Oscar Wilde isn’t an up-and-coming author, he’s not the new “it” author to watch, nor is he a widely known children’s book author. However, no one can deny the fact that he is a genius when it comes to storytelling. If you’ve ever read The Importance of Being Earnest or The Picture of Dorian Gray you know that he is captivating, engaging, and refreshingly flamboyant.
Sometimes it’s good to go back to older authors, authors that you probably enjoyed as a child, and share them with your children. The important thing is not only to read to your child, but to be engaged in the story that you are sharing. Wilde makes that easy. His colorful vocabulary and lesson-filled storyline is perfect for bedtime routine. But not only are these stories for children, his engaging vocabulary and lyrical form of writing engages the reader (You) to want to share with others around them.
Wilde’s short stories are compilations of narratives criticizing the late 19th century upper class. He was big on politics and the social classes of the era. Even if it’s not obvious in his works, these underlining topics are there. How can these stories relate to your children’s lives today without boring them with slightly archaic vocabulary?
Oscar Wilde’s stories illustrate a pretty picture using colorful language and the art of make believe. What bird worries so much about love? Who gives up their life so readily for it? What other giant has a soft heart? Who else can animate inanimate objects as well as Wilde like in “The Remarkable Rocket” and be able to teach a lesson at the same time?
When reading such modern and contemporary books, it is always nice to take a breath and go back to when stories were not for the sole purpose of educating, but for enlightening and inspiring. In today’s technological culture, lessons can still be learned from a time in which telephones were just being commercialized. It’s nice to grab a book that has been around for over a century and share its immortal knowledge with another human being.