can go inside and
there's clothes and rare fur coats hanging.
Lucy, the youngest of the Pevensie siblings, is the first to discover Narnia.
And Narnia has been kept in a perpetual frozen winter by the evil White Witch.
When Lucy leaves Narnia and goes back through the wardrobe to see her siblings,
no time has passed at all, and her siblings do not believe that there is
a magical place in the back of the wardrobe.
Eventually, all four siblings find their way into Narnia and
believe Lucy after all, because they're there.
Of course,
what they find in Narnia is beyond anything they could've ever imagined.
So the White Witch, who has caused Narnia to be in a horrible, perpetual,
frozen winter, is actually on the lookout for two boys and
two girls that are going to fulfill a prophecy that will bring her downfall.
So of course Lucy, and Susan, and Peter, and Edmund fit that
prophecy pretty well and are not as safe in Narnia as they would like to be.
Meanwhile, the rightful king, Aslan, is ready to take back the throne.
The Pevensie children realize that it's up to them to help Aslan reclaim the throne,
and take down the White Witch, and stop her from ruining Narnia forever.
Funnily enough, even though the White Witch is basically a human,
the real king of Narnia is a lion, like this little guy right here.
This is basically my Aslan.
Now, I personally think that a book like this would always age well,
because it's 100% fantasy.
You can't put like a time stamp on a fantastical story that doesn't exist in
our modern day or in the past.
You know, if it's something like a magical land where everything is different,
yeah, that story is going to be good in 1950 and it's gonna be good in 2018.
So absolutely Chronicles of Narnia and
particularly this first book still hold up really well today.
And that was The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis.
[DING] One classic is Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar.
So like there's three books in the series,
but I'm just going to talk about the first two right now.
These books were originally published in 1978.
This book follows the students and
teachers who have class on the 30th floor of Wayside School.
So to have a 30th floor in a school might seem a little weird to you, and
that's because Wayside School is a little weird.
Wayside School was actually built sideways, so instead of having one
classroom all next to each other all the way across and it's 30 classrooms.
It was one classroom on each floor going up, so you have 30 floors and
one classroom on each floor.
That's why these are called Sideways Stories,
because Wayside School is completely sideways.
Each chapter follows a different character in the class.
Mostly the students, but you also get a teacher here and there.
You learn about Mrs.
Gorf who can turn all the bad children into apples, Sammy who may or
may not be a dead rat in disguise, and John who can only read upside down.
Each story does tie into the other, so you'll read about one character and
have some other characters in the back, and
then those characters end up becoming main characters in their own chapters.
And it's just a lot of fun to see how each student and
each character kind of interacts with each other, and
what their weird thing is going to be when their chapter comes up.
Do these books hold up, that's the big question.
I say yes,
because it's clear from the beginning that this is not a regular school.
If you actually read the books, you'll see that they talked about how [LAUGH] they
talked about how the Wayside School children would think we're weird,
even though we think that the Wayside School children, so
it's kind of like a play on just different schools and it's different in general.
So it's not like you're reading it and thinking about your own school experience
and comparing the two, because this school is different no matter what.
And that was Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar.
[DING] So one book I wanted to add onto this list,
you actually might not have heard before because it was published in 2007, so
it's actually the "newest" book on the list even though it's over ten years old.
This book is The Secret Zoo by Bryan Chick.
In The Secret Zoo, Noah, Megan, Richie, and
Ella are best friends known as the Action Scouts.
All of the Action Scouts live really close to the Clarksville City Zoo.
And that might seem nice and normal, but one night when Megan goes out to
get her glasses, she notices some monkeys crawling on the houses across the street.
When Megan runs in to tell her brother Noah, he thinks she's crazy,
and he walks outside and doesn't see any monkeys, so he tells her just is so.
After the strange monkey incident, Megan starts investigating the animals at
the Clarksville City Zoo, but she doesn't tell anybody.
Then one day Megan goes missing and nobody can find her.
Noah and the Action Scouts have no idea where Megan could've gone, but
a bird flies into Noah's room, leaves him a mysterious clue, and he starts to
realize that Megan might not have been so wrong about the crazy animals at the zoo.
From there the Action Scouts start investigating the zoo themselves.
And they realize that the zoo definitely has something to do with Megan's
disappearance.
Animals are acting strange, the zookeepers
don't seem to want the Action Scouts lurking around, and something is just up.
It's all super strange, but
Noah's not going to stop at anything until he can get his sister back.
So does The Secret Zoo hold up?
As you know, it's not as old as the other ones.
It's published in 2007, so I have some on the list that are from, like, 1950 and
1945.
So yeah, this definitely still holds up,
but I think the coolest thing about it is just that it's a fantasy story,
as I like to say, fantasy stories are good at any time, you know?
So that is The Secret Zoo by Bryan Chick.
[DING] So that is all the classic books that I have for you today.
I know that there are so many out there that I probably missed.
So let me know in the comment section below if there is a classic book
that you absolutely love that you want me to talk about next, or
if you just have any other books that you want me to talk about,
because I am always looking for suggestions.
Don't forget to hit the notification bell.
Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss a single Book Talk, and
I will see you in our next Talk.
Bye.
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