I read a lot when I was a kid. When I was a very young kid, I read a lot of Great Illustrated Classics, and I really loved them. Not only were the stories thrilling, but every page of text faced a full page illustration, and even in those pre-comic book obsessed days, I was a big fan of illustrations. I even have a very vague memory of picking up a book at the library, flipping through it and seeing that it had no pictures, and wondering why on Earth anyone would want to read a book that didn't have any pictures in it.
When my youngest son was old enough to start reading to me, I struggled to find books that were worthy of him in terms of subject matter yet in his reading & comprehension range. I know that's a struggle for every parent, but it was complicated for me by the fact that my son was autistic, and was also designated as mentally retarded. And then I remembered Great Illustrated Classics.
The first one that we read--King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table--was such a hit that we just kept at it: Dracula, The Swiss Family Robinson, War of the Worlds.... And my daughter, who is two years older (and also autistic) got into the act as well, though she wasn't interested in reading to me (even though she's a very good reader), but had me read them to her. She was up for Heidi, Hans Brinker, and that kind of thing. (Her choices. I'd have been happy to read Dracula to her.)
I was lucky to find most of the GIC books I purchased at Half-Price Books on the bargain shelf. In fact, I got most of them for $1 apiece. Though I did order some particularly desired items from my favorite online booksellers, Better World Books and Thrift Books.
(If you're not a second hand kind of person, then you can go to https://www.greatillustratedclassics.com/Complete-Set-s/66.htm and order the complete series--66 titles--for the sale price of $498.30. List price being $524.70. That breaks down to $7.55 per book, which ain't bad, really...and there doesn't seem to be a shipping fee, but there is a tax of $29.90, which brings your grand total up to $528.20. Two other caveats there: (1) by my count there are 69 titles--see list below--but I don't know which books aren't included in GIC's "complete" set, and (2) these are paperback editions, not the nice, sturdy hardbacks I've been plucking from the shelves.)
Which sounds like a hell of a lot, of course, but check out The Complete List:
224-1 Around the World in 80 Days
224-2 Black Beauty
224-3 The Call of the Wild
224-4 Little Women
224-5 Oliver Twist
224-6 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
224-7 Treasure Island
224-8 The Wizard of Oz
B224-9 A Journey to the Center of the Earth
B224-10 The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
B224-11 The Swiss Family Robinson
B224-12 Heidi
B224-13 The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood
B224-14 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
B224-15 The Three Musketeers
B224-16 Moby Dick
C224-17 Robinson Crusoe
C224-18 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
C224-19 The Mutiny on Board HMS Bounty
__C224-20 Kidnapped
C224-21 Great Expectations
C224-22 The Prince and the Pauper
C224-23 David Copperfield
C224-24 The Last of the Mohicans
__D224-25 The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
D224-26 A Tale of Two Cities
D224-27 The Red Badge of Courage
D224-28 The Count of Monte Cristo
D224-29 Captains Courageous
D224-30 Frankenstein
D224-31 King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table
D224-32 The Time Machine
E224-33 Tales of Mystery and Terror
E224-34 White Fang
E224-35 Ivanhoe
E224-36 The Hunchback of Notre Dame
E224-37 The Jungle Book
E224-38 The Secret Garden
E224-39 The Wind in the Willows
E224-40 Hans Brinker
F224-41 Gulliver's Travels
F224-42 Anne of Green Gables
F224-43 Pollyanna
F224-44 The Invisible Man
F224-45 The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle
F224-46 Peter Pan
F224-47 The Picture of Dorian Gray
F224-48 Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
__G224-49 Grimm's Fairy Tales
G224-50 Alice in Wonderland
G224-51 Dracula
G224-52 Pride and Prejudice
G224-53 The War of the Worlds
__G224-54 King Solomon's Mines
__H224-55 Snow White and Other Stories
H224-56 Beauty and the Beast and Other Stories
__H224-57 Cinderella and Other Stories
__H224-58 The Little Mermaid and Other Stories
__H224-59 Sleeping Beauty and Other Stories
__H224-60 Aesop's Fables
__I224-61 Jane Eyre
I224-62 The Phantom of the Opera
__I224-63 The House of the Seven Gables
I224-64 The Man in the Iron Mask
__I224-65 Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Hound of the Baskervilles
__I224-66 A Little Princess
226-1 A Christmas Carol
226-2 Stories from the Bible
__226-3 Christmas Bedtime Stories
= son = daughter = both = bought but not read
At this point, my OCD has kicked in hard and I'm pretty determined to finish off the collection, but I'm going to try to stalk them at Half-Price rather than order them online. Half of the thrill is in the chase, after all, and buying long sought after books online is shooting fish in a barrel. It's okay if you're starving, but it's not very sporting if you're fat and just looking for fun.
New as it happens.
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