One of the book series that we come back to time and time again are the Oxford Children’s Classics.

I purposely sought out these stories because I was determined the kids would be exposed to a wide range of books and I wanted to make sure we included the more classic stories – and yes there is often old English words and phrases used and sometimes they talk about things like boxing kids ears or things that were acceptable back then but that are not acceptable now.  But for me this is part of why I want the kids to read them.  I want them to learn about how times have changed and how things/ words that were once acceptable are no longer considered acceptable.  And it actually makes for very interesting conversations, conversations that are actually really good to have with the kids.

I think the first time we tried one of these books was about 3 years ago – we started with The Railway Children – both of mine still rate this as one of their favourite stories and they often compare the characters in other books to the three kids in The Railway Children.  I really appreciated that it was an unabridged version of the story so whenever I have wanted another classic story I always first go and check to see if Oxford have it in their Classic range.  Which means we are now the proud owners of 6 different books in this range.

We actually used our Black Beauty book as our English Literature study book – and by that what I really mean is we read the book really slowly, stopping a lot to talk about the characters, the events, the writing style, what the author was trying to do, why a certain word may have been used – yip slowly and with lots of discussion.  Both my kids really enjoyed it.  They loved the story and they enjoyed all the discussions and even after we had finished the story and moved onto another my son actually kept referring back to the characters in Black Beauty. (He did a lovely comparison between the horses in Black Beauty and those in The War Horse).

And as much as I like using these books for family reads (when the kids and I read them together) both of mine have read them independently.  My youngest tends to reread them to himself after we have read them together and my oldest just reads them for pure enjoyment – her current favourite is Little Women she is slightly obsessed with the story and the characters.

If you are looking for some classic stories then I highly recommend this range.

These are the books that we have are

Oxford Children’s Classics: The Railway Children (loved this one)

Oxford Children’s Classics: Black Beauty (my son’s favourite)

Oxford Children’s Classics: Heidi

Oxford Children’s Classics: The Secret Garden

Oxford Children’s Classics: Little Women (currently my daughter’s favourite)

Oxford Children’s Classics: Anne of Green Gables

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