At this year's SCBWI Conference, I was reminded of a list that sprang up at a prior one when, during a panel discussion, an editor said James Joyce instead of William Joyce. Quickly a list was born: adult authors and the kids' books they'd write. Amazingly, I found the original list, and offer up a dozen to get things started....
Faulkner -- My Mother is a Fish Out of Water
Hemingway -- The Old Man and the ABCs.
Hardy -- Near and Far from the Madding Crowd: a Book of Opposites
Beckett -- Learning Patience: Waiting for Godot
Cervantes -- How Windmills Work
Freud -- My Potty Book for Boys
Pirandello -- Six Characters: A Search and Find Book (with 36 flaps!)
Sophocles -- Happy Mother's Day, Oedipus!
Aeschylus -- Orestes, Merry Gentleman (a Christmas story)
Plath -- Your Thumb Instead of an Onion: All About Your Body
Wolfe -- You Can Always Go Home Again
Clancy -- We Spy
Again, that's just a sampling, but I hope y'all will feel free to make this list grow. Sure, we might not end up as long as Jen Robinson's great lists of cool boys and cool girls of children's literature, but ya never know!
Oh, nice! What about....
ReplyDeleteTolstoy -- War and Pieces of Pie
Melville -- Moby Duck
Steinbeck ---Three Blind Mice and Men
ReplyDelete(cheap shot - but I took it!)
Cheap shot? You say that to the guy who suggested that Freud title? Bah. This is a LIST of cheap shots.
ReplyDeleteDickens -- A Tale of Two Kitties
Joyce -- When the Dubliners Came
Christie -- And Then There Were None: a Counting Book
Coulter -- Are You There God? It's Me, Ann. Hello?
ReplyDelete- Jay
James -- The Wings of the Dove Go Up and Down
ReplyDeleteBradbury -- Fahrenheit 350: Science Experiments You Can Eat
(this is fun!)
Heather
Oooh, good ones. Jay... that title was ripe for fun, and VERY well use. And Fahrenheit 350? Rocking.
ReplyDeleteDoesteyevsky -- The Seven Chinese Brothers K.
Stephen King - The Lemonade Stand
ReplyDeleteJane Austen - Nonsense and Your 5 Senses (or Nonsense and Nonsensibility, if we want a more challenging title)
Anne Tyler - Santa Claus Maybe
Nathaniel Hawthorne - The House of Green Gables
Raymond Chandler - Big Sleep, Little Sleep
Ooh ! Ooh !
ReplyDeleteBunyan - Pilgrim's Progress Report
Ya crack me up, nrkii!
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking I should change my Pirandello one to the simpler "Where's Author?"
Hardy -- Hey, Jude (simple to obscure Beatles lyrics explained for kids)
Austen -- Pride and Prejudice and Making Friends
Thoreau -- What Lives at a Pond?
(I've noticed many famous authors would make good non-fiction writers for kids).
I don't know, Greg, I think that you're well on your way to a long list. Maybe these will be the next fibs.
ReplyDeleteHow about...
Sue Grafton -- P is for Potty Training
Ayn Rand -- Atlas Sneezed
Dickens -- A Tale of Two Classrooms
My biggest problem in doing these is that it's become difficult for me to think of adult books. Hmmm...
Jen I'm having the same problem... here are my last gasps!
ReplyDeleteMitchell - Fiddle-dee-dee, My Kite is Gone...
Tan - The Lucky-Duck Club
Irving - Owen and the Meany
Du Maurier - Rebecca of Manderley Mansion
(I may have to reread Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm in a new light now, if this is what she's destined for)
Too much fun reading these!! Thanks everyone!
ReplyDeleteUpdike - Velveteen Rabbit Run
Faulkner - As I Lay Dying I'll Love You Forever
alan
Rice - Chicken Soup With Vampires
ReplyDeleteKerouac - And To Think That I Saw It On The Road
Doctorow - Rag Doll Time
Dostoevsky - The House of the Napping
March - The Bad Carrot Seed
Conrad - Harriet, the Secret Agent
And if cookbook authors count:
Lagasse - Make Way For Dumplings (snitched from here)
Oooh, nice, Tim. And Alan gets kudos for the first appearance of a book from the Triumvirate of Mediocrity.
ReplyDeletePerhaps my Faulkner title shoulda been "My Mother is a Rainbow Fish"?
I already offered The Lemonade Stand, but here are a few more Stephen King titles for you:
ReplyDeleteA Prom Date for Carrie
Christine the Magic Car
My Dog Cujo
Gerald's Great Game
Pet Playground
Salem Sandlot
Tennessee Williams--Click, Clack, Clang: Cows Who Ride Streetcars
ReplyDeleteThese are terrific! Thanks for the late summer laughs! My favorites are the Coulter and Faulkner ones. Here are a few nowhere near as good as the others, but my mind is on vegetables...
ReplyDeleteJane Austen for Sesame Street compilation edition, "Pride & Prejudice, Sense & Sensibility: One of These Things Is Not Like the Others"
Chinua Achebe, "Things Fall Apart (and How to Put Them Back Quickly Before Anyone Finds Out)"
Nathaniel Hawthorne, "The Scarlet, Purple, and Green Letters: Synesthesia for Baby Einstein"
Ruth Gordon, "Harold and Maude and the Purple Crayon"
Sigmund Freud, "My Father's Dragon and Other...Symbols"
Rev. Billy Graham, "Frog and Toad Are Friends. Just Friends. Really"
Caitlin Flanagan, "Heather Has Two Mommies, Though One is Actually the Nanny"
Those were funny, Becky. Don't sell yourself short. Literate yet silly at once. Exactly correct.
ReplyDeleteOrwell -- Animal Punk Farm
Stegner -- Crossing to Safety (and other reasons the chickens are hitting the road)
Hmmm. Needs work.
Robert E Howard - Conan the Barber
ReplyDeleteH P Lovecraft - The Loon That Came to Sarnath (And Other Bird Stories)
Stephen King - Carrie Goes to the Dance