What makes it a classic?

[Susan Grigsby <sgrigsby@EPSTEIN-ATL.ORG>]

I asked this question about a month ago, got some wonderful replies, and
posted a hit. Today I just stumbled across a definition which I found in Jim
Trelease's The Read-Aloud Handbook. On page 75 of the 1985 edition, Trelease
writes:
*There are two schools of thought on this.  One defines a classic as any
book which ought to be ready by (or to) children because: their
teacher/principal/superintendent or parent/grandparent read it as a child;
the author has been dead for more than fifty years; and the right people
will be impressed by its appearance in the curriculum or on the bookshelf.
The more enlightened school prefers Webster's definition: "a work of the
highest class and of acknowledged excellence." Within this framework I find
two categories: early classics, like the fairy tales of Andersen, Grimm, and
Perrault, Pinnocchio by Carlo Collodi, and The Secret Garden by Frances
Hodgson Burnett; and modern classics like Charlotte's Web and The Lion, the
Witch, and the Wardrobe.*
I thought that was an excellent explanation and felt many of you (who
wondered the same thing) would be interested in it.  Happy birthday, Dr.
Seuss, wherever you are!!

Susan Grigsby, LMS
The Epstein School, Atlanta Georgia
sgrigsby@epstein-atl.org

Those who don't understand aren't committed...those who do should be.

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