Like the rest of America I have watched, enthralled, the debate going on at the child_lit listserv as to whether or not folks should/are choosing to eschew reading Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman.

I’m sorry, what that?

I’m being informed that despite my opinions on the matter, America does not collectively read child_lit.  I find this version of the facts suspicious and will look into it further, later.

In any case, here at NYPL, Gwen Glazer came up with an interesting idea.  She wrote, “we’re thinking about other authors we wish would suddenly come out (some posthumously) with another novel many years after their first—and only— full-length works of fiction.”  Of course, considering the backlash against Lee’s book, one wonders if such sequels would be as desired by the masses as they might once have been.  Glazer’s list is fun, so I wondered about what children’s novels we might want to see sequels to.  Some already have perfectly good, if not particularly well known sequels, of course.  Harriet the Spy, for example.  But others might do well.  I’m going to try to eschew those books that have had posthumous novels already written by others (Peter Pan’s, Pooh’s, Wind in the Willow’s, A Little Princess’s, etc.) and stick with some that have worlds I’d like to return to.  Books like . . .

The Secret Garden

Purging from our brains the lamentable Hallmark version of The Secret Garden which took it upon itself to stage the book as a flashback (the WWI present day bring to mind rejected sequences from Downton Abbey and included such terrible ideas as a Mary/Colin romance and a dead soldier Dickon) I’m not saying that a sequel to this book would be a good idea.  Just an interesting one.  I mean, you have a house with a hundred empty rooms.  Forget the garden, I wanna know the house’s history.  But maybe that’s just me.

Holes

Yeah yeah yeah.  Look, you can tell me all day long that Small Steps was the sequel, but it wasn’t.  It was a companion novel and what I want is more Yelnats.  Gimme more of that guy.  I liked that guy.  I want to know where that guy’s going.

The Phantom Tollbooth

Admit it. It writes itself.

Stuart Little

People always put down Anne Carroll Moore for not loving this little mouse. Well I can attest that in 3rd grade I became appalled by the ending of this book.  Stuart sets off in his canoe to find his delightful bird friend and . . . the end.  Open ended finales were never for me.  I was just so mad when I found out that there wasn’t a sequel.  So I’m in the Moore camp.  Stuart’s not my favorite but maybe that’s just because I needed more of him.  And while we’re at it.

Charlotte’s Web

Sacrilege!  Horrors!  It would be the worst idea of all time.  But . . . come on.  I wanna know about those three spider sisters that stay with Wilbur.  Forget the rest of the farm, what adventures do they get into?  Oh, fine.  Bad idea.  But I’m still curious.

Any bad ideas/impossible to resist curiosities to share?