Counting on the Classics
This weekend, our dear friends gave our 14-month-old daughter her first volume of classic literature, Pride and Prejudice. Well, it’s not the version she might encounter by high school, but a new baby-friendly counting primer.
Here’s an excerpt:
1 English village
2 rich gentlemen
3 houses
4 marriage proposals
5 sisters
Actually, that’s half the entire book (at least I didn’t give away the ending!). This “Little Miss Austen” edition, by Jennifer Adams (with art by Alison Oliver), is a product of BabyLit, which has also put out classics such as Jane Eyre, Alice in Wonderland, and Romeo and Juliet in 10-page, picture-and-number board-book form.
I happen to think this is a wonderful idea. I hope they make more. So here are some of my suggestions—including a few they are probably yet to (and never will) consider—with excerpts.
A Tale of Two Cities
1 tale
2 cities
5 years
100s of severed heads
War and Peace
1 Napoleonic invasion
5 aristocratic families
131 main characters
1,440 pages
The Catcher in the Rye
1 angst-riddled breakdown
2 nuns
3 days in New York City
44 uses of the word “phony”
Animal Farm
1 pig-instigated revolution
2 legs bad
4 legs good
7 commandments
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
1 motorcycle race
2 or more versions of reality
6 types of recreational drug
14 visions of anthropomorphic desert animals
Middlesex
1 Pulitzer Prize
2 gender identities
The Hunger Games
1 annoying cat
2 adolescent love interests
13 districts
24 tributes
23,500,000 copies sold
Some other obvious possibilities include Two Gentlemen of Verona, Slaughterhouse Five, Catch-22, and 100 Years of Solitude. What are your suggestions?
