Fresh Approaches: New Editions and Reissues

This article originally appeared in SLJ's Extra Helping. Sign up now!

Joy Fleishhacker -- School Library Journal, 8/13/2008 2:15:00 PM

Collecting the Classics

Looking to supplement your shelves with cost-effective, hard-wearing, and eye-catching editions of literary masterpieces for middle grade and young adult readers? The “Oxford Children’s Classics” series (Oxford Univ.) presents reissues of tried-and-true titles with complete and unabridged texts. The books are printed on bright white, acid-free paper and feature a paper-over-board hardcover format with spot laminating and sturdy bindings. The cover images, rendered by a variety of illustrators including Korky Paul and Inga Moore, reflect each novel’s tone, while the warm-hued color scheme and consistent use of patterned backdrops give the series a sense of visual unity.

According to Kathy Webb, OUP Managing Editor for children’s fiction in the UK, “The Oxford Children’s Classics series was born from a long-standing passion to get some of the best-loved children’s stories on to our children’s list. The biggest problem we had when devising the series was which books to choose! Myself and four or five colleagues found ourselves sitting around a table one afternoon trawling through lists of unforgettable stories, with each of us having our own particular memories of certain stories.”

For Webb, Treasure Island was a must-have: “The threat and the menace of Long John Silver will always stay with me and if I could inspire that same feeling of adventure in just one new reader, then it was definitely worth including it in the series.” Little Women (both reissued by OUP in 2007) also “…induced many ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ around the table as everyone recalled their favorite character…. For a story and its characters to get such a reaction from people over 15 or 20 years after they first read it is truly remarkable and the sign of a real classic.”

According to Webb, school and public libraries were kept in mind from the series’ conception: “The titles we’ve chosen, we think, reflect the classics that are most popular with school-age children. The ones we’re including from our own backlist, such as Party Shoes, are 20th-century treasures that we’re hoping to get to a wider audience by publishing them alongside more well-known classics.” With their hardback bindings, the books will “…stand up to being borrowed time and time again from libraries and will prove a more popular choice than their paperback counterparts.”

This “difficult, but pleasurable, job” of choosing which literary works to feature continues as the series grows, adding approximately four books per year. Black Beauty and The Secret Garden were both reissued in the spring, and new editions of The Wind in the Willows, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and Party Shoes will be released in September. The Call of the Wild and Alice in Wonderland are in the works for 2009.

The selections are spot-on so far, as these standbys, beloved in and of themselves, are also often found on reading lists and on the radars of literature teachers. Try featuring these volumes in a colorful display, or just go ahead and put the cozy digest-size books in the hands of eager readers.

Pub Info

ALCOTT, Louisa May. Little Women. 2007. ISBN 978-0-19-272001-6.

BAUM, L. Frank. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Sept. 2008. ISBN 978-0-19-272802-9.

BURNETT, Frances Hodgson. The Secret Garden. 2008. ISBN 978-0-19-272799-2.

DOYLE, Arthur Conan. The Hound of the Baskervilles. 2007. ISBN 978-0-19-272004-7.

GRAHAME, Kenneth. The Wind in the Willows. Sept. 2008. ISBN 978-0-19-272815-9.

KIPLING, Rudyard. The Jungle Book. 2007. ISBN 978-0-19-272002-3.

MONTGOMERY, L. M. Anne of Green Gables. 2007. ISBN 978-0-19-272000-9.

SEWELL, Anna. Black Beauty. 2008. ISBN 978-0-19-272798-5.

STEVENSON, Robert Louis. Treasure Island. 2007. ISBN 978-0-19-271998-0.

STREATFEILD, Noel. Party Shoes. Sept. 2008. ISBN 978-0-19-272010-8.

TWAIN, Mark. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. 2007. ISBN 978-0-19-271999-7.