Fun Facts About the 11 "Greatest Books for Kids"

Scholastic's Parent & Child magazine recently released a list of the 100 Greatest Books for Kids. Spanning a variety of genres and target ages, the editors made the selections from a population of around 500 submissions from literacy experts and "mommy bloggers." Here are the top 11 along with some flossy tidbits about each:

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery (#11)

The best-selling book in the top 11, Anne has sold more than 50 million copies and has been translated into 20 different languages. Only 16 single-volume works of fiction have sold more copies. Canadian journalist and former Governor General of Canada Adrienne Clarkson credits Montgomery's novels with introducing her to Canadian customs and cultures when she was a nine-year-old immigrant from China.

Frog and Toad Are Friends by Arnold Lobel (#10)

Frog and Toad author Arnold Lobel was married to a fellow children's book author, Anita Kempler. They had a daughter, Adrianne, and here's where stuff gets really awesome: Adrianne Lobel is married to actor Mark Linn-Baker. That's right, Cousin Larry from Perfect Strangers. If you don't walk around the rest of the day saying "Balki Bartokomous" in your head repeatedly (and occasionally out loud), that's just strange to me.

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein (#9)

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (#8)

The inspirational diary of this teenaged Dutch girl written during the Nazi occupation has been translated into more than 60 languages. Can you identify the language of the titles of these translations? (Answers at the bottom of this post.)

a) Anne Frank’in Hatira Defteri b) Ana Franks Togbukh: 12 Juni 1942 – 1 Oygust 1944 c) Das Tagebuch Der Anne Frank: 12 Juni 1942 – 1 August 1944 d) Ana Frank: Dienorastis e) To Hemerologio Tes Annas f) Nuoren Tyton Paivakirja g) Ube-zisce Dnevnik v Pismach h) Kan Thyg Khong Enn Frenhgk i) Ena Phremkako Daeri j) Dnevenik Ane Frank k) Anna Franki Oragire l) Het Achterhuis – Dagboekbrieven 14 juni 1942 – 1 augustus 1944

Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss (#7)

Have you ever noticed that Green Eggs and Ham only uses 50 words? Well, it does, and that fact put Dr. Seuss on the winning side of a $50 bet with his publisher, Bennett Cerf, who said that he could not do it. What's more, 49 of the 50 words used in Green Eggs are one-syllable words. The lone multi-syllable word is "anywhere." Trivia trivia: The fact about Seuss's bet with Cerf is the most-linked-to bit of trivia in our Amazing Fact Generator.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling (#6)

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (#5)

Lots of people know that Spike Jonze directed a film version of Where the Wild Things Are that was released in 2009. But before that, the children's classic became an opera. Sendak himself wrote the libretto and the music was written by British composer Oliver Knussen, who conducted the first performance featuring the completed score in London in 1984. Roles in the opera include Max and Mama (of course) as well as Moishe (Wild Thing With Beard), Bruno (Wild Thing With Horns), Emile (Rooster Wild Thing), Bernard (Bull Wild Thing), and Tzippy (Female Wild Thing).

The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats (#4)

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle (#3)

This book actually begins, "It was a dark and stormy night..." The phrase, which was first infamously used by British author Edward Bulwar-Lytton in his 1830 novel Paul Clifford, has become synonymous with the overly flowery style of writing known as "purple prose." In fact, since 1982, San Jose State University has hosted an annual Bulwar-Lytton fiction contest in which its thousands of participants submit one-sentence entries in various categories, hoping to be deemed the purplest of the purple. The official deadline for submission is April 15 because, as the official contest website states, this is a date that "Americans associate with painful submissions and making up bad stories."

We shouldn't be so hard on old Bulwar-Lytton, though; he did coin the phrase, "the pen is mightier than the sword." Have you ever wondered who coined the phrase "coin the phrase"?

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown (#2)

A few things to notice the next time you read this classic:

Through the course of the book, the time on the clocks changes from 7:00 p.m. to 8:10 p.m. * The mouse can be found on every page that shows the room. * The book on the bedside table is Goodnight Moon. * The open book on the shelf is The Runaway Bunny and the painting of the fishing bunny is very similar to a picture in The Runaway Bunny. * The red balloon disappears and reappears at the end of the book. * On the last page of the book, the mouse has eaten the mush.

Charlotte's Web by E.B. White (#1)

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So, all in all, just a really fun list. How awesome would a baby shower gift of the top ten be? (Am I mommy blogging right now?) Additionally, there are some interesting choices and topics raised for discussion and debate among the prepubescent literati: "Why was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone only number six on the list?"; "Why was The Cat in the Hat not on the list at all?"; and "Why is A Wrinkle in Time still one of the best books I've ever read?" You can find the rest of the list here. Happy reading.

Answers to translation titles of Anne Frank's diary: a) Turkish, b) Yiddish, c) German, d) Lithuanian, e) Greek, f) Finnish, g) Russian, h) Thai, i) Nepalese, j) Croatian, k) Armenian, l) Dutch (the language in which the diary was originally written)